On the basis of previous research, the authors hypothesize that (a) person descriptive terms can be organized into the broad dimensions of agency and communion of which communion is the primary one; (b) the main distinction between these dimensions pertains to their profitability for the self (agency) vs. for other persons (communion); hence, agency is more desirable and important in the self-perspective, and communion is more desirable and important in the other-perspective; (c) self-other outcome dependency increases importance of another person's agency. Study 1 showed that a large number of trait names can be reduced to these broad dimensions, that communion comprises more item variance, and that agency is predicted by self-profitability and communion by other-profitability. Studies 2 and 3 showed that agency is more relevant and desired for self, and communion is more relevant and desired for others. Study 4 showed that agency is more important in a close friend than an unrelated peer, and this difference is completely mediated by the perceived outcome dependency.

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Based on the notion that approach-avoidance underlies impression formation processes and that approach-avoidance is more directly based on appraisals of others' morality (M) than competence (C), we hypothesized that M-related information played a more important role at various phases of global impression formation than C-related information on target persons. In four studies (N = 342 university students), we predicted and found that (a) M traits showed a higher chronic accessibility than C traits; (b) when gathering information to formulate a global impression, perceivers were more interested in M traits than C traits; (c) global impressions of real persons were better predicted from M trait ascriptions than C trait ascriptions, and (d) positivity-negativity of impressions of fictitious persons was decided mainly by the M content of their behavior, whereas C information served as a weak modifier of impression intensity. The dominance of M traits over C traits was more pronounced for female perceivers than for male perceivers.