Impressions Of Others Research Articles

Adrianus van Selms (1906–1984): What Does Abide? Aspects of his Life and Literary Contribution

Three decades have passed since the death of Adrianus Van Selms (22/1/1906–30/4/1984). He had become a legend in his own lifetime, and was even posthumously honoured at the centenary celebrations of the University of Pretoria as one of its hundred greatest academic achievers. But who was he? And what was his contribution in essence to the fields of Old Testament and Semitic languages? In this paper, an edited version of the SASNES Van Selms Memorial Lecture (September 2014), recollections of personal acquaintance with Van Selms, and impressions of others, are combined with a reflection based on archival material, a selection of his books, biblical commentaries and vast number of articles. Attention is given to his life (including controversies in which he was involved), his literary contribution, and particularly his analytical, comparative, and creative approach to the study of texts. Quite informative is a remark made by Van Selms (1967:50) in his book about northern Israel: “In my scientific work I have always been alert to the power of my own imagination, but without the power of imagination no significant scientific work can be done.”

A meta‐analysis of interview length on reliability and validity

First impressions are frequently seen as a biasing factor that may prevent an interviewer from forming a comprehensive assessment of the applicant. However, research has found that people can make surprisingly accurate impressions of others based on minimal information. Additional exposure to the applicant would be expected to lead to a more accurate impression, but a previous meta‐analysis on the employment interview found evidence for a negative relationship between the length of the interview and validity. Using a much larger sample of studies, the current meta‐analysis examined whether length of the interview was related to the validity of the interview. In addition, I examined the relation between interview length and reliability. Results revealed that the subset of studies reporting length of interviews yielded reliability and validity estimates consistent with more comprehensive meta‐analyses. Consistent with previous research on consensus judgements of personality, length of the interview was found to be unrelated to reliability. However, contrary to the previous meta‐analysis, validity was also unrelated to the length of the interview.Practitioner points Little attention has been given to how the length of time spent interviewing job candidates relates to the reliability and validity of interviews Length of the interview was not related to reliability or validity of interviews Results suggest that organizations can implement shorter interviews to save time and money compared to longer interviews, without sacrificing reliability and predictive validity

From incidental harms to moral elevation: The positive effect of experiencing unintentional, uncontrollable, and unavoidable harms on perceived moral character

We contend that unintentional, uncontrollable, and unavoidable (i.e., incidental) hardships boost perceptions of volunteers' moral character because observers have a reflexive positive response to people who endure personal costs while serving others. Five experiments support this prediction. Participants judged a volunteer who suffered an incidental hardship (got stung by a bee, hit by a falling shingle, or unknowingly missed a fun opportunity while volunteering) to have greater moral character than a volunteer who did not experience these incidental hardships (Studies 1–4a). Observers' feelings of empathy emerged as a driver of this positive effect of incidental hardship on volunteers' perceived moral character (Studies 3 and 4a), and the prosociality of the target's activity (volunteering vs. not volunteering) moderated the effect (Study 2). A comparison of judgments in separate and joint evaluation contexts suggested that the effect is not due to a normative belief that volunteers should be praised for enduring incidental hardships (Studies 4a–4b). We address alternative explanations for the findings such as differences in the foreseeability of the hardship, task difficulty, and volunteers' perseverance. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of moral judgment and the processes by which people form impressions of others' positive moral character.

Physical Appearance, Attractiveness and Relationships: Is the Display Versus Avoidance of the Color Red a Strategic Mating Signal?

The present article focuses on the role of situational factors - such as the color red - and their influence on what humans notice in others. Humans form impressions of others instantly. These impressions are predominantly based on physical appearance, which is part due to a person’s search for indicators of a potential partner’s fitness. Attractive individuals are associated with all sorts of positive qualities, whereas their less attractive counterparts are less favorably depicted. This perception process of physical attractiveness is associated with health in male and female faces, and from an evolutionary point of view, serves the survival and the reproductive success of the perceiver. The meaning of the color red for approach and avoidance behavior is demonstrated in a recent study, which shows that women’s use (or avoidance) of red clothing, accessories, and make-up may serve as a subtle and strategic indicator of (missing) sexual interest.

