Checklist (Trait-Pair Choice Measure) as Used in, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, The bigger one of the “Big Two”? Chi-Square values for all dependent variables, Experiments I-III, Table 2 was taken from the results of Experiments 1-3 published by Asch (1946) and used by me to test their statistical signficance, Cognition and Perception, Developmental Psychology, Education, General Psychology, Government and Policy, Health Psychology and ..., Social Psychology, emotion, film, kids, Media, non-verbal communication, psychology, Clinical Psychology, General Psychology, Social Psychology, american, Asian, clinical, collectivism, culture, depression, independence, interdependence, psychology, self-construal. Asch’s seminal research on “Forming Impressions of Personality” (1946) has widely been cited as providing evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect, suggesting that warmth-related judgments have a stronger influence on impressions of personality than competence-related judgments (e.g., Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Wojciszke, 2005). Because replications of Asch’s research did not include systematic analysis of open-ended responses either (e.g., Mensh & Wishner, 1947; Semin, 1989; Veness & Brierley, 1963), as yet it is unclear to what extent they provide evidence for primacy-of-warmth (or for effects that were the actual focus of Asch’s paper; more information on those effects is available in our Additional Findings). It could be argued that Asch’s studies (1946) were not optimally designed to capture a primacy-of-warmth effect. Contrary to the predictions based on a primacy-of-warmth approach, participants were as likely to mention intelligence in their description of the target person as they were to mention warmth. For all its disadvantages, we believe this Gestalt-view (or other typological accounts of impression formation) may raise and answer questions that do not readily follow from dimensional models of impression formation. Strategies in processing inconsistent information about persons, Recognizing contextual polarity in phrase-level sentiment Although Asch acknowledges that warmth plays an important role in impression formation, in his view, any trait can be central as well as peripheral. Averaged Impressions - Is our impression of an individual based on the sum of the values of known traits (Additive) or is it based on an average (sum of value of the traits divided by the number of known traits). In fact, in these conditions, warmth and coldness received the lowest rank out of the entire trait lists, suggesting that they were the least important traits in determining participants’ impressions. The two major theories of impression formation - Asch's theory of impression formation and the information integration theory are applied to explain the sharply contrasting scholarly views held about impression formation but one noteworthy concern is that they both offer accurate explanations of how both the externalities and internalities affect our impression before others. I decided to embark on a (very nerdy) adventure exploring Asch’s data. In Condition 2, perceivers saw the same trait-list as in Condition 1, except for warm (which was replaced by cold). in connotative meaning, Effects of varying trait inconsistency and response requirements Though this effect has been replicated repeatedly (e.g., Mensh & Wishner, 1947; Veness & Brierley, 1963; Semin, 1989), it may not provide the most stringent test of the primacy-of-warmth hypothesis, as changing any positive trait into a negative one is likely to influence the overall valence of the trait-list. These judgments are obtained by attending to nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and body posture, as well as For example, in the classic warm-cold study (Study I), participants were either exposed to a trait-list containing warm or to a trait-list containing cold, keeping all other traits identical between groups. They also contain analyses suggesting that almost all participants formed unified impressions in which they went beyond the information given, creating elaborate narratives about things that were not included in the original trait lists they had been exposed to (such as other traits, occupations, and gender). Intelligent, not cold, seemed the primary determinant of participant’s impressions of personality. Nonverbal behavior is any type of communication that does not involve speaking, including facial expressions, body language, touching, voice patterns, and interpersonal distance.Nonverbal behaviors are used to reinforce spoken words (Hostetter, 2011) but also include such things as interpersonal distanc… The most studied form of impression in social cognition is traits; people tend to form split-second impressions with regard to others’ presumably stable characteristics, such … IMPRESSION FORMATION IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. Even in those conditions in which primacy-of-warmth should have been most pronounced (the classic warm-cold studies), participants indicated that intelligent was at least as influential a trait in forming their impressions. The Additional Findings contain additional analyses that have no direct relevance to the primacy-of-warmth effect, but