Premium
Inferring interpersonal attitudes: Hypotheses and the information‐gathering process
Author(s) -
Wojciszke Bogdan
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2420240307
Subject(s) - psychology , attractiveness , trait , social psychology , interpersonal communication , physical attractiveness , interpersonal attraction , attraction , linguistics , philosophy , computer science , psychoanalysis , programming language
In two experiments subjects inferred perceivers attitudes toward target girls of varied physical attractiveness. Subjects could select traits from a provided list and ask whether the perceiver ascribed to the target each of those traits. After each question they received feedback about the perceiver s trait ascriptions. The nature of the traits being asked for was analysed. It was predicted and found that subjects searched for information on ascriptions of extremely rather than mildly evaluative traits (the diagnosing strategy) and for ascrrptions of traits highly probable under implicit hypotheses based on the target's attractiveness (desirable traits when the target was attractive but undesirable ones when she was unattractive — the positive‐test strategy) Experiment 2 also showed that attractiveness‐based hypotheses governed information gathering only in an initial phase of this process and were later replaced by newly developed hypotheses based on the feedback information. Implications of these findings for information gathering in general, and for inferring interpersonal attitudes in particular were discussed.