Effects of instruction and stimulus presentation on the occurrence of averaging responses in impression formation.

Abstract

Replicated N. Anderson's (see record) experiment which found that adding moderately polarized adjectives to highly polarized adjectives decreased the polarity of Ss' responses. One factor of a 2 * 2 factorial design, which followed Anderson in requiring responses at fixed intervals, compared Anderson's instructions with instructions which were similar but did not specify that the adjectives were equally important. The 2nd factor compared Anderson's method of presenting adjectives in isolation with a sentence form of presentation. A 5th condition allowed Ss to proceed at their own rate through the stimuli. Results with 80 male undergraduates replicate Anderson's basic findings. No significant effects due to instructions, format of presentation, or timed vs. untimed presentation were obtained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)