Impression Formation and Group Perception - Lab Report Example

Impression Formation and Group Perception: Lab Report Insert (s) This experiment seeks to critically examine the correlation between order characteristics and impression formation as well as the effect of group membership on perception. A group of participants were invited to form an impression of another individual based on a serial presentation of 6 distant characteristics namely intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn and envious. The impression formation was effectively measured through the manipulation of the order of the descriptions. For example for the first group, participants were asked to make an impression of an individual based on the original presentation order of the descriptions. In the second group, the descriptive characteristics were presented in a reverse order. In the original experiment, the presentation order had a substantial impact on the impression formed for this person. Impression Formation and Group Perception: Lab Report Introduction Impression formation is an important psychological process by which individuals are able to gather information about others and integrate them to form a coherent impression of the other individual. The underlying notion of the entire process is that individuals usually expect coherence and unity in the personalities of others. During face to face interactions, a number of social clues some of which include the others’ verbal and non-verbal behavior, physical appearance as well as the social setting where the exchange is taking place may combine with other factors to influence the ways in which a person form the initial impression of others. In most cases, the initial impressions usually serve as the basis of future and subsequent attributions. A number of theoretical literatures on social cognition theories, expectation states theory and affect control theory have been used to explain the concept of impression formation and how it is related to group perception. Hamilton and Hatz (1980) conducted an experiment which focused on the correlation between memory recall and impression formation. They concluded that individuals have a unique ability to organize a number of information when forming impression of others (Hamilton and Katz, 1980, p.1058). In another classical experiment regarding impression formation, Solomon Asch (1946) successfully revealed a number of its foundational principles. The findings of his research suggested that a persons overall impression of others is influenced by a number of factors such as causal attribution, primary effect and valence on the part of the individual. For example, one of Asch’s findings was that individuals often have a natural inclination to make dispositional inferences about another person’s personality. The researcher also argued that individuals tend to fit importation regarding different behaviors and traits into meaningful coherent role and therefore the information used in impression formation are usually integrated into preexisting impressions (Asch, 1946, p.273). There are currently two main approaches to group perception. The first approach is largely concerned with references to group affects and choices while another approach seeks to address the social categorization processes. Reference group choices have been increasingly demonstrated in a number of experimental settings as being influenced by factors such as normative prescriptions, attitude similarity and structural inducements. Although people often say that they detest categorizing people or being categorized, many research findings have revealed that social categorization is a fundamental process that almost occurs in everyone. The current study has replicated the study design which was used by Asch (1946) in his sixth experiment to demonstrate the influence of past experiences in impression formation and group perception. Consequently the study has effectively demonstrated that order characteristics have no significant impact on impression formation and group perception. The findings of this study will a number of applications particularly with regard to the contemporary understanding of perception psychology. Methods The experimental method used in this study was replicated from the classical impression formation experiment reported in Asch (1946, experiment 6). A group of participants were invited to form an impression of another individual based on a serial presentation of 6 distant characteristics namely intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn and envious. In the first group, participants were asked to make an impression of an individual based on the original presentation order of the descriptions. In the second group, the descriptive characteristics were presented in a reverse order. Participants A total number of 151 psychology students participated in the experiement. 25 of the participants were males while123 were female students. The rest 3 participants did not specify their gender. The participants were all from a miscellaneous ethnic background. Their age-group ranged from 19-48 and mean age of 21.42, (SD 4.12). Materials Materials used in Asch (1946, Experiment 6) were duplicated and a plain paper used to mark the scores. A total of four slides presentation was used to demonstrate the information in a Microsoft Power Point. (See Appendix A-D for the print screen of the presentation slides for group membership and order of characteristics. Experimental design The experimental design was intended to explore the two independent variables namely the order of the characteristics and group membership, with each variable consisting of two levels. The dependent variable being tested was sum endorsement ratings. The experimental design was a 2 by 2 (order A or B) which is a between-subject design, thus resulting into four experimental groups. Procedure First, the participants were to write their gender and age on a plain paper. They were then shown a presentation, on description of holiday destination via Microsoft PowerPoint, where they were asked to write on the same paper ‘Holiday Destinations’, and rate on a scale of 0-7 on whether they would enjoy visiting the destination or recommend it to a friend. The presentation displayed each description words for 4 seconds and a one-second inter-stimulus interval. The task required of the participants read in the in-group condition that; “I would kindly ask you to concentration on the following personality that belong to a university students presently pursuing a degree in psychology. The participants were required to critically examine the person described and then strive to come up with an impression of what kind of a person that person is. Secondly, the participants were shown a description of a flat where they were asked to rate using the same scale, on whether they found it an attractive place to live and if they would wish to live together in the flat. In the out-group condition, a car mechanic was the main character. The six characteristics in one of the two possible orders were then presented. Then the next screen of instructions read:” using a scale of 0-7 rate whether you concur with the