The Self in Impression Formation: Trait Centrality and Social Perception

A pretest was used to identify whether the traits of honesty or intelligence were either central or peripheral to individual subjects' self-conceptions. In a subsequent impression formation task, these subjects' impressions of others were influenced by both subject trait centrality and judgment dimension. When presented with target descriptions containing both positive and negative behaviors, the impression judgments of subjects for whom the trait of honesty was central were more influenced by dishonest behaviors than subjects for whom the trait of honesty was peripheral, and the impression judgments of subjects for whom the trait of in telligence was central were more influenced by intelligent behaviors than subjects for whom the trait of intelligence was peripheral. Other data suggest that these effects were due to the fact that centrality affected the influence of negative cues on impressions: Trait -central subjects rated dishonest targets as more dishonest than trait -peripheral subjects, but trait -central subjects rated stupid targets as less stupid than trait -peripheral subjects. The implications of the obtained results for potential motivational and cognitive mediators of the impact of the self on impressions of others are discussed. © 1993 Academic Press, Inc.