Impression Formation Process Research Articles

Acknowledging One's Physical Disability in the Interview: Does “When” Make a Difference?

The current research investigates acknowledgments that physically disabled individuals make in an interview setting, and examines whether the timing of an acknowledgment makes a difference to the impressions that evaluators form. A total of 137 participants watched an interview of a disabled applicant who (a) made no acknowledgment about the disability; or who acknowledged the disability at the (b) beginning, (c) middle, or (d) end of a job interview. Applicants who did not acknowledge or who acknowledged at the end of the interview were perceived less favorably than were those who disclosed earlier in the interview. Furthermore, participants’ perceptions of the applicant's psychological well‐being mediated the effect of acknowledgment timing on hiring‐related outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of self‐presentational strategies that physically disabled individuals might adopt and the importance of establishing one's psychological well‐being early in the impression‐formation process.

The Composition of Category Conjunctions

In three experiments, the authors investigated the impression formation process resulting from the perception of familiar or unfamiliar social category combinations. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to generate attributes associated with either a familiar or unfamiliar social category conjunction. Compared to familiar combinations, the authors found that when the conjunction was unfamiliar, participants formed their impression less from the individual constituent categories and relatively more from novel emergent attributes. In Experiment 2, the authors replicated this effect using alternative experimental materials. In Experiment 3, the effect generalized to additional (orthogonally combined) gender and occupation categories. The implications of these findings for understanding the processes involved in the conjunction of social categories, and the formation of new stereotypes, are discussed.

しきい下での単純接触が特性判断に与える影響とステレオタイプ的知識の役割

This study investigated the effects of repeated exposures to male and female targets on trait impressions and the role of stereotyped knowledge for the target's social category in impression formation process. The participants were repeatedly exposed to slides of male and female faces for subliminal durations. For each of 12 pairs containing both previously presented slide and newly presented slide, the participants made forced-choice liking judgments (Experiment 1), trait judgments (Experiment 2) and recognition judgments (Experiments 1 and 2). It was found that participants' attitude toward the targets became more positive, even though target recognition was not significantly greater than the chance level. Yet, when the dimension of judgment was stereotypically associated with the target's social category, exposure effects were obtained for the targets whose social category and its dimension were inferentially matched, but not obtained for the targets whose social category and its dimension were not inferentially matched. Some theoretical implications of the role of social category information in the mere exposure phenomenon are discussed.

Implicit bias in impression formation: associations influence the construal of individuating information

AbstractThe present research investigated the influence of group‐related evaluative associations on the process of impression formation. In particular, we expected the impact of a target's category membership on the construal of ambiguous behaviour to be moderated by perceivers' evaluative associations related to the target category. Associative strength was further expected to have an indirect effect on dispositional inference, mediated by its impact on behaviour identification. Results support both of these assumptions. Moreover, the influence of evaluative associations on impression formation was not moderated by perceivers' motivation to control prejudiced reactions. Rather, motivation to control moderated only the relation between evaluative associations and the explicit endorsement of prejudiced beliefs about the target group in general, such that explicit prejudice endorsement was correlated with evaluative associations only for perceivers low, but not for those high in motivation to control. Implications for prejudice control are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

To think or not to think: the moderating role of need for cognition in expectancy-consistent impression formation

Abstract The present study investigated the moderating effects of Need for Cognition (NFC) and cognitive busyness on expectancy-consistent impression formation processes. Two hundred participants were run in a 2 (expectancy: positive or negative)×2 (cognitive busyness condition: distracted or not distracted)×2 (NFC: low or high) design. Perceivers were led to believe that their partners had either a very high or mediocre grade point average. Half of the perceivers were also made cognitively busy by rehearsing an eight-digit number during the interaction. Results yielded the predicted Expectancy×Cognitive Busyness×Need for Cognition interaction. When perceivers were distracted, their impressions of the target corresponded to the expectancy condition for both low and high NFC perceivers. However, when perceivers were not cognitively busy, those low in NFC also formed expectancy-consistent impressions of the target, but perceivers high in NFC did not differ in their final impressions of the low and high expectancy targets. Implications of these results for understanding individual differences and situational moderators of impression formation are discussed.

