Getting to know you: The effects of familiarity and time on social perception

A new direction in social perception research is developed. The present research explored the impact of familiarity and time on social perception processes based on cognitive neuroscience models, social categorization models, and memory consolidation constructs. Familiarity was manipulated within an exposure task and time was manipulated by testing participants both 2-6 hr and 48 hr after the exposure task. Experiment 1 investigated the influence of familiarity and time on the argument of the automaticity of social categorization and associated stereotypes by testing the argument with two separate tasks. Experiment 1a tested the influence of familiarity and time on associated stereotypes and found that, with familiarity and time, participants responded to individualizing information faster than to stereotypic information. Experiment 1b tested the influence of familiarity and time on social categorization and found further support for the automaticity of social categorization. Experiment 2 further investigated the influence of familiarity and time on social perception by embedding cognitive loads within a categorization task. Experiment 2 found little support for the influence of familiarity and time on social categorization and cognitive loads. The current research is discussed for its relevance to models of social perception