Forming first impressions Flashcards
Why do we form impressions?
- understand and predict behaviour
-make sense of sensory information in the world
-give world social meaning - (Fiske&Taylor, 1991; Gross, 2012)
What are the research studies demonstrating impressions give the world social meaning?
- Fiske&Taylor, 1991; Gross, 2012
What are impressions?
- perceptual and cognitive shortcuts - cognitive heuristic
-constructed representation of reality-schema
What are examples of cues for first impressions?
- impressions from behaviour
-physical appearance
-non verbal communication eg eye contact - impressions from familiarity (mere exposure effect can lead to positive feelings
What are the two mains we form first expressions?
- extract large amount of info about someone base on a small amount of behaviour
- we base our assessments of others on their physical appearance
One of the main first ways of forming first impressions, extract large amount of info about someone base on a small amount of behaviour, what does this entail? (with research studies)
-assessments of personality generally take around 30 seconds- Carney et al 2007
-assessments of likelihood someone would be an effective salesperson took 30 seconds - Ambady et al 2006
One of the main first ways of forming first impressions, we base our assessments of others on their physical appearance, what does this entail? (with research studies)
- accuracy in determining traits based on passport style photo include intelligence (Zebrowitz et al 2002) and psychoticism (Shelving et al 2003)
In forming impressions from physical appearance, what are the key research studies?
- Walter, Aronson, Abrahams and Rotten (1966)
-Dion et al (1972) - Agthe et al (2011)
What did Walter, Aronson, Abrahams and Rotten (1966) say in impressions from physical appearance?
- classic study of college students set up on a blind date
- paired for men and women and researchers observed and rates P’s for attractiveness and social skills
-obtained info such as IQ - results- best predictor= dates physical attractiveness
What did Dion et al (1972) say in impressions from physical appearance?
- attractive people rated as having a more socially desirable personality, greater marital competence and higher occupational status
What did Agthe et al 2011 say in impressions from physical appearance?
- not always the case of someone being percieved as attractive means better personality when looking at ratings of the same sex
What does salient mean in capturing attention?
- attention-capturing stimuli
-context can make cues salient
What is meant by automatic interpretation of cues?
- cues have no meaning on their own- must be interpreted with stored knowledge of others
- use concepts associated with cues - traits associated with behaviour eg dishonesty associated with cheating on exam
What is the research study of Higgins, Rhodes and Jones 1977?
- 2 groups memorised words related to adventurous or reckless
- seemingly unrelated task, read about Donald and asked to describe him in their own words
- found priming influenced descriptions and positivity ratings
-if adventurous primed- described as daring/positive
-if reckless primed- described as foolish/negaive
In which cues capture attention, what is Asch’s configurable model (1946)?
- Ps saw list of trait words describing an imaginary person
- difference between list of participants were shown
- Central traits
List A- warm-positive impression
List B- cold- negative impression
-Peripheral traits
List C- polite- no difference in impressions formed
List D- blunt - no difference in impression formed - replicated but in real person (Kelly 1950s)- behaviour changed towards unknown lecturer if heard in advance if they were warm/cold