Evidence for the “guilt by familial association” effect: Evil twins excepted

The effect of a target person’s familial relationship with a convicted criminal on the impressions of the target was examined. Participants rated an individual who had either no relative in prison (control), or a cousin, brother or identical twin brother serving a prison sentence for burglary and armed robbery. The target person had no criminal background. Ratings of the target were lower in the three “relative in prison” conditions, as compared to the control condition. Ratings of the target decreased as kinship with the criminal increased, with the exception of the “identical twin” condition, which was approximately equal to ratings provided by participants in the control condition. The results suggest that participants actively evaluated the extent of the familial relationship between the target person and the criminal relative and used this information in the impression formation process.

Impression Formation in Computer-Mediated Communication Revisited

Following either a text-based, synchronous computer-mediated conversation (CMC) or a face-to-face dyadic interaction, 80 participants rated their partners' personality profile. Impressions were assessed in terms of both their breadth (the comprehensiveness of the impression) and intensity (the magnitude of the attributions). Results indicated that impressions formed in the CMC environment were less detailed but more intense than those formed face-to-face. These data provide support for theories that, in addition to acknowledging the unique constraints and characteristics of CMC, consider the cognitive strategies and heuristics involved in the impression formation process. The differential impact of a text-based medium on trait-specific impressions (e.g., extraversion, neuroticism) is also discussed in the context of a cross-modal approach to impression formation.

The Impact of Interpretation versus Comparison Mindsets on Knowledge Accessibility Effects

Many models of social judgment assert that both the interpretation of a perceived target stimulus and the comparison of this stimulus to a relevant standard are important components of the impression formation process. The present research examines the consequences of the activation of mindsets corresponding to these components for the use and impact of accessible knowledge on subsequent judgments. The findings of three studies support the hypothesis that accessible knowledge is more likely to produce assimilative interpretation effects when an interpretation goal is activated, whereas contrastive comparison effects occur when a comparison goal is activated. These goal × knowledge priming effects occurred without perceivers being aware of having or working toward these mindsets during the target task. Implications for models of knowledge accessibility effects and other social phenomena are discussed.

Motivated Impressions of a Powerholder: Accuracy Under Task Dependency and Misperception Under Evaluation Dependency

Two experiments assessed the impression-formation strategies used by asymmetrically dependent (powerless) people to form impressions of powerholders. The experiments contrast two types of asymmetrical dependency: task dependency (short-term, goal-oriented outcome contingency) and evaluation dependency (expecting evaluations of one’s performance or abilities). Experiment 1 hypothesized and found that asymmetrical task dependency increases accuracy-driven impression-formation processes: Task-dependent people attend to information that disconfirms initial expectancies about a powerholder and, if asymmetrical, do not discount trait information. Experiment 2 found that evaluation dependency increases motivated misperception to view the powerholder positively. Evaluation-dependent people attend to and then discount negative information, which is reflected in their ratings of a powerholder.

The motivated tactician's juggling act: compatible vs. incompatible impression goals.

This study examines how perceivers negotiate multiple, and sometimes incompatible, impression formation goals. Previous research typically presents perceivers with a single impression goal (e.g. accuracy, supporting preferred beliefs), and does not consider how perceivers juggle multiple goals. The processes of perceivers with multiple compatible goals should show uncomplicated impression formation processes, that is, strategic use of particular target attributes (e.g. negative) that suit their purposes. Perceivers with incompatible goals, in contrast, should be less selective, and form more complex impressions that reflect all types of attributes. In this experiment, perceivers with compatible goals paid less attention to target attributes, systematically biased their interpretation of those attributes, and ultimately formed less complex impressions than individuals with incompatible goals. How multiple impression goals are prioritized is discussed.

Variability in Impression Formation: Investigating the Role of Motivation, Capacity, and the Categorization Process

Current theory and research suggests that stereotyping is inversely related to the allocation of attentional resources. For example, motivational factors (e.g., interdependence, accuracy goals) are argued to increase attentional investment and encourage individuation. Within this model, a neglected feature of the impression formation process is the role of the perceivers’ own self-definition. Based on self-categorization theory, it is argued that whether the salient self-other categorization is defined in interpersonal or group terms, respectively, will determine whether impressions will be more individuated or stereotypic. Two experiments are reported where the effect of interdependence (Experiment 1) and accuracy goals (Experiment 2) as well as the salient comparative context (interpersonal, intergroup) on impression formation were investigated. The results suggest that the nature of self-other categorizations does play a significant role in explaining variability in impression formation.

Group impressions as dynamic configurations: The tensor product model of group impression formation and change.

