Abstract

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the Dual-Aspect Model in Person-Evaluation Dimension which was proposed by the present author(Cho, 1982) by examining the developmental changes of person-evaluation categories and impression judgment in two different age groups. For this purpose, three related experiments were conducted using 8th and 11th graders as subjects. In Experiment I, 55 male subjects in each age group were asked to evaluate 53 adjectives which describe personality traits according to the importance-values in forming impression of others in two different contexts: one being the information-dependent-situation and the other being effect-dependent situation. The results showed that, for the 8th grade group, 18 words were identified to describe intellectual traits and 15 words to describe affective traits while, for the 11th grade group, 19 words and 15 words respectively. The words identified as intellectual and affective traits by the two age groups were almost identical. In Experiment II, a stimulus person supposed to possess 20 traits (10 intellectual and 10 affective) was presented to two age groups with the schema to form impressions in the information dependent-situation and in effect-dependent-situation. The main dependent variables were the amount of words in each trait category by free recall and the scores gained in impression judgment. The important results found in the second experiment were as follows: (1) The two age groups differed in their response of free recall. The 11th graders recalled words associated with intellectual traits far more than those associated with affective traits in the information-dependent-situation while they recalled words associated with the affective traits better in the effect-dependent-situation. However, the 8th graders recalled words associated with affective traits better in both situations. (2) The two age groups were different in the scores of their impression judgment. In the 11th grade group, the impressions formed in the information-dependent-situation were extreme compared with the effect-dependent-situation. However, in 8th grade group, the impressions formed in both situations ware identical. In Experiment III, the same stimulus person from the Experiment II was presented to the groups with the schema to form impressions in two dimensions: the good-bad dimension (favorability dimension) and the like-dislike dimension (likability dimension). The dependent measures of the third experiment were, as in the second experiment, the amount of words by free recall and the scores gained in the impression judgment. The main results obtained from this experiment were identical with those from the Experiment II. These results suggest that the present author's Dual-Aspect Model in Person-Evaluation Dimension could be applied successfully to the l1th grade students but not to the 8th grade students. Therefore, from the present study it can be concluded that the two person-evaluation dimensions (favorability dimension and likability dimension) are differentiated in the 11th grade students but not in the 8th grade students.