What Characteristics Most Influence Our Impressions of Others?[1]

[2]

You may know from your own experience that when you meet a person for the first time, you do not see that person as a collection of individual characteristics. Rather, there is a tendency to see the whole person as a totality; we see that person and not each part. And from this totality we form a more general impression, which tends to color any specific impressions we may have.

Social psychologist Solomon Asch[3] has nicely demonstrated this point. He prepared two lists of adjectives that described two different people. He presented these lists to two different groups of respondents and asked them to check, on a form provided, any additional characteristics or qualities that they thought the person described might be likely to have. The two lists the respondents were given looked like this:

                                                          PERSON A                                                       PERSON B

                                                          Intelligent                                                         Intelligent
                                                          Skillful                                                               Skillful
                                                          Industrious                                                       Industrious
                                                          Warm                                                                 Cold
                                                          Determined                                                       Determined
                                                          Practical                                                            Practical
                                                          Cautious                                                           Cautious

As you can see, the lists are identical, with the exception of the fourth word, which on one is warm and on the other, cold.

Reflections

Before reading further, pause a moment. Suppose you knew two individuals, one of whom was pretty much like Person A and the other pretty much like person B. How would you respond to the following questions?

1.    Who would you rather have as a friend? Why?

2.    What other adjectives come to mind that might further describe each person?

3.    Which person would you be likely to avoid? Why?

It may be interesting for you to compare your responses to Person A and Person B with the responses given by the respondents in Asch’s research. The differences between the ways Persons A and B were seen were quite dramatic. Person A, whose description included the word warm, was more likely to be described as generous, wise, happy, good-natured, humorous, sociable, popular, and altruistic. Person B, whose description included the word cold, was much more apt to be rated as unhappy, ungenerous, unstable, humorless, and even ruthless. In other words, there seems to be a strong inclination to develop certain overall expecta­tions and to form more general impressions of how “warm” and “cold” people are likely to behave. This leads us to an important observation.

A Person’s Central Traits Strongly Affect Our Impressions

Is it true that certain perceived behaviors are so powerful that they influence our impressions and subsequent behavior toward others? Is it true that certain traits are so central in our eyes that they color all else we may see in another person’s behavior? When particular central traits are involved, for example, being warm or cold, can our perceptions be swayed to such an extent that we see most other aspects of that individual in terms of his or her being warm or cold, as the case may be? There is evidence to suggest that this does indeed happen.

Harold Kelley³³ found supporting evidence for this idea in an ingenious study. He presented a guest lecturer to a psychology class. Before the lecturer’s appear­ance, students were given a brief biographical sketch of him, which, among other i~ms, included the statement: “People who know him consider him to be a rather (cold/warm) person, industrious, critical, practical, and determined.” (You will note that these adjectives come directly from Asch’s original list.) All students read the same biographical sketch, except that the word cold was included in half the copies and the word warm in the other half. Then all students heard the same lecture from the same instructor.

Were there differences between the two groups’ responses to him? There were indeed. For example, students who had been told that the instructor was warm tended to rate him as much more informal, sociable, considerate, popular, and likable than did those students who had been told that the man was cold. Their respective impressions of him were not only reflected in their feelings about him, but in their behavior toward him as well. For example, some 56 percent of the students who were told that he was warm interacted with him in class, but only 32 percent who believed that he was cold entered into the discussion

Reflections

( Extra Credit 10 points ) Think of someone you regard as “cold.” To what extent to do you feel that that characteristic colors your perception of him/her? Do you have trouble seeing that person’s redeeming qualities? Why? How do you suppose people might rate you on a warm—cold continuum?  You can see that perceived characteristics such as warm and cold are examples If central traits, aspects of an individual that are potent enough to affect the interpretation of other traits, thus influencing how others see that person. Other are more peripheral than central and do not particularly influence our judgment of others one way or the other.