Group impressions are dynamic configurations. The tensor product model (TPM), a connectionist model of memory and learning, is used to describe the process of group impression formation and change, emphasizing the structured and contextualized nature of group impressions and the dynamic evolution of group impressions over time. TPM is first shown to be consistent with algebraic models of social judgment (the weighted averaging model; N. Anderson, 1981) and exemplar-based social category learning (the context model; E. R. Smith & M. A. Zárate, 1992), providing a theoretical reduction of the algebraic models to the present connectionist framework. TPM is then shown to describe a common process that underlies both formation and change of group impressions despite the often-made assumption that they constitute different psychological processes. In particular, various time-dependent properties of both group impression formation (e.g., time variability, response dependency, and order effects in impression judgments) and change (e.g., stereotype change and group accentuation) are explained, demonstrating a hidden unity beneath the diverse array of empirical findings. Implications of the model for conceptualizing stereotype formation and change are discussed.

Why do superiors attend to negative stereotypic information about their subordinates? Effects of power legitimacy on social perception

Power can be defined as control over people's outcomes. using this definition, we explored the impact of power on attentional processes involved in impression formation. Because powerful individuals may want to maintain and justify their position, powerful participants should pay particular attention to negative stereotype-consistent information about their subordinates. In contrast, powerless participants should devote their attention to stereotype-inconsistent information in an attempt to increase their control over the social context. Study 1 directly manipulated control by assigning participants to the role of leader or subordinate ina task group. Results showed that, compared to subordinates, leaders devoted more attention to negative stereotypic attributes. Study 2 manipulated the legitimacy of power and replicated the pattern found in Study 1 but only when power was illegitimate. Our findings suggest that the experience of power can be associated with feelings of threat, especially when power is illegitimate, thereby orienting impression-formation processes toward information likely to maintain the existing social structure. We discuss our results in the context of current work on motivated social cognition, social identity, and legitimisation. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

The Cognitive and Interpersonal Costs of Video

As advances in communication technology proliferate, organizations are rapidly incorporating new communication media into their environment. Unfortunately, not much is known about the effect of communication technologies on the processing of interpersonal information. Interactive communication media that place more cognitive demands on interactants may impoverish the process of impression formation. Today's video, because of the additional information conveyed and problems with signal quality, may reduce systematic processing of information and interfere with the impression-formation process. Three studies explore the relationship between communication media, cognitive load, and impression formation. Study 1 establishes that interacting over an audio-video system requires more cognitive load than does interacting over audio only. Study 2 replicates work by Ford and Kruglanski (1995) that finds that people's impressions are more biased toward a primed trait under high cognitive load. Study 3 assesses the impact of audio-only and audio-video media on impression formation. As expected, participants in Study 3 formed impressions more biased toward a primed trait when interacting over audio-video as compared to audio only. Implications for the design and use of communication media in organizations are discussed.

Perceiving the Powerful: Intriguing Individuals versus Threatening Groups

An experiment investigated the effect of short-term asymmetrical outcome dependency (one form of power) on person perception in interpersonal and intergroup situations. Power was manipulated as the amount of control targets had over perceivers' outcomes. In the interpersonal condition, targets were from various out-group categories, so they formed a loose aggregate. In the intergroup condition, targets all were from the same out-group category, forming a homogeneous out-group. The hypothesis, contrasting the impact of power in interpersonal and intergroup relations, was confirmed. Results show that, in the interpersonal condition only, targets' power (perceiver outcome dependency) led to individuating impression-formation processes (attention and dispositional inferences), consistent with the continuum model of impression formation. By contrast, in the intergroup condition, targets' power did not lead to individuating impression-formation processes, but generated in-group identification and favoritism, as well as negative affect, an apparent in-group cohesion effect under threat. Results are discussed with regard to the continuum model of impression formation, issues of control deprivation, and social identity theory.

On the Dominance of Moral Categories in Impression Formation

Based on the notion that approach-avoidance underlies impression formation processes and that approach-avoidance is more directly based on appraisals of others' morality (M) than competence (C), we hypothesized that M-related information played a more important role at various phases of global impression formation than C-related information on target persons. In four studies (N = 342 university students), we predicted and found that (a) M traits showed a higher chronic accessibility than C traits; (b) when gathering information to formulate a global impression, perceivers were more interested in M traits than C traits; (c) global impressions of real persons were better predicted from M trait ascriptions than C trait ascriptions, and (d) positivity-negativity of impressions of fictitious persons was decided mainly by the M content of their behavior, whereas C information served as a weak modifier of impression intensity. The dominance of M traits over C traits was more pronounced for female perceivers than for male perceivers.

