Week 2 - Perceiving Individuals

Question 1

Physical Appearance links with other traits/ratings
dancing study
competence study
look of love study

Answer 1

Study by Walster et al, 1966
Uni students paired for an evening of talking and dancing, rated their attractiveness and social skills
Ratings of attractiveness affects ratings of liking, intelligence etc

Study by Todorov et al, 2005
participants rated candidates that they didn’t know
more attractive candidates were rated more competent and were more likely to get voted in

Babyfaced-ness
Less likely to be picked for jobs that require ‘mature characteristics’ eg CEOs
Less likely to be convicted of violent crimes

The look of love study by Mason et al, 2005
Participants shown clips of attractive people either looking towards or away from you
Attention towards = greater likability
Attention towards = greater attractiveness but ONLY for male, heterosexual participants

Question 2

Familiarity, the mere exposure effect

lecture attendance Study

Answer 2

Moreland and Beach, 1992
4 women attended varying numbers of lectures, sat quietly, did not interact with others
participants viewed photos of women and made ratings of warmth, intelligence, interestingness
Women who went more often were more liked (more familiar, more same ie haven’t hurt you, haven’t done anything bad to you)

Question 3

Noticing and Interpreting Cues

Chronic and Temporary Accessibility and mood

Answer 3

Interpretation is governed by association and accessibility

Chronic accessibility: Frequent activation (your favourite/important traits)

Temporary accessibility: concurrent activation (something relevant, in the news)
your impression can depend on the narrative (context and group membership) ie finding/looting groceries from a shop after hurricane

Mood alters interpretations
Positive mood you interpret ambiguous things positively

Question 4

Correspondent inferences and bias

Definitions and pro-/anti-Castro Study

Answer 4

Correspondent inferences: the process of characterising someone as having a personality trait that corresponds to their behaviour
Justified when behaviour is freely chosen

Correspondence bias: the tendency to infer an actor’s character from observed behaviour, even when the inference is unjustified (you’re not always correct)

Study by Jones and Harris, 1967
Participants read an essay that was either pro-castro or anti castro
half participants thought that the writer had freely chosen and half thought that the writer had no choice
They then rated the writers attitude
Result: even when the writer had no choice participants rated their attitude as being pro-Castro
Unjustified because they were told what to write

Question 5

Impression formation (3 steps) 
Cultural differences

Answer 5

Categorisation (of the behaviour)
Automatic –> eg guy driving fast

Characterisation (of the person)
Automatic –> He’s a jerk

Correction (of the interpretation)
effortful (unless situational cause is extremely clear eg he’s rushing to the hospital)

Eastern vs Western cultural differences
- Eastern cultures correct for situational factors first

Question 6

Kelley’s Covariation Model (3 aspects)

Answer 6

Consensus
more dispositional if no one else does it (more likely to be because of you)

Consistency
more dispositional if target always does it

Distinctiveness
more dispositional if target does it across a variety of situations

Question 7

Forming complex impressions
Integrating information
Stability vs Change (Study)
Inconsistency

Answer 7

Integrating trait information
often group positive and negative traits together eg what is beautiful is good

Integrating evaluative information
you put more weight on negative information

Stability vs change
Impressions resist change
Confirmation bias: focus on things that confirm your bias
Perseverance bias : resist change to formed biases

Study
2 groups of participants were either told that short or tall firefighters were better
they then voted on who they thought was better
They were then told that height actually made no difference and what they were told before wasn’t true
the groups voted again put the bias persisted

Dealing with inconsistency
captures attention
leads to more processing
motivates perceivers to find explanations
over time, may lead to more complex impressions