How Orthogonal Are the Big Two of Social Perception? On the Curvilinear Relation Between Agency and Communion

Humans make sense of their social environment by forming impressions of others that allow predicting others’ actions. In this process of social perception, two types of information carry pivotal importance: other entities’ communion (i.e., warmth and trustworthiness) and agency (i.e., status and power). Although commonly thought of as orthogonal dimensions, we propose that these Big Two of social perception are curvilinearly related. Specifically, as we delineate from four different theoretical explanations, impressions of communion should peak at average agency, while entities too high or too low on agency should be perceived as low on communion. We show this pattern for social groups across one novel and five previously published data sets, including a meta-analysis of the most comprehensive data collection in the group perception literature, consisting of 36 samples from more than 20 countries. Addressing the generalizability of this curvilinear relation, we then report recent and unpublished experiments establishing the effect for the perception of individuals and animals. On the basis of the proposed curvilinear relation, we revisit the primacy of processing communion (rather than agency) information. Finally, we discuss the possibility of a more general curvilinear relation between communion and dimensions other than agency.

On the formation of context-based person impressions

The current research examined how people form context-based trait impressions and why some of these impressions are stronger than others. This research drew from principles of attention theory (Kruschke, 1996, 2001) in order to account for the processes underlying impression formation in context. According to attention theory, the traits expressed by an individual target person in a rarely occurring context should be more strongly associated with that context than the traits expressed in a commonly occurring context are associated with the common context. That is, people form stronger impressions of others' behavior in rare compared to common contexts. Four experiments provide support for these predictions. The current study is one of the first to examine the cognitive mechanisms by which perceivers form trait impressions of individuals across different contexts and to explain why some of these impressions are stronger than others. Implications of the nature of these impression formation processes are discussed.

Social presence and impression management

This theoretical paper focuses on the concept of impression management to explain how networked learners’ presentations of self as part of the establishment, cultivation and use of productive social learning networks. The arguments in this paper connect social presence, which has long been considered an important element of online learning, with social capital, which has been used more recently to describe the way learners use social networks to support their learning. These arguments are situated at the intersection of social connectivity, goal-directed learning activity and learner experience. The broad area of interest is how learners’ goals and intentions affect their activity and behaviour in networked learning environments. More specifically, we are concerned with how learners’ goals related to study and learning affect their intentional activity toward forming and using the social connections that constitute learning networks. In this context, impression management is used to describe and explain how learners intentionally construct presentations of self as part of cultivating their social presence in networked learning and how that presentation of self leads to the establishment and development of connections (or ties) with others and the development of a network of productive connections which support learning. We argue that the constructions of self are not arbitrary; rather, they are seen as intentional efforts by learners to present themselves in ways which are not only socially acceptable, but maximise the extent to which they are views as attractive partners for social learning activity. Learners read the social environment and act intentionally in response to the social context to present themselves in ways that further their goals of productive networked learning activity. By expressing themselves in particular ways and forming impressions of others, individuals are able to establish, cultivate and use social connections and then build social networks constituted of those connections. Those social networks provide learners with the connections they need to generate social capital, that is, to find and use the value (or resources) through connections or relationships that constitute a network. The paper concludes with a the identification of several questions for educators to consider as part of informing their practice of networked learning and supporting goal-directed, technology-mediated social processes and the cultivation of productive learning networks.

What can the study of first impressions tell us about attitudinal ambivalence and paranoia in schizophrenia?

Although social cognition deficits have been associated with schizophrenia, social trait judgments – or first impressions – have rarely been studied. These first impressions, formed immediately after looking at a person's face, have significant social consequences. Eighty-one individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 62 control subjects rated 30 neutral faces on 10 positive or negative traits: attractive, mean, trustworthy, intelligent, dominant, fun, sociable, aggressive, emotionally stable and weird. Compared to controls, patients gave higher ratings for positive traits as well as for negative traits. Patients also demonstrated more ambivalence in their ratings. Patients who were exhibiting paranoid symptoms assigned higher intensity ratings for positive social traits than non-paranoid patients. Social trait ratings were negatively correlated with everyday problem solving skills in patients. Although patients appeared to form impressions of others in a manner similar to controls, they tended to assign higher scores for both positive and negative traits. This may help explain the social deficits observed in schizophrenia: first impressions of higher degree are harder to correct, and ambivalent attitudes may impair the motivation to interact with others. Consistent with research on paranoia and self-esteem, actively-paranoid patients' positive social traits judgments were of higher intensity than non-paranoid patients'.

The Concept of Peritraumatic Dissociation: A Qualitative Approach.

