Forming Impressions of Personality: An Experimental Critique

Asch\u27s recent text (2) emphasizes his experiment on the formation of impressions (1). Asch read seven words to two groups of subjects. The fourth word for Group A was warm and the fourth for Group B was cold. The order of the words for both groups was: intelligent, skillful, industrious, warm (cold), determined, practical, cautious. After the list had been read, subjects were instructed to choose the more appropriate word from each of 18 pairs of antonyms. The percentage of agreement with the positive word of each pair of antonyms was determined for both groups. Groups A and B differed on ten pairs of words but not on the other eight. Asch claims that the results from the ten pairs which differ support his belief that a change in one of the seven stimulus words produces differential choices by the two groups of subjects. Two conditions must be met in order to attribute differences between Groups A and B to subjects\u27 perceptions. (a) Each of the seven stimulus words must be equally likely to arouse the 18 (or 10) positive response words. (b) Each of the positive response words must be independent of the stimulus words