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Social Psychology I > Social Thinking > Perceiving Other Persons

Forming impressions

Solomon Asch, whose work inspired the impression formation activity, marveled at the capacity that we have to form impressions of others. In a series of groundbreaking studies <REF>(Asch, 1946), he had participants read short lists of words and then form impressions of the individuals who could be described by those words. For example, participants in one study read a list of words that consisted of "intelligent, skillful, industrious, warm, determined, practical, and cautious." After reading the list, the participants then chose other words that could also describe the person (e.g., friendly) and provided open-ended descriptions of the person. Using this simple technique, Asch was able to discover some important principles of impression formation.

First, people had little trouble with the task. The limited nature of the information did not prevent them from forming impressions. In response to the preceding list, one participant described the person as "A scientist performing experiments and persevering after many setbacks. He is driven in the desire to accomplish something that would be of benefit."

Second, Asch found that the substitution of a single word could produce dramatic shifts in the participants' impressions of the target. Substituting the word "cold" for "warm" in the preceding list produced drastically different impressions of the target. One participant described the "cold" target as, "A rather snobbish person who feels that his character and intelligence set him apart from the run-of-the-mill individual. Calculating and unsympathetic."

Third, Asch found that some traits seemed to be more central. "Warm"and "cold," for example, appear to be central traits. The substitution of one for the other results in dramatically different impressions. In contrast, "polite" and "blunt" do not appear to be central. When one was substituted for the other, it had little effect on the participants' impressions.

Finally, as noted in the impression formation activity, Asch found that there were order effects. Words that appeared early in the list seemed to influence the perception of words that appeared later in the list. A person described as "intelligent"and "envious" is viewed more positively than a person described as "envious" and "intelligent." Asch believed that these order effects happen because the early words shade the meaning of the later words. When "envious' precedes "intelligent," the kind of intelligence that comes to mind is more akin to evil genius than Nobel laureate.

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