Peritraumatic dissociation has been considered an important feature for the development of post-traumatic stress disorders, but this concept remains widely unclear. To explore the peritraumatic experience, we interviewed eight victims of urban violence shortly after their traumatic events. The data collected were compared and analyzed according to the systematic set of procedures of Grounded Theory (GT). The alterations reported by participants were coded and categorized according to their perceptions of their inner and outer world, and the impressions of others involved, including the examiner's observations. The theoretical perspective for interpreting this study has parallels with Jaspers' psychopathology. Peritraumatic dissociation was conceived as a failure of synthesis among emerging stimuli from the internal and the external world, including the time-space flow structure, even when cognitive-perceptual tools remain intact. This synthesis qualifies the totality of the perceptual experience as coherent and meaningful to conscience, enabling possibilities for being/existing.

The effects of static avatars on impression formation across different contexts on social networking sites

When making judgments about others, people use whatever social information is available in online environments. Such is the case for forming impressions of others. One type of such social information is a user’s avatar. This study examines different types of avatars (photographs, cartoon humans, and nonhumans) created for task, social or dating/romantic situations to study the effect of avatar type on judgments of uncertainty and task-specific attractiveness. Data suggest various patterns of uncertainty and attractiveness in these situations. Both the graphic from of an avatar and the context of impression formation have effects on subsequent impression formation. Judgments of uncertainty and attraction were affected by both the graphic from of avatar and by the consistency between the context of impression formation and the attractiveness cues of the avatar. These findings are discussed as are implications for future research.

Confidence of social judgments is not just error: Individual differences in the structure, stability, and social functions of perceptual confidence

The present research uses a Social Relations Model approach to focus on individual differences in perceptual confidence – a person’s confidence in her or his impressions of others. Across two samples of group interactions, we found that the majority of variance in perceptual confidence was explained by individual differences in how people tended to perceive others (i.e., perceiver effects). A smaller percentage of variance was explained by differences in how people tended to be perceived by others (i.e., target effects). Both these individual differences were stable over time, were related to relevant personality measures, and group outcomes. Together, these results demonstrate that although perceptual confidence may not be substantially related to accuracy, it exists as a stable individual difference dimension that has important consequences for social interactions.

Individuals’ perception of others’ self-esteem, psychological well-being and attractiveness: Role of body size and peers’ comments among Japanese and Americans

From a cross-cultural perspective, this study investigates how individuals form impressions of others’ self-esteem, psychological well-being, and physical attractiveness as a function of others’ body size as well as messages these others receive from their peers. Mock-up Facebook profile pages in which the body size of the profile owner (thin vs. overweight) and peer-generated messages (accepting vs. thin-encouraging) were manipulated in the study. After viewing a Facebook profile page online, American and Japanese females completed a questionnaire. Japanese, but not Americans, (a) believed a profile owner who received thin-promoting messages to have higher psychological well-being than a profile owner who received accepting messages, (b) assumed an overweight profile owner to have lower self-esteem than a thin profile owner, and (c) perceived a thin profile owner as more physically attractive than an overweight profile owner.

Perceptions on the Psychological Impact of Facial Erythema Associated with Rosacea: Results of International Survey.

IntroductionRosacea (including facial erythema) has a negative impact on psychological and emotional health. This survey aimed to assess the impact of facial erythema on subconscious perceptions and the initial reactions of others and how this affects attitudes in different settings. The survey also measured the impact of facial erythema on a person’s emotional and psychological wellbeing.MethodsA total of 6831 participants from eight countries completed online computer-assisted web interviewing psychological assessments based on the implicit association test. Traditional questionnaires provided data on the impact of facial erythema and perceptions of people with rosacea from other participants.ResultsFacial erythema was strongly associated with poor health and negative personality traits with participants reporting negative impacts of rosacea emotionally, socially and in the workplace. Nearly 80% reported difficulty in controlling facial erythema but those with physician-diagnosed rosacea had significantly improved control versus those with undiagnosed rosacea (39% vs 20%, p < 0.05).ConclusionsPeople with facial erythema have to manage their own psychological barriers to cope with the disease and deal with the prejudice and negative first impressions of others. Formal diagnosis, advice and treatment from a healthcare professional improve rosacea control.FundingGalderma.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13555-015-0077-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

(In)Competence Is Everywhere: Self-Doubt and the Accessibility of Competence

This research investigated the hypothesis that intellectual competence is chronically accessible to individuals who question their own intellectual competence, despite their own uncertainty on this dimension, and that they rely on intellectual competence in forming impressions of and thinking about others. In two studies, we show that doubtful individuals are more likely to use traits related to intellectual competence to describe others and these traits more strongly affect their overall impressions of others. These findings support recent approaches to accessibility by showing that a self-relevant trait may be chronically accessible to an individual even in the face of uncertainty regarding one's standing on the trait. The findings also contribute to the understanding of the phenomenology of self-doubt.

