1. Institute Of Management Studies
Indore
Presentation On:- Impression Formation
From:-
Aparna Bakre
Jayshree Pateriya

3. What is Impression?
An idea, feeling, or opinion about something or
someone, esp. one formed without conscious thought
or on the basis of little evidence. An effect produced
on someone.

4. impression formation
 A social psychological term referring to the way in
which strangers develop perceptions of each other. A
long tradition of (largely experimental) studies have
investigated the impact of initial impressions. These
have identified phenomena such as primacy
effects and halo effects.

5. This breaks down into six influences on how we
perceive other people:
 Self-fulfilling prophecy
 Implicit personality theory
 Perceptual accentuation
 Primacy-Recency
 Consistency
 Attribution of controllability

6. Six Basic Principles
1. On the basis of minimal information
2. Special attention to salient features than to
every thing
3. We use the context of a person’s behavior
rather than interpreting the behavior in
isolation

7. 4.We organize our perceptions by
categorizing or grouping stimuli
5. We use our enduring cognitive structures to
make sense of people’s behavior
6. Perceiver's own needs and personal goals
influence how he or she perceives others

9. Solomon Asch

10. “We look at a person and
immediately a certain
impression of his character
forms itself in us a glance , a few
spoken words are sufficient to
tell us a story about a highly
complex matter.....”

11. Asch’s reseArch on
central and peripheral
traits

12. Asch conducted many
experiments in which he asked
participants to form an
impression of a hypothetical
person based on several
characteristics said to belong to
them.

14. Experiment 1-variation in
central quality
 Group A: intelligent-skillful-industrious-
warm-determined-practical-cautious
 Group B: intelligent-skillful-industrious-
cold-determined-practical-cautious

15. result
Series A ("warm")
 A person who believes certain things to be right, wants
others to see his point, would be sincere in an argument'
and would like to see his point won.
Series B ("cold")
 A very ambitious and talented person who would not let
anyone or anything stand in the way of achieving his goal.
Wants his own way, he is determined not to give in, no
matter what happens.

16. Experiment 2- Omission of a
Central Quality
 Group A: intelligent-skillful-industrious-
determined-practical-cautious
 Group B: intelligent-skillful-industrious-
determined-practical-cautious

17. result
 Appears that a more neutral impression has
formed.

18. Experiment 3-Variation of a
Peripheral Quality
A. intelligent—skillful—industrious—
polite—determined—practical cautious
B. intelligent—skillful—industrious—
blunt—determined—practical—cautious

19. Experiment 4-reversing the
order of series
 A. intelligent—skillful—industrious—
determined— practical—cautious—evasive
 B. evasive—cautious—practical—
determined—industrious—skillful—
intelligent

20. result
 Series A
He seems to be a man of very excellent character,
though it is not unusual for one person to have all
of those good qualities.
 Series B
This is a man who has had to work for everything
he wanted—therefore he is evasive, cautious and
practical. He is naturally intelligent, but his
struggles have made him hard.

21. Impression formation-a
cognitive perspective
 We pay attention to information abut their
traits and values rather than information
about their competence

22. Additional research
Indicates that impression of others consist
of examples of both:
1. Behaviour relating to specific trait
2. Mental abstractions based on
observations of many instances of behavior

23. ask yourself?
 Why do we immediately form impressions
of other people on first meeting them?
 What factors influence whether we like or
dislike someone immediately?
 Can we tell when someone is lying or telling
the truth?

24. What information do we
use?
 Roles
 Physical Cues
 Salience
 From behavior to traits
 Central traits
 Categorization
 Context effects

25. Roles
People tend to think of others within a
role context first and only then
according to personality traits

26. Physical Cues
Appearance and behavior are key
determinants of our first impressions

29. Salience
People pay attention to the figure rather
than to the ground or setting

30. •Effects of Salience
1. Draws attention
2. Influences perceptions of
causality
3. Produces evaluatively extreme
judgments
4. Produce more consistency of
judgment

31. FROM BEHAVIOR TO TRAITS
We move very quickly from observable
information (appearance & behavior) to
personality trait inferences
 Traits are more economical to remember
 Trait inferences occur automatically

32. Central Traits
Some traits may be more central than
others, that is, highly associated with
many other characteristics
“Warm-Cold” appears to be such a trait
(Kelley, 1950)

33. Categorization
We automatically perceive stimuli as part of a
group or category

34. Consequences of Categorization
 leads to category-based social judgments
(stereotyping)
 speeds processing time
 can lead to errors

35. The Continuum Model of
Impression Formation
Impressions range from stereotypic, category-
based impressions to individuated impressions
(dual processing)

36. Dual Processing
We generally tend to use category-based
inference because it is easy and quick
We use individuated information when we are
motivated to be accurate the person doesn’t fit
our categories we have other reasons for wanting
to know the person better

37. Context Effects
Contrast biases judgments away from the
context (sees them as different)
Assimilation biases judgments in the same
direction as the context (sees them as similar)
Assimilation occurs more when people are using
category-based processing
Contrast occurs more when people are using
individuated information

38. Integrating Impressions
How do we combine all of these
separate inferences about a
person into an over all impression?

39.  Evaluation
 Negativity effect
 Positivity bias

40.  Emotional information
 The averaging principle
 Imputing meaning

41.  Imputing consistency
 Schemas
 Prototypes
 Exemplars

44. Thank you