Impression Formation Process Research Articles

Valuing Women in Management

As organizations become increasingly sensitive to cultural diversity, gender issues are likely to exert a more powerful influence on their policies, operations, and social processes. Using a self-presentational perspective, this article applies a model of impression management to explore the processes whereby women in organizations present themselves to others and the impressions they create. Particular attention is devoted to how these impressions influence women's experiences in organizations. The article concludes by suggesting future research directions for clarifying the impact of gender on impression management and formation processes within organizational settings.

How Similar Are Impression-Formation Processes Among Japanese and Americans?

We offer the first rigorous cross-cultural test of affect control theory using Japanese subjects in Japan. Tests of the impression-formation equations and theory underlying affect control theory involve two stages. First, a Japanese semantic differential dictionary of 403 fundamental identities and 307 fundamental behaviors provides evidence for culturally ideographic connotations. Second, a quasi-factorial design produces a Japanese set of impression-formation equations for predicting transient changes in identities and behaviors. The Japanese equations use a consistent subset of the American predictors with comparable weights, which suggests evidence for the cross-cultural similarity in cognitive processing of impression formation

Contextual contrast in evaluative judgments: A test of pre- versus postintegration models of contrast.

Two experiments examined at what stage contrast effects occur within the impression-formation process. University students rated the likability of persons described by 5 trait adjectives, with the distribution of trait adjectives manipulated between Ss. Theoretically, contextual stimuli may affect the valuation of component traits before integration, a preintegration model, or they may affect the valuation of the composite impression after the components have been integrated, a postintegration model. Context was manipulated so that the preintegration model predicted an interaction between context and target, but the postintegration model did not. The predicted interaction was replicated several times, supporting preintegration processing of contextual information. However, when subjects were divided into fast and slow judges (on the basis of judgment latencies), the pattern of results supported preintegration contrast for fast judges and postintegration contrast for slow judges. These results support the conclusion that contrast effects may operate at different levels in impression

Multisensory Integration of Visual, Tactile, and Olfactory Aesthetic Cues of Appearance

Integration of olfactory, visual, and tactile aesthetic cues of appearance in the impression formation process was examined. Eighty-nine female college students, each responding to three fragrances, rated 30 fabric swatches on 7-point Likert-type scales as to the fabrics' likeliness to be worn by someone who prefers to wear a particular fragrance. Rank orders of fabrics for the two fragrances with similar olfactory structures were associated (p <. 05) whereas rank orders of fabrics for two pairs of fragrances with dissimilar structures were not associated (p > .05) according to Spearman correlations, suggesting multisensory integration of appearance cues. A priori visual and tactile aesthetic qualities of fabrics ranked high or low for each fragrance were examined for similarities. Similarities of visual and tactile qualities were found within each group of fabrics for each fragrance, suggesting multisensory integration of appearance cues on an aesthetic level.

A Demonstration of the Impression Formation Process

A Demonstration of the Impression Formation Process

IMPRESSION FORMATION AND CONSTRUCT SYSTEM ORGANIZATION

Research into the changes in construing associated with impression formation has focussed on the content of the cognitive dimensions used. Such an approach has ignored the structural organization of such cognitive dimensions. This study used the repertory grid to explore the structural correlates o/the impression formation process. Forty nine first year university students completed repertory grids based upon well known and newly met acquaintances. Consistent with theoretical expectation, newly met acquaintances were construed with more construct independence, less construct integration, and less meaningfulness than persons who had been known for a longer period of time. Upon retesting 10 weeks later, newly met acquaintances were seen in a more meaningful and integrated manner. Additionally, it was found that subjects had difficulties in applying constructs elicited around well known persons to newly met acquaintances. The implications of these findings for the study of impression formation and repertory grid methodology are discussed.

Gender and racial stereotypes in impression formation and social decision-making processes

Subjects who differed on relevant measures of prejudice examined photographs and trait descriptions of job candidates. Gender or racial stereotypes were cued by the photographs of the applicants, and to assess the impact of individuating information on stereotype use, the trait description concerning the applicants were manipulated so that they were either primarily stereotype-consistent, stereotype-inconsistent, or neutral. After forming an impression of each applicant, subjects completed a number of evaluative trait ratings, a liking measure, and two process-oriented measures — an information search task and a recall measure. The counter-stereotypic hiring recommendations were not mediated by the impression formed of the candidate, suggesting self-presentational concerns influenced these judgments; hiring choices were based solely on the photograph in the gender case, and on both the photograph and traits in the race case. On the evaluative trait ratings, subjects appeared relatively uninfluenced by the stereotype, although the more subtle process-oriented measures showed effects that are consistent with stereotype-guided processing. Based on the results, a model of the role of stereotypes in social decision-making is presented.

