The person-positivity bias.

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Abstract
A "person-positivity bias" is proposed such that attitude objects are evaluated more favorably the more they resemble individual humans. Because perceived similarity should increase liking, individuals should attract more favorable evaluations than should less personal attitude objects, such as inanimate objects or even aggregated or grouped versions of the same persons. Findings from 11 studies with undergraduate Ss support this view. Individuals were overwhelmingly evaluated favorably. Personal versions of a given attitude object were evaluated more favorably than impersonal versions of it. Individual persons, as wholes, were evaluated more favorably than were their specific attributes. Individuals were evaluated more favorably than were the same individuals in aggregates or groups. Attitudes toward groups were cognitively compartmentalized from attitudes toward individual group members. Perceivers tended to underestimate the positivity of their own and others' attitudes toward individual persons. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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