Change of meaning processes in impression formation

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Abstract
Subjects formed an impression of an unknown other described by the traits intelligent, clean, efficient, level‐headed, punctual, neat, ambitious, and self‐disciplined. Even though each of these traits is positive in normative evaluation, an overall negative evaluation of the stimulus person resulted. However, when two traits highly discrepant from the descriptive meaning of these eight traits (easy‐going and sensitive) were substituted for the two highest evaluated traits, an overall positive evaluation resulted. These and related results provide convincing evidence for a change of meaning model in comparison to a weighted averaging model of impression formation. In a subsidiary investigation support for the weighted averaging position was shown to depend on the standard experimental procedure used in impression formation research in which subjects make judgments of a large number of trait sets.

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