Perceiver Effects in First Impressions Reflect Generalized Stereotypes: Evidence of Consistency Across Time, Groups, and Contexts

Rau, Richard; DesJardins, Nicole M. Lawless; Niemeyer, Lisa Maria; Back, Mitja D.; Srivastava, Sanjay; Nestler, Steffen

doi:10.1177/19485506211066710

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Our main hypotheses concerned the global positivity of perceiver effects across various traits rather than trait-specific perceiver effects, which are less stable across situations (Rau, Lawless DesJardins, et al, 2022). However, it is conceivable that specifically viewing others as fair-minded and sympathetic (independently of how globally positive or negative others are viewed) might affect prosocial behavior when one depends on others' prosociality.…”

Section: The Present Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

Which measures of beliefs about others’ prosociality predict prosocial behavior in economic games?

Schäpermeier,

Thielmann,

Rau

2024

Preprint

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Prosocial behavior often entails the possibility to be exploited by other people. Correspondingly, situations affording prosocial behavior are often characterized by one’s dependence on others’ unknown behavior. In such situations, actors will arguably assess the risk of being taken advantage of by others before making a decision. Thus, prosocial behavior might be shaped by how prosocial actors generally believe others to be (e.g., trustworthy vs. exploitative). However, a recent investigation found no consistent evidence that perceiver effects, which describe interindividual differences in judging others’ personality in first impressions and thus capture beliefs about others’ prosociality, predict prosocial behavior (Rau et al., 2020). We replicate and extend these findings by pursuing two approaches to examine the influence of beliefs about others’ prosociality on behavior in four behavioral games (public goods game, trust game as trustor and trustee, mind game), two of which involve dependence on others under uncertainty. In our main study (N = 962), perceiver effects failed to predict prosocial behavior. This was confirmed by a meta-analysis of all studies that investigated this relation, providing strong evidence against the predictive validity of perceiver effects for behavior in economic games. In a follow-up analysis, generalized expectations (as measured by generalized trust) predicted prosocial behavior in one of the two relevant games while controlling for honesty-humility, which we interpret as tentative evidence for the role of generalized expectations in prosocial behavior in economic games. We contemplate that the discrepancy between perceiver effects and generalized expectations as measures of beliefs about others’ prosociality might be attributable to their implicit vs. explicit nature and suggest future research to explore whether perceiver effects predict more implicit measures of prosocial behavior.

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Section: The Present Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

Which measures of beliefs about others’ prosociality predict prosocial behavior in economic games?

Schäpermeier,

Thielmann,

Rau

2024

Preprint

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“…Perceiver effects seem to be a stable, individual difference across contexts (Rau, Lawless et al, 2022) and insensitive to environmental factors (Xie et al, 2022). Ideally, future work will test if within-person variability in impressions is also consistent across contexts.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Differences in Dissimilation: Do Some People Make More Distinctions Among Targets’ Personalities than Others?

Carlson,

Elsaadawy,

Pringle

et al. 2023

Preprint

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People differ in how positively they tend to see others’ traits, but people might also differ in how strongly they apply their perceptual styles (Kenny et al., 2023). In two studies (Ns = 355, 303), the current research explores individual differences in how variable people’s first impressions are across targets (i.e., within-person variability), how and why these differences emerge, and who varies more in their judgments of others. Participants described themselves on personality measures and rated 30 (Study 1) or 90 (Study 2) targets on Big Five traits. Using the extended Social Relations Model (eSRM), results suggest that within-person variability in impressions is consistent across trait ratings. People lower in extraversion, narcissism and self-esteem tended to make distinctions across targets’ Big Five traits that were more consistent with other perceivers (sensitivity). Further, some people more than others tended to consistently make unique distinctions among targets (differentiation), and preliminary evidence suggests these people might be higher in social anxiety and lower in self-esteem and emotional stability. Overall then, a more complete account of person perception should consider individual differences in how variable people’s impressions are of others.

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“…Another shortcoming of many existing studies on accuracy concerns the sampling of participants. The common study design is a so-called Round Robin where participants are part of a group, usually comprising between 4 and 10 individuals, in which everyone rates everyone else (Kenny, 1994), usually after having interacted face-to-face with them in some sort of icebreaking game or problem solving task (e.g., Anderson & Kilduff, 2009;Rau et al, 2022;Srivastava et al, 2010) or in a series of dyadic "speed-dates" (e.g., Carlson, 2016;Elsaadawy et al, 2021;Human et al, 2019). This design has the great advantage of being statistically efficient (since every participant acts both as a perceiver and as a target) and highly ecologically valid (since judgments are based on actual, personal interactions).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A large-scale, gamified online assessment of first impressions: The Who Knows project

Rau,

Grosz,

Back

2023

Preprint

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Interpersonal judgments play a central role in human social interactions, influencing decisions ranging from friendships to presidential elections. Despite extensive research on the accuracy of these judgments, an overreliance on broad personality traits and subjective judgments as criteria for accuracy has hindered progress in this area. Further, most individuals involved in past studies (either as judges or targets) came from ad-hoc student samples which hampers generalizability. This paper introduces Who Knows (https://whoknows.uni-muenster.de), an innovative smartphone application designed to address these limitations. Who Knows was developed with the aim to create a comprehensive and reliable database for examining first impressions. It utilizes a gamified approach where users judge personality-related characteristics of strangers based on short video introductions. Building on a realistic approach to accuracy, the project incorporates multifaceted criteria to evaluate judgments, going beyond traditional self-other agreement. Additionally, the app draws on a large pool of highly specific and heterogenous items and allows users to judge a diverse array of targets on their smartphones. The app's design prioritizes user engagement through a responsive interface, feedback mechanisms, and gamification elements, enhancing their motivation to provide judgments. The Who Knows project is ongoing and promises to shed new light on interpersonal perception and impression formation by offering a vast dataset with diverse items and participants. Researchers are encouraged to access this valuable resource for a wide range of empirical inquiries and to contribute to the project by submitting items or software features to be included in future versions of the app.

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Perceiver Effects in First Impressions Reflect Generalized Stereotypes: Evidence of Consistency Across Time, Groups, and Contexts

Cited by 7 publications

References 27 publications

Which measures of beliefs about others’ prosociality predict prosocial behavior in economic games?

Which measures of beliefs about others’ prosociality predict prosocial behavior in economic games?

Individual Differences in Dissimilation: Do Some People Make More Distinctions Among Targets’ Personalities than Others?

A large-scale, gamified online assessment of first impressions: The Who Knows project

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