Application of a linear-serial model to a personality-impression task using serial presentation.

Abstract

88 undergraduate Ss saw 3 or 6 personality-trait adjectives 1 at a time in serial order and were told that each set described a person whom they were to rate on likeableness. The sets of adjectives were chosen to test 3 theoretical questions. (1) The addition of mildly to highly polarized words decreased the polarity of the responses, ruling out an additive model but favoring an averaging model. (2) In 2 exact tests applicable to both models, supportive results were obtained with favorable adjectives, but a discrepancy was obtained with unfavorable adjectives. This discrepancy was the same as in previous work and would be consistent with an averaging formulation if mild negative adjectives had lower weight than more extreme negative adjectives. (3) A recency effect was observed for sequences in which all adjectives had the same polarity but different value which supports a discounting interpretation of the primacy effects that have been obtained in previous work in which the sequences contained both positive and negative stimuli. (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)