are related to Asch’s hypotheses (1946) about the process underlying the above mentioned change in valence (pitting a change-in-meaning-effect, e.g., Hamilton & Zanna, 1974; Zanna & Hamilton, 1977, against a simple Halo-effect). The rapid creation of a unified perception or understanding of the character or personality of another person on the basis of a large number of diverse characteristics. Finally, to check whether our textual analysis may have missed subtle references to warmth, we asked an independent coder to rate for 350 (out of 1,023) randomly selected descriptions to what extent warmth or coldness was conveyed (more information is available in the Additional Findings). Preferential Subsequently, they were exposed to lists of trait pairs (see Appendix) and were asked to choose which trait from each pair was most in accordance with their target impression (trait-pair choice measure). Or, as Asch puts it: “the gaiety of an intelligent man is no more or less than the gaiety of a stupid man: it is different in quality” (p. 287). Social Psychology (2014), 45, pp. The remaining 1,023 participants5 (474 males) were on average 33 years old (range 18–75 years). Although there is not one unitary message to be taken from the work (which has been cited over 2,750 times), the message that seems to have most strongly resonated with present-day researchers concerns the primacy-of-warmth effect. All traits mentioned by participants were rated by a separate group of participants (N = 33) on how warm and competent a person with that specific trait is (on a 7-point scale). Third, we randomly assigned participants to one of seven conditions to aid comparability of the studies (Asch ran the conditions in three separate studies). The authors declare no conflict-of-interest with the content of this article. contribution of linguistic factors to attribute inferences and semantic According to Asch (1946), warm and cold should be central in Conditions 1 and 2 when accompanied by traits like intelligent, skillful, industrious, determined, practical, and cautious (original Study I), but not in Conditions 3–5 when accompanied by traits like obedient, weak, shallow, unambitious, and vain (original Study IV). Erring on the conservative side, he underestimated the effect of central personality characteristics to affect perceptions of “restraint” and “importance.” In all other cases, his assertion that warmth and cold differentially change impression formation more strongly than politeness resonate with greater validity, reaffirmed by modern statistics. Asch (1946) based his conclusions to a large extent on these open-ended responses, providing many anecdotes, but never systematically analyzing the data. warm-cold variable in impression formation: Evidence for the positive-negative formation, A “classic” revisited: Students’ immediate Although also finding the statistical significance of results he correctly predicted interesting, I want to focus on the few existing differences between Asch’s conclusions and the significance suggested by statistics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2(4), pp.531-539. He was interested in how we judge others and their personality based off small bits of information. B. osf.io/r6idy/. For example, his stimulus lists contained unequal amounts of warmth- and competence-related traits and the ranking measure presupposes that perceivers can reliably indicate which traits influenced their impressions (which may not be the case; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). impressions, Context effects in impression formation: Changes These results are consistent with those for the ranking measure, in that neither provides evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect in impression formation. Participants then wrote down their impression of the target person (open-ended measure), selected which traits from a trait-pair list were most applicable to the target (trait-pair choice measure; see Appendix), and ranked the original traits according to importance for their impression (ranking measure). Many textbooks refer only to Study I, concluding that Asch’s research shows that warmth is primary in impression formation3 (e.g., Baron & Byrne, 2004; DeLamater & Meyers, 2010; Franzoi, 2009; Hogg & Vaughan, 2011; Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2011; Pennington, 2000; Stainton-Rogers, 2011; Taylor, Peplau, & Sears, 2006; Worchel, Cooper, Goethals, & Olson, 2000; for a notable exception, see Hewstone, Stroebe, & Jonas, 2007). Reading his 1946 paper for the first time, I could not help but wonder whether Asch’s conclusions about personality inference would hold under modern statistical tests. A Brief History of Theory and Research on Impression Formation Automaticity and Control in Stereotyping and Prejudice: The Revolutionary Role of Social Cognition Across Three Decades of Research Attribution as a Gateway to Social Cognition Antecedents and consequences of a negative relation between the two fundamental Start studying Social Psychology: Impression Formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1758 – 68. for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences, Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and In the resulting index, higher scores reflect