"Do I Know You?": The Role of Significant Others in General Social Perception

This research used an idiographic method to examine the proposition that significant others are mentally represented as well-organized person categories that can influence social perception even more than representations of nonsignificant others, stereotypes, or traits. Together, Studies 1 and 2 sho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 1990-09, Vol.59 (3), p.384-399
Main Authors: Andersen, Susan M, Cole, Steve W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive Processes
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Individuation
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Mental Recall
Partners
Perception of others
Perceptions
Personality
Personality Traits
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Significant Others
Social Environment
Social interactions. Communication. Group processes
Social Perception
Social psychology
Social research
Stereotyped Attitudes
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Description
Summary:This research used an idiographic method to examine the proposition that significant others are mentally represented as well-organized person categories that can influence social perception even more than representations of nonsignificant others, stereotypes, or traits. Together, Studies 1 and 2 showed that significant-other representations are richer, more distinctive, and more cognitively accessible than the other categories. Study 3 replicated the accessibility data and gauged inferential power by indirectly activating each category in a learning trial about a fictional person and then testing recognition memory. The results showed that participants made more category-consistent false-positive errors about targets who activated significant others vs. any other category. This constitutes the first experimental demonstration of transference and has implications both for social categorization and for basic personality processes.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.59.3.384