Intuition model
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concerned with global perception - how we form overall impressions - we try to perceive people as whole entities and not as a collection of separate traits / characteristics.

Asch(1946) presented two groups of subjects each with a (stimulus) list of adjectives, only difference was one contained warm and the other contained cold.

Response lists of groups displayed significant differences: warm group saw the character as generous, sociable, popular; cold group saw character as  opposite.

Conclusion: warm-cold represented central dimension (evaluative, implying like/ dislike etc.) others represented peripheral dimensions.

Kelly expanded on this.

Halo effect:

If a person has one salient (available)good trait, his other characteristics are likely to be judged by others as better than they really are. ( e.g. handsome men and women tend to be rated higher on intelligence, athletic prowess, sense of humour etc.); if we are told that a particular favourable characteristic is held by a person then we tend to attribute them with other favourable characteristics (converse is also true)

This illustrates two principles of perception:

        like to see people as consistent and one-dimensional

        certain groups of traits seem to belong together

subjects to learn list of words (one group included adventurous, self-confident, independent, persistent the other group included reckless, conceited, stubborn, aloof) - all read a short story about a man - told it had nothing to do with previously presented words - BUT those who had learned the favourable adjectives thought much better of the man.(Higgins, Roles and Jones - Category accessibility and impression formation, 1977)

in one study same exam scripts rewritten twice - once in good handwriting, once in bad handwriting - examiners told to disregard the handwriting -  on average scripts in god handwriting received higher marks.(Nisbett and Wilson 1977)

Other Notes in this Category

1. Attitudes
2. Attitudes and Behaviour
3. Attribution
4. Conformity
5. Crowds and Territoriality
6. Goffman - Symbolic Interactionist
7. Impression Formation
8. Inference Model
9. Intuition model
10. Is there a conformity personality?
11. Obedience
12. Persuasion
13. Prejudice
14. Self Concept
15. Self-attribution processes
16. Social Influence
17. Stereotypes and Stereotyping
18. The Primacy-Recency effect
19. Zimbardo

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