Effects of fortuitously activated constructs versus activated communication goals on person impressions.

The relative impact of construct accessibility effects (i.e., the influence of accessible and applicable constructs) and communication goal effects (i.e., the influence of constructs activated through communication goals) on both the interpretation and transmission of ambiguous target information and Ss' private target impressions is examined. Whether communication goal effects can lead to recoding of target information is also examined. Ss were primed with either positive or negative trait constructs, were presented with ambiguous target information, and were instructed to communicate their description and impressions of the target to a recipient holding either positive, negative, or neutral attitudes toward the target. Construct accessibility effects were present in the case of the neutral recipient but were overridden by communication goal effects in the case of either the positive or negative recipient. Furthermore, communication goals introduced at retrieval led to recoding of target information. Research on the psychological processes underlying the formation of person impressions has tacitly accepted the assumption that impression formation is governed by intraindividual factors. The process of impression formation is thought to involve perceivers' attending to target behaviors and encoding the behaviors in line with relevant accessible constructs, at least when the behaviors are ambiguous. Thus, the impression of the target is decisively shaped by the constructs that happen to be accessible at encoding. (For alternative views, see Anderson, 1974; Brewer, 1988; and Jones & Davis, 1965.) However, the impression formation process can also be influenced by interindividual factors. For instance, when impressions are formed with a communicative intent, they may be molded by the demands of the communication process per se {e.g., characteristics of the recipient to whom target impressions are to be communicated), instead of or in addition to being shaped by relevant, accessible constructs. This article is concerned with the joint influence of intraindividual and inter individual factors on the formation of person impressions.

The effects of nonverbal communication and gender on impression formation in opening statements

This article examines the influence of nonverbal cues and attorney gender on juror impression formation. Two major conclusions are drawn from this study: (1) Attorney gender may not influence the impression formation process in the courtroom, and (2) Delivery styles produce expectations for the appropriateness of disfluencies in speech. The broader implications for impression formation in the legal process are outlined. It is argued an interactionist perspective provides a useful heuristic framework to address the complexity of impression formation in legal settings.

Impressions from events*

A large study of event stimuli developed new equations for describing how people react to events. Exploratory work found several new interaction terms affecting the impression formation process. To demonstrate the generality of the impression formation process across subject populations and study procedures, the results from the current study were compared to four others: two earlier studies on U.S. college undergraduates, a study of Belfast, Northern Ireland, high school students, and an Arabic study of well‐educated Egyptians and Lebanese. Striking similarities in evaluation dynamics appeared in all studies. All English‐speakers had similar potency and activity dynamics, while the Arabic study showed subtantial differences in the processing of these dimensions.

A Classroom Exercise in Impression Formation

This classroom exercise provides students with an opportunity to examine aspects of their own impression-formation processes. The data generated can be used to stimulate discussion about the origins of implicit personality theories, person prototypes, and the accuracy of first impressions.

Category-based and attribute-based reactions to others: Some informational conditions of stereotyping and individuating processes

This paper suggests that people can form impressions in a variety of ways that range from primarily category-based processes to primarily attribute-based processes, and that the process partially depends on the configuration of available information. Easily categorized configurations are hypothesized to elicit relatively category-based processes, while not easily categorized configurations are hypothesized to elicit relatively attribute-based processes. In Experiment 1, subjects first rated the likability of job-category labels and relevant trait attributes, in isolation from each other. At a later session, stimulus people were depicted by category labels (occupations) and relevant attributes (traits) in varying combinations. Typicality ratings confirmed the manipulated ease of categorizing the various information combinations. Correlations between subjects' evaluations of each stimulus person and their independent prior ratings of the components supported the idea of a continuum anchored respectively by relatively category-based and by relatively attribute-based impression formation processes. In the second study, think-aloud data further supported the current hypotheses: subjects spontaneously examined the fit between category and attributes, and they used the attributes more in the attribute-based conditions than in the category-based conditions. The protocol data also reveal some processes intermediate on the continuum between primarily category-based and primarily attribute-based processes; these include subcategorizing, generating new categories, and self-reference. Social perceivers apparently use flexible impression formation processes, depending on the configuration of available information.