more positive descriptions. In the present replication attempt, we aimed to critically examine the extent to which Asch’s seminal “Forming impressions of personality” (1946) provides evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect. Heider's later essay on social cognition, along with the development of "psycho-logic" by Robert P. Abelson and Milton J. Rosenberg,embedded evaluative processes in verbal descriptions of actions, with the verb of a descriptive sentence establishing the kind of linkage existing between the actor and object of the sente… Two Major Aspects of Impression Formation Concrete examples of behaviors they have performed that are consistent with a given trait ( exemplars, e.g. Framework The present research suggests that Asch’s data do not provide evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect; if anything, competence seems more primary in his studies. For example, if a new employee in our office shows up to her first day of work in a messy, wrinkled outfit, we may judge her negatively and expect her work to be sloppy just like her clothes. In Condition 2, cold versus intelligent were mentioned equally often, F < 1, with means of 0.27 and 0.24, respectively. Primacy of warmth versus competence: A motivated Still, the basic methodology underlying present-day person perception research is strongly grounded in Asch’s paradigm-shifting paper, in which impression formation was studied in a controlled laboratory setting, yielding high internal validity and experimental precision (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Gilbert, 1998). Introductory textbooks presently put more emphasis on Asch’s research (1946) as providing evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect than on the Gestalt-model that was its actual focus. Although “Forming Impressions of Personality” has been regarded as a first demonstration of the primacy-of-warmth effect (e.g., Abele & Bruckmüller, 2011; Abele & Wojciszke, 2007; Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2008; Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, 2005; Kervyn, Yzerbyt, & Judd, 2010; Richetin, Durante, Mari, Perugini, & Volpato, 2012; Vonk, 1994), it is unclear whether Asch’s original studies provide replicable evidence for the effect. Social Psychologist Solomon Asch was a pioneer in Gestalt Psychology. In line with Asch’s theorizing, changing warm to cold had a more pronounced influence on perceiver’s impressions than changing polite to blunt. This limitation was acknowledged by Asch (1946), but seems to have been overlooked in many later references to his work. In recent years there has been considerable interest in impression formation and group perception individually and combined. In fact, Asch was upfront about the fact that warmth, though important, was not primary in his studies: “That the rankings are not higher is due to the fact that the lists contained other central traits.” (p. 7, emphasis added). increase statistical power, Positive-negative asymmetry in evaluations: The distinction Still, knowing about the lack of primacy-of-warmth in Asch’s studies is important. dimensions, Forming impressions of personality: Two Asch primacy effect: Robust but not infallible, Asch on “Forming impressions of personality”: Contrary to predictions based on primacy-of-warmth, participants used traits more strongly related to competence in Condition 1, t(136) = −3.81, p < .001, with an average warmth-index of −0.33, Cohen’s d = −0.32. However, even when taking the inferred traits into account (instead of limiting our search to the words warm and cold), we did not find evidence for primacy-of-warmth. For the super nerds out there like me, I have included my tables of results below. Social psychological laboratories have undergone considerable change since the publication of Asch’s “Forming Impressions of Personality” in 1946, leading to the inevitable demise of punch cards and slide carousels in favor of more advanced experimental equipment. Impression Formation Impression formation is often based on rapid assessments of salient and observable qualities and behaviors in others. warm-cold variable in impressions of persons, Compensation between warmth and competence: being observed. For the ranking measure, participants ranked all traits from the stimulus list from most to least important to their impression. Effect of stimulus inconsistency and discounting instructions in personality impression formation. Andrea E. Abele, Bogdan Wojciszke, in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2014. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI Consequently, the interpretation of these data was heavily contested by his contemporaries (e.g., Gollin, 1954; Luchins, 1948). What are these conditions? In light of these recent findings, it may seem unimportant that Asch’s data do not provide evidence for primacy-of-warmth, because, after all, the effect seems present in more modern studies. Beyond the methodological realm, Asch’s studies have also laid much of the groundwork for influential theories about person perception (e.g., attribution theory; Jones & Davis, 1965; the continuum model of impression formation; Fiske, Neuberg, Beattie, & Milberg, 1987). 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