The Warm-Cold Variable and First Impressions

First impressions of people are like a Polaroid picture- an image of an individual that develops immediately and never completely disappears. First impressions of people are filled with emotions that can often overwhelm us. In one study, participants watched a 20-to 32-second video clip of job applicants meeting an interviewer. The participants were asked to rate the applicants on personality traits, which included likeability and confidence. The participants' evaluation of applicants closely matched trained interviewers who talked to each applicant for 20 minutes or more. Research showed that the brain generates a complete picture of first impressions by using all the external cues the new person gave off. The first cue we look for in a new person is a smile. In aboutthree seconds, an individual can draw a conclusion about a new person they met. Humans have the ability to quickly and accurately determine if a new person will help orhurt them because quick judgments were important in early times for survival. First impressions and emotions are created in the most primitive part of the brain. This is whyfirst impressions are filled with emotions (Flora, 2004).

Our first impressions are not only programmed into us, but we learn to judge others based on stereotypes. Implicit attitudes also play a role in forming first impressions. Research has shown that if an angry individual met someone of a different race or religion, they were more likely to get a negative first impression of the person. Anger invoked a prejudice reaction. Furthermore, appearance affects our firstimpressions of a person. For instance, people with a "baby face" are often perceived asnaïve and trustworthy. This occurs because humans are programmed to see an infant asinnocent. In addition, attractive individuals are seen as healthier than an average looking person (Flora, 2004).

Psychologists define automatic thinking as an unconscious process that requires minimal amounts of effort and planning. Automatic thinking allows us to better comprehend a new situation by using past experiences to interpret the new situation. An impression of an individual is formed by using categories or schemas. People use schemas to mentally organize information about the social environment. Schemas influence the information we think about, notice and remember. Furthermore, schemas help us fill in the blanks in our knowledge. This is especially true if the situation is ambiguous and can be interpreted in multiple ways. As long as schemas are accurate, they are very useful in organizing and interpreting ambiguous situations (Aronson,Wilson & Akert, 2005).

Macrae and Bodenhausen (2001) reviewed previous studies to examine the idea of automaticity activating categories to form impressions of people. In order to makesense of the social world, people construct and utilize categories to simplify the process of forming impressions. Impressions of people are usually directed by past experiences and knowledge about the social environment. Categories or stereotypes are often used in

the person perception process, but categories sometimes lead to inaccurate impressions of others. Instead of basing impressions on the unique qualities of an individual, schemas influence how we evaluate and react towards people. The use of categories, such as gender or age, to evaluate others helps reduce the amount of information that needs to br processed.

According to the dual coding theory, verbally and conceptually conveying,through numbers or words, a stimulus person's age does not effect how the person will be evaluated. However, age conveyed non-verbally and objectively, through the use of pictures, does effect how the person will be evaluated. In experiment 1, participants were given a photograph of the stimulus person. They were then asked to determine if the

individual was a potential job applicant. In experiment 2, the only difference between experiments one and two was that participants received a description along with a picture. In one condition, a picture was of a 25 year old described as youthful. In the second condition, the picture was of a 52 year old described as middle-age. In the third condition, the picture was of a 73 year old described as elderly. Each participant then was instructed to rate the stimulus person on four sets of adjectives on a 1-7 scale. The four adjective sets were negative-positive, good-bad, pleasant-unpleasant, and worthless-valuable. The results supported the dual coding theory (Stolte, 1996).

Otting (2004) contended that first impressions are sometimes inaccurate and that our judgments of an individual should be based on more evidence. In fact, 4 out of 5 decisions to hire an applicant occurred in the first 10 minutes of the interview. For this reason, the decision process may be solely based on how the person was dressed or a unconscious stereotype about the person. First impressions were an important factor in

hiring decisions because a good first impression led the interviewer to perceive that person as answering the questions better. The opposite was true for a bad first impression. Many times interviewers used their first impressions to confirm their original impression of the person even if it was inaccurate. After the interviewer formed the impression, other information about the applicant was overlooked.

Research has shown that first impressions are based on facial expressions, posture, eye contact and body language. Attractive applicants were usually perceived as being highly intelligent, having a better personality, more poised and honest. However, personality traits do not solely determine how successful the person will be at the job. While personality traits should be considered, the main focus should be on the professional qualifications of the individual. One way to avoid hiring decisions based on first impressions is to be aware that first impressions are influencing your decision (Otting, 2004).

The researchers conducted a study to investigate how self-regulation affects the ability of an interviewer to form an accurate impression of a job applicant. In order to understand self-regulatory behaviors, it was necessary to examine how impressions are formed. The three processes people use to form impressions are characterization, categorization and reexamination of inaccurate impressions. The researchers hypothesized that observers and interviewers would not differ in remembering situational information, but interviewers would be less likely to modify inaccurate impressions (Nordstrom, Hall & Bartels, 1998).