Impressions in action: the socially situated construction of expertise in the workplace

Purpose– The impressions of others’ expertise are fundamental to workplace dynamics. Identifying expertise is essential for workplace functions such as task assignment, task completion, and knowledge generation. Although prior work has examined both the nature of expertise and its importance for work, formation of expertise impressions in the workplace has not received much attention. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– In this paper the author addresses the question – how do we form expertise impressions in the workplace – using data from an ethnographic study of a workplace setting. The author employs a case study of project team formation to synthesize a process framework of impression formation.Findings– The author proposes a framework that integrates sociocultural and interactional accounts to argue that actors utilize situational and institutional frames to socially construct their expertise impressions of others. These frames emerge as actors engage in activities within a community of practice.Originality/value– This practice-based explication of expertise construction moves beyond narrow conceptions of personality-based traits or credentials as signals of expertise. It explains why sharing of expertise within organizations through the use of information technology continues to be problematic – expertise is an enactment and therefore it defies reification through knowledge management.

Similarity to the self affects memory for impressions of others.

Similarity to the self affects memory for impressions of others.

Moral Character in Person Perception

Understanding how people form impressions of others is a key goal of social cognition research. Past theories have posited that two fundamental dimensions—warmth and competence—underlie impression formation. However, these models conflate morality with warmth and fail to capture the full role that moral character plays in impression formation. An emerging perspective separates moral character (or morality) from warmth on both theoretical and empirical grounds. When morality is pitted against warmth, morality is clearly a more important driver of impression formation, as revealed by correlational, experimental, and archival studies. Yet social warmth remains important and conveys distinct information that morality does not. Alongside competence, both factors matter not only for person perception but also for other aspects of social cognition, including group perception. Important unanswered questions remain regarding the perceived structure of moral character and the way it is appraised in everyday life.

Similarity to the self affects memory for impressions of others

The present studies investigated whether similarity to the self influenced memory for impressions of others. We predicted that similarity to the self would facilitate impression memory for others, paralleling the self-reference effect found when information is processed relative to the self. We were interested in how the initial valence of the impression, whether positive or negative, affected impression memory. Across two experiments, participants formed impressions while viewing faces paired with traits and behaviors. After recognition, participants rated the self-descriptiveness of the studied traits allowing impression memory to be sorted into high-, medium-, and low-self-similarity. For positive impressions, similar others were remembered better than dissimilar others. For negative impressions, similar others were remembered more poorly than dissimilar others. These results illustrate that similarity to the self has multifaceted effects on person memory, leading to memory enhancement in the case of people given positive impressions, but reducing memory for people associated with negative impressions.

Supplemental Material for Similarity to the self affects memory for impressions of others

Supplemental Material for Similarity to the self affects memory for impressions of others

Forming first impressions of others in schizophrenia: Impairments in fast processing and in use of spatial frequency information

Individuals form first impressions of others all the time, which affects their social functioning. Typical adults form threat impressions in faces with neutral expressions quickly, requiring less than 40ms. These impressions appear to be mediated by low spatial frequency (LSF) content in the images. Little is known, however, about mechanisms of first impression formation in schizophrenia. The current study investigated how quickly individuals with schizophrenia can form consistent impressions of threat compared with controls and explored the mechanisms involved. Patients and controls were presented intact, LSF- or high spatial frequency (HSF)-filtered faces with durations that varied from 39 to 1703ms and were asked to rate how threatening each face was on a scale from 1 to 5. In order to assess the speed of impression formation for intact faces, correlations were calculated for ratings made at each duration compared to a reference duration of 1703ms for each group. Controls demonstrated a significant relation for intact faces presented for 39ms, whereas patients required 390ms to demonstrate a significant relation with the reference duration. For controls, LSFs primarily contributed to the formation of consistent threat impressions at 39ms, whereas patients showed a trend for utilizing both LSF and HSF information to form consistent threat impressions at 390ms. Results indicate that individuals with schizophrenia require a greater integration time to form a stable “first impression” of threat, which may be related to the need to utilize compensatory mechanisms such as HSF, as well as LSF, information.