The Impact Of Warmth Perception On The Formation Of Competence Related Impression

In the process of impression formation,people usually describe the characteristics of others according to the two dimensions of warmth and competence.Previous research also found the existence of “the primacy of warmth effect”: warmth judgments were primary.This study focused on whether there was an extended effect of the primacy of warmth,and whether the perception of others’ warmth affected the perception of others’ competence and other impressions.This study referred to previous studies on the role of goal perception in social cognition and text processing,the relevant studies on situational elements in impression formation,and the viewpoints of interest relevance proposed by Carrier et al.(2019).Three consecutive experiments were conducted in this study.In this study,by manipulating the level of goal urgency,people could perceive the warmth of others to form different degrees of closeness to their own interests.Then,this study also set the warmth situational demand and the competence situational demand.This study examined the role of goal urgency and situational demand in the influence of warmth perception on competence perception and other impression perception.In Experiment 1,the trait assessment task was used to examine how the perception of others’ warmth affected the perception of others’ competence and other impressions in the context of high goal urgency and different situational demands.101 participants were selected.In the experiment,a two-factor mixed experimental design of 2(situational demand: warmth,competence)×2(warmth perception of target person: high warmth,low warmth)was used.The results showed that under the condition of high goal urgency,the perceived warmth of others had a positive impact on the perceived competence and other impressions of others,that is,there was an extended effect of the primacy of warmth.When the perceived warmth of others was higher,the perceived competence and other impressions of others were higher,and vice versa.In addition,situational demand moderated the extended effect of the primacy of warmth.When people were perceived to have low level of warmth,the evaluation of competence traits and other impressions in the competence situational demand was higher than that in the warmth situational demand.In Experiment 2,a trait assessment task was used to examine how the perception of others’ warmth affected the perception of others’ competence and other impressions in the context of low goal urgency and different situational demands.98 participants were selected.In the experiment,a two-factor mixed experimental design of 2(situational demand: warmth,competence)×2(warmth perception of target person: high warmth,low warmth)was used.The results showed that under the condition of low goal urgency,the perceived warmth of others had a positive impact on the perceived competence and other impressions of others,that is,there was an extended effect of the primacy of warmth.However,situational demand did not moderate the extended effect of the primacy of warmth.Experiment 3 reversed the order in which situational demand was presented first and then warmth traits were presented.In addition,it was examined whether the participants paid more attention to the impression of the target’s warmth trait and ignored the influence of situational demand when the target’s warmth trait was presented first.152 participants were selected in the experiment.In the experiment,the results of impression rating under high and low goal urgency conditions were considered respectively.Under the conditions of high and low goal urgency,a two-factor mixed experimental design of 2(situational demand: warmth,competence)×2(warmth perception of target person: high warmth,low warmth)was used.The results showed that an extended effect of the primacy of warmth was still found,and When people were perceived to have low level of warmth under low goal urgency,the evaluation of competence traits in the warmth situational demand was higher than that in the competence situational demand.To sum up,this study through three experiments found that when the warmth of others related to its own interests,the perceived warmth of others had a positive impact on the perceived competence and other impressions of others,that is,there was an extended effect of the primacy of warmth.In addition,people could evaluate the impression of others according to the balance between the extended effect of the primacy of warmth and the situational demand under different goal urgency.