Forming first impressions

Question 1

Why do we form impressions?

Answer 1

• understand and predict behaviour
  -make sense of sensory information in the world
  -give world social meaning - (Fiske&Taylor, 1991; Gross, 2012)

Question 2

What are the research studies demonstrating impressions give the world social meaning?

Answer 2

• Fiske&Taylor, 1991; Gross, 2012

Question 3

What are impressions?

Answer 3

• perceptual and cognitive shortcuts - cognitive heuristic
  -constructed representation of reality-schema

Question 4

What are examples of cues for first impressions?

Answer 4

• impressions from behaviour
  -physical appearance
  -non verbal communication eg eye contact
• impressions from familiarity (mere exposure effect can lead to positive feelings

Question 5

What are the two mains we form first expressions?

Answer 5

1. extract large amount of info about someone base on a small amount of behaviour
2. we base our assessments of others on their physical appearance

Question 6

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)

Answer 6

-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

Question 7

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)

Answer 7

• accuracy in determining traits based on passport style photo include intelligence (Zebrowitz et al 2002) and psychoticism (Shelving et al 2003)

Question 8

In forming impressions from physical appearance, what are the key research studies?

Answer 8

• Walter, Aronson, Abrahams and Rotten (1966)
  -Dion et al (1972)
• Agthe et al (2011)

Question 9

What did Walter, Aronson, Abrahams and Rotten (1966) say in impressions from physical appearance?

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

What did Dion et al (1972) say in impressions from physical appearance?

Answer 10

• attractive people rated as having a more socially desirable personality, greater marital competence and higher occupational status

Question 11

What did Agthe et al 2011 say in impressions from physical appearance?

Answer 11

• not always the case of someone being percieved as attractive means better personality when looking at ratings of the same sex

Question 12

What does salient mean in capturing attention?

Answer 12

• attention-capturing stimuli
  -context can make cues salient

Question 13

What is meant by automatic interpretation of cues?

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

What is the research study of Higgins, Rhodes and Jones 1977?

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

In which cues capture attention, what is Asch’s configurable model (1946)?

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

What is automatic interpretation of cues?

Answer 16

• accessibility from frequent activation (FAMILIARITY)

Question 17

What are the key research studies in automatic interpretation of cues?

Answer 17

• Zajonc’s (1968) mere exposure effect
• Moreland and Beach (1992)

Question 18

What is Zajonc’s (1968) study of mere exposure effect demonstrate?

Answer 18

• individuals grow to like people they more they see them, even if they have never interacted

Question 19

What did Moreland and Beach (1992) research demonstrate?

Answer 19

• 4 women attend varying number of sessions in large college course
• women sat quietly- no interaction
  -end of course, students viewed photos of the women and gave impressions of them
• those seen as warm an intelligent - would like to meet
  -didnt measure rate of attractiveness

Question 20

In characterising behaving person, what is correspondent inferences referring to?

Answer 20

-Jones and Davis 1965 theory of correspondent inference explains how people infer that a persons behaviour corresponds to an underlying trait - often result of systematic processing

Question 21

In characterising behaving person, who’s theory was correspondent inferences?

Answer 21

• jones and davis 1965

Question 22

In terms of correspondent inferences, what are the three factors they depend on?

Answer 22

• was there free choice?
• was the behaviour normal or expected in the situation?
• did they intend the action to achieve something?

Question 23

What does cognitive representation mean?

Answer 23

body of knowledge that an individual has stored in memory

Question 24

What does association mean?

Answer 24

link between two or more cognitive representations

Question 25

What does accessibility mean?

Answer 25

processing principle that the info that is more readily available generally has the most impact on thoughts and behaviours

Question 26

What does priming mean?

Answer 26

activation of cognitive representation to increase its accessibility and thus likelihood it will be used

Question 27

What does correspondent inference mean?

Answer 27

process of characterising someone as having a personality trait that corresponds to his or her observed behaviour

Question 28

What does correspondence bias mean?

Answer 28

tendency to infer an actor’s personal characteristics from observed behaviours, even when the inference is unjustified because other possible causes of behaviour exist

Question 29

What does superficial processing mean?

Answer 29

relying on accessible information to make inferences or judgements, which expending little effort in processing