Some relationships between social inference, cognitive balance, and change in impression

Investigated how people make judgments of the type, "Bill likes Pete. How likely is it that Bill humiliates Pete?" in a study with 7 male and 6 female college students. Several different indices of "consistency" were used in evaluating the hypothesis that acts which are consistent with dispositions attributed to the actor will be judged as likely to occur. Likelihood judgments were best predicted by judgments of the overall similarity between a person who does the given act and a person who does both the given and the inferred act. Eg, Ei, and Egi, respectively, are used to refer to the evaluation of a person who does the given act, the inferred act, and both the given and the inferred act. Listed in their order of importance in accounting for likelihood judgments, 2 "balance" indices, EgEi and sign (EgEi), and 2 discrepancy indices, !Eg-Ei! and !Eg-Egi! were studied. Analogs of these indices based on activity and potency judgments did not substantially improve prediction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1973 American Psychological Association.

Duke Scholars

Author Gregory W. Fischer Fuqua School of Business