Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to test the Dual-Aspect Model in Person-Evaluation Dimension(Cho, 1982a) in the context of the negativity effects in impression formation. For this purpose, two related experiments, in which the shortcomings of the previous study(Cho & Kim, 1987) were corrected, were conducted using college students as subjects. In Erperiment I, stimulus persons supposed to possess equal numbers) (one or two) of positive and negative traits were presented to two groups of subjects to form impressions in two different situations : one group in the information-dependent-situation and the other group in the effect-dependent-situation. The main dependent variables were the negativity effects of two different traits, NIs(negative intellectual traits) and NSs(negative social traits), in two dependent-situations. The results showed that the negativity effects of NIs were higher than those of NSs in the information-dependent-situation, while the negativity effects of NSs were higher than those of NIs in the effect-dependent-situation. In Experiment II, the same stimulus persons from the first experiment were presentd to two groups to form impressions in two different dimensions : one group in the good-bad dimension(favorability dimension) and the other group in the like-dislike dimension{likability dimension). The main dependent variables of this experiment were, as in the first one, the negativity effects of NIs and NSs in two impression-dimensions. It was found from this experiment that the negativity effects of NIs and NSs were higher than those of the others in the favorability dimension and the likability dimension respectively. These results suggest that the Dual-Aspect Model in Person-Evaluation Dimension(Cho, 1982a) is empirically supported also in experiments dealing with negativity effects over again(Cho & Kim, 1987 : Cho, 1988a, the present study) as well as in other experiments of impression-integration(Cho, 1982b, 1983) and of person-memory(Cho, 1984, 1985, 1986).