Motivational influences on impression formation: outcome dependency, accuracy-driven attention, and individuating processes.

How might being outcome dependent on another person influence the processes that one uses to form impressions of that person? We designed three experiments to investigate this question with respect to short-term, task-oriented outcome dependency. In all three experiments, subjects expected to interact with a young man formerly hospitalized as a schizophrenic, and they received information about the person's attributes in either written profiles or videotapes. In Experiment 1, short-term, task-oriented outcome dependency led subjects to use relatively individuating processes (i.e., to base their impressions of the patient on his particular attributes), even under conditions that typically lead subjects to use relatively category-based processes (i.e., to base their impressions on the patient's schizophrenic label). Moreover, in the conditions that elicited individuating processes, subjects spent more time attending to the patient's particular attribute information. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the attention effects in Experiment 1 were not merely a function of impression positivity and that outcome dependency did not influence the impression formation process when attribute information in addition to category-level information was unavailable. Finally, Experiment 3 manipulated not outcome dependency but the attentional goal of forming an accurate impression. We found that accuracy-driven attention to attribute information also led to individuating processes. The results of the three experiments indicate that there are important influences of outcome dependency on impression formation. These results are consistent with a model in which the tendency for short-term, task-oriented outcome dependency to facilitate individuating impression formation processes is mediated by an increase in accuracy-driven attention to attribute information.

Vocally cued personality prototypes: An implicit personality theory approach

Competence and benevolence are two personality prototypes that have emerged in research on voice and personality. While traits comprising these prototypes have been described, there is incomplete information about the interaction effects of speech rate, pitch variation, and loudness during impression formation processes. Five hypotheses and three research questions were advanced to examine main and interaction effects of the three vocal variables on the two personality prototypes. The main effects hypotheses were significant for both prototypes. Rate and pitch variation were the most influential for competence and benevolence, respectively. For competence, one interaction effect (rate by pitch variation) was significant. For benevolence, two interaction effects were significant (pitch variation by loudness, and pitch variation by rate). The results are discussed in the theoretical framework provided by implicit personality theory and the structures of the two personality prototypes.

Affective responses as guides to category-based inferences

Initial nonconscious affective reactions to a target individual may influence a perceiver's selection from among descriptively plausible categories with which to organize his impression of the target. Specifically, a perceiver may be more likely to employ a category that is consistent, in affective tone, with the tone of his affective reaction. Subjects in two studies were exposed to photographs of faces of target individuals. Degree of preference for the faces was manipulated, outside of subjects' awareness, by varying the state of pupillary dilation. Participants in Study One reported that verbal descriptions that characterized positively (compared to negatively) evaluated category prototypes were more likely to be descriptive of targets with dilated pupils. Similarly, participants judged descriptions that characterized negatively (compared to positively) evaluated prototypes as more likely to be descriptive of targets with constricted pupils. In Study Two, subjects' recall of personality descriptions that were (evaluatively) inconsistent with their initial affective response to the target was superior to their recall of descriptions that were (evaluatively) consistent with the tone of their initial response. The data are interpreted as evidence for the importance of nonconscious affective reactions in guiding the process of impression formation.

An experimental test of defensive processes in impression formation.

An experimental test of defensive processes in impression formation.

An experimental test of defensive processes in impression formation.

An experimental test of defensive processes in impression formation.

Impressions of Goodness, Powerfulness, and Liveliness from Discerned Social Events

This study focuses on how events change impressions of goodness, powerfulness, and liveliness. Empirical equations for predicting such changes are derived by analyzing data on 70 event descriptions. Some findings of earlier studies are replicated. Additionally, a structural model is presented showing how the goodness, powerfulness, and liveliness of participants and of behaviors interrelate during the process of impression formation. The new equations are applied analytically to a discussion of how people's identities and behaviors influence assessments of interaction outcomes.

Cognitive representation of personality impressions: Organizational processes in first impression formation.

Cognitive representation of personality impressions: Organizational processes in first impression formation.

Verbal memory processes in impression formation.

Verbal memory processes in impression formation.