Corporate Image as an Impression Formation Process: Prioritizing Personal, Organizational, and Environmental Audience Factors

In contrast to established, long-held conclusions that corporate image is determined mostly by the organization, recent findings suggest that image is also determined by both environmental and personal factors of the audience member. Studies suggest, further, that these factors combine in novel ways as a part of an impression-formation process and produce an overall perceptually-based audience image. This study's purpose was to further explore the factors that make up an audience's perception of corporate image and any underlying structure of these individual factors. Further, the combined factors were tested for their relative influence in an overall positive or negative image(s) of the organization. A total sample of 427 respondents were contacted by telephone and responded to a questionnaire that required them to rate the relative influence of 11 sources of information found to be most important in influencing the public's corporate image of State Farm Insurance. These sources of influence were identified in a previous ethnographic study (Moffitt, 1994). In this study, the influence sources were submitted to an exploratory factor analysis to understand the underlying structure of the individual sources. The factor analysis resulted in three factors: Organization-Controlled, Personal, and Business. These factors explained over 60% of the variance. After establishing the underlying structure, an overall dependent corporate image measure was included in a hierarchical forced entry regression analysis using a three-step structure for the independent variables. On Step 1, the respondents' occupation and region of residence were entered as a partial representation of a preceding environmental factor. Second, a measure of personal impact, the respondent's judgment of the amount of impact the respondent had felt personally, was entered as an intervening second-stage personal factor. Third, the three factors representing the sources of influence were entered simultaneously. The final regression model accounted for nearly 60% of the variance in the dependent variable. All of the independent variables were significant predictors of overall corporate image. Implications for the theoretical understanding of organizational image are discussed.

The Effects of Food and Gender on Interpersonal Perceptions

Male and female subjects provided ratings of personal traits, femininity and masculinity, and total caloric consumption for a female or a male target based on the type of diet she or he had allegedly consumed. The gender associated with the foods presented for each dietary profile was manipulated. Results showed that Target Gender and Dietary Profile significantly affected impression ratings and calorie estimates. Both male and female subjects perceived male eaters and those who ate a feminine diet more favorably. Results are discussed in terms of the different underlying expectations held for males and females when food consumption is involved during the impression formation process.

On “knowing your partner”: Dangerous illusions in the age of AIDS?

AbstractWe identified two characteristics of the impression formation process that may cause people to underestimate the riskiness of potential sexual partners. In Study 1, participants were quite confident that they could determine whether someone was lying to them about risk‐related behavior when, in reality, they could not. Particularly troubling was a “truth bias” that resulted in relatively high rates of truth detection, but poor lie detection. In Study 2, increased familiarity with a target person (who actually was HIV+) caused participants to lower their estimates of the target's riskiness, despite the fact that we explicitly warned them that the target might be HIV+. We suggest that such processes may foster the illusion of knowing one's partner when one does not.

The ingroup overexclusion effect: Identity concerns in decisions about group membership

AbstractThere are circumstances in which one is reluctant to express a judgment on the basis of the available information. This is for instance the case when the decision may jeopardize the integrity of the group one is a member of. In particular, ingroup members are considered less judgeable than outgroup members. This phenomenon corresponds to the ingroup overexclusion effect (Leyens and Yzerbyt, 1992). An experimental situation was designed in order to rule out an explanation of this phenomenon in terms of confirmation of hypothesis. French‐ or Dutch‐speaking subjects heard recordings of 40 sentences and, depending on the specific wording of the question, decided whether the speakers belonged to the group of French‐speaking (i.e. Walloon) versus Dutch‐speaking (i.e. Flemish) Belgians or not. The 40 sentences enabled to cross three factors with five sentences in each cell: Walloon versus Flemish speakers, French versus Dutch sentences, and short versus long sentences. As predicted, subjects made most errors when ingroup members read short outgroup sentences. Most importantly, the specific wording of the question did not lead to a reversal of the pattern of errors of group identification. Subjects also took longer to make a decision about an ingroup member reading an outgroup sentence than about an outgroup member reading an ingroup sentence. Such a pattern clearly supports a motivational explanation and undermines a confirmation of hypothesis explanation of the ingroup overexclusion effect. Older accounts of ethnic identification phenomena are addressed and it is suggested that identity concerns greatly affect impression formation processes.