Integration and abstraction in impression formation

Yaacov Schul*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hypothesized that a trait description is encoded in a dual form, one component containing the traits themselves and another containing the abstract summary derived from these traits. 62 undergraduates matched the emotional tone (Study 1) or the physical characteristics (Study 2) of a probe trait with homogeneous (i.e., all positive or all negative) or mixed (i.e., half positive and half negative) trait descriptions. It was found that following integration (i.e., after an impression was formed), matching accuracy was poorer (Study 1) and matching latency was longer (Study 2) with mixed descriptions than with homogeneous ones. However, when integration did not take place prior to the match, the mixed descriptions were processed no differently than the homogeneous ones. It is concluded that impression formation affects the representation in memory of the traits themselves as well as the representation of an abstract global code. Specifically, it is suggested that when a mixed description is integrated, meanings are chosen for traits in a way that resembles an averaging process. Moreover, the gist of the description is extracted and stored separately in memory. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)45-54
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Personality and Social Psychology
Volume44
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1983

Keywords

  • accuracy in matching emotional tone vs physical characteristics of homogeneous vs mixed trait descriptions, college students
  • integrative vs abstract encoding of impressions, latency &

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