following:”This is a person I would like to meet”. Or “this is a person who could become my friend”. High scores were to indicate strongly agree meaning it’s the most preferred impression. There were two groups of dissimilar characteristics with the first reading the following order: intelligent psychology student (Order A-in-group) and intelligent mechanic (Order B-out-group). In the second group of participants the characteristics were shown in a reversed order (Order B), which were envious psychology students (in-group), and envious mechanic, (out-group). The two series were identical in all aspects differing only in the arrangement order of the latter. The procedure required inserting the individual’s impression formation task with an additional two unrelated impression formation tasks of the Holiday and the Flat descriptions which were unchanged in all conditions, where part of it were added to familiarize participants with the means of recording preference with the report backing rating to stretch the task given and make the personal impression task less understandable for participants who have read Asch’s student (1946) Results The descriptive statistics obtained after analysis suggested that many of the participants preferred to make friends with or meet psychology students as compared to car mechanics. For example, the statistical data analysis results revealed the mean endorsement ratings for the group considered to be intelligent-Psych students was 7.00 (SD=2.86). The mean endorsement ratings for the Envious-Psych Students was 6.22(SD=3.16). On the other hand, the analysis of the data regarding the car mechanic indicated that the mean endorsement ratings for order A (Intelligent first) was 5.06 (SD=3.09) while the mean rating for the Envious –car mechanic was 5.36(SD=2.97). From the above information, it can be deduced that the impressions were generally more favorable when the order of a persons descriptive characteristics were began with “intelligent” as compared to “Envious” and this pattern was witnessed in both the car mechanic and psych student groups. Consequently the statistics suggested that order effect is apparent because the impressions are evidently more favorable when the desirable characteristic are place first and the group membership had no observable influence on both the likability rating and order effect. On the other hand, the homogeneity of the variance was assumed and the Levene’s test indicated there was no significance in meeting. It is however clear that the interactions with both the group and the order was equal across all the experimental groups and this is best shown by the uniformity of the score of individuals regarding their preference of meeting or making friends with a mechanic or a psychology student. Lastly, to evaluate the significance of the variance, a statistical test was carried out using a two-way ANOVA and the results indicated that the main effect (order of characteristics) was not statistically significant. It was also observed that the group membership also had little significance on the likability scores. Discussion and Conclusion The results of the experiment suggested that order characteristics do not a significant impact on impression formation. For example, this is particularly evidenced by the fact that a majority of the participants scored higher in their interest of becoming friends with a psychology student compared to the car mechanic. Consequently it can be concluded that the higher scores for the psychology students was attributed to the group perception among the participants. For instance, since the participants were all undergraduate students of a psychology class, they considered themselves more likely to be friendly to each other as opposed to the members of the out-groups such as car mechanics and investment bankers. In most cases, group perceptions is often characterized by the systematic tendency of members of a particular group to evaluate the members of their own group(in-group) favorably as compared to the other individuals considered to be non members(out group) and this normally results in bias behaviors such ass prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping (Hewstone et al.,2002, p.577). Many authors also concur that the tendency to favor in group while derogating the out-group is a phenomenon that can be well explained using a number of competing theories of impression formation and group psychology. The groups that people belong to can significantly impact on how other individuals perceive and treat them. According to Smith (2002, p.78), the natural tendency of individuals to form groups based on their common identity is one of the major factors that influence the formation of stereotypes and other forms of group biasness. For example, in above the experiment, the participants tended to favorably rate the group members perceived to be belonging to their group that the members of the out groups such as the car mechanics. Because group identity usually results in the division of an individual’s social world, many individuals often unconsciously use group identity as a tool to form the impression and evaluate others (Asch and Zukier, 1984). Additionally Schroder (2011, p.82), suggests that people tend to exaggerate the differences between their groups and the out groups and this is a major basis of discrimination, stereotyping and prejudice. A major limitation of the design of this research study was that by only using psychology students, it is possible that other factors such as similar interests may have played a role in their perceptions of likability and this is a weakness that creates room for improvement in the future researches In conclusion, the findings of the research study successfully supported the hypothesis that order characteristics does not impact on the impression formation and group perception. However, the traits which appear first in the description have greater impact on the final impression. These findings can be used to provide more understanding of a number of contemporary social problems related to biased group perceptions such as racism. References Asch, S.E. 1946. Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 41 (3), pp. 258-290. Asch, S.E & Zukier, H. (1984). Thinking about persons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 1230-1240 Hamilton, D.L. & Katz, L.B. 1980. Cognitive Representation of Personality Impressions: Organizational Processes in First Impression Formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1050-1060. Hewstone, M., Rubin, M. & Willis, H. 2002. Intergroup bias. Annual Review of. Psychology, 53, 575-604. Naumann, L. P., Vazire, S., Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D. 2009. Personality Judgments Based on Physical Appearance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35 (12), pp.1661-1671. Smith, H. W. 2002. The dynamics of Japanese and American interpersonal events: Behavioral settings versus personality traits. Journal of Mathematical Sociology (26),pp.71-92. Schroder, T.2011. A Model of Language-Based Impression Formation and Attribution Among Germans. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 30(8), pp.82–102. Read More