Participants received an information packet about the job applicant and were instructed to evaluate them for a teaching position. Participants were told to base their hiring decision on personality ratings, hiring recommendations and to propose a salary. Next, participants either interviewed or observed the job applicant. Half of the participants observed an interview that confirmed the information they received earlier,

while the other half watched an interview that disconfirmed the information. Participants then rated the job applicant again. The results showed that interviewers were less likely to modify inaccurate impressions compared to observers (Nordstrom et al., 1998).

Sherman and Klein (1994) conducted an experiment to examine how impressions of people develop as the number of behavioral experiences increased. In experiment 1, the researchers investigated how the mental representations of impressions were altered as the number of experiences increased. Participants either read a small or large number of behavioral information about an individual. Participants then were instructed to determine whether the trait, which was either kindness or intelligence, defined or described the individual. Next, they had to recall a behavior that described the trait. In experiment 2, the researchers wanted to investigate how impressions continued to develop over time.

The results demonstrated that mentally representing impressions of personality relied on the amount of experience the person had with the individual. At low levels of experience, impressions about the individual were formed by retrieving and summarizing behaviors from memory. At higher levels of experience, information to form impressions was retrieved independently. Experiment 2 indicated that impressions of people were constantly reevaluated and changed as behavioral experiences increased. As new behaviors were encoded, the information about the behavior was updated (Sherman & Klein, 1994).

Kelley (1950) conducted a study to examine the stability of early judgments, their antecedents, and how these judgments related to the behavior of the individual who made the judgment. In order to investigate first impressions, the researcher used the warm-cold variable. The second purpose of this study was to investigate how first impressions of the stimulus person effects interaction with the stimulus person.

Prior to the arrival of the stimulus person, the experimenter told a college economics class that a guest speaker would be teaching class today. At the end of class, each student was told that they would need to fill out forms about him. Next, two biographical notes were passed out to the class. The two biographical notes were exactly

the same except one note described him as "warm," and the other note described him as being a "cold" person. All of participants were unaware that there were two different biographical notes. The stimulus person then led a class discussion. At this time, the experimenter recorded how many times each student participated in the discussion. Participants then wrote a free description of him and rated him on a set of 15 rating scales (Kelley, 1950).

The results indicated that participants who received the "warm" description rated the individual more favorably than participants given a "cold" description. Warm participants rated the speaker as more humane, humorous, considerate, informal, sociable, better natured and popular compared to cold participants. For the free description of him, warm participants attributed more nervousness, sincerity and industriousness to the stimulus person. Furthermore, warm subjects participated more than the cold subjects in the discussion. Only 32% of the cold subjects participated in the discussion, while 56% of warm subjects participated (Kelley, 1950).

Widmeyer and Loy (1988) investigated the effects of Kelley's "warm-cold"variable on first impressions of an individual and ability to teach. The study was set up to determine if the "warm-cold" variable could be replicated in a class 35 years later. In addition, the researchers wanted to see if the discipline of the professor and the gender of the participants affected first impressions of the speaker. Prior to the arrival of the stimulus person, the experimenter told the class that a guest lecturer would be teaching today. Half of the participants received a description that speaker was a "warm" person, while the other half received a description that he was a "cold" person. Also, half of the participants in each group were told that the speaker was a physical education professor and half were told that the speaker was social psychology professor. Next, the stimulusperson led a 40-minute discussion. Participants were then asked to rate him on a set of 17 rating scales and write a free description of his personality and ability to teach.

The results demonstrated that there were no statistically significant differences for gender of the participants or discipline of the professor. However, there was a statistically significant difference regarding the "warm-cold" variable. For personality, warm participants rated him as a more effective teacher, more sociable, humorous, humane and less irritable, ruthless and formal. For ability to teach, warm participants rated him as more interesting, intelligent, considerate and knowledgeable about the topic (Widmeyer& Loy, 1988).

Overall, research has supported the warm-cold variable. Participants who received the "warm" description rated the individual more favorably than those who received the "cold" description.

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M., 2005. Social psychology (5^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.

Flora, C. (2004). The once-over: Can you trust first impressions? Psychology Today, 37, 60- 62.

Kelley, H. H. (1950). The warm-cold variable in first impressions of persons. Journal of Personality Psychology, 18, 431- 439.

Macrae, C. N., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2001). Social cognition: Categorical personperception. The British Journal of Psychology, 92, 239-255.

Nordstrom, C. R., Hall, R. J., & Bartels, L. K. (1998). First impressions versus goodimpressions: The effect of self-regulation on interview evaluations. The Journal of Psychology, 132, 477- 491.

Otting, L. G. (2004). Don't rush to judgment. HR Magazine, 49, 95-98.

Sherman, J. W., & Klein, S. B. (1994). Development and representation of personalityimpressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 972-983.

Stolte, J. F. (1996). Evaluation of persons of varying ages. The Journal of Social Psychology, 136, 305-309.

Widmeyer, W. N., & Loy, J. W. (1988). When you're hot, you're hot! Warm-cold effectsin first impressions of persons and teaching effectiveness. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 118-121.