Question

Describe the important factors that influence impression formation.

Answer 1

Impression formation is a process by which impression about others is converting into more or less induring cognitions or thoughts about them.In short, impression formation is a process through which we draw quick conclusion/ inferences regarding others.

Factors facilitating Impression Formation :-

• Nature of the phenomena (familiar or unfamiliar).
• Personality traits of the perceiver.
• Social schemas stored in the mind of perceiver.
• Situational factors.

The process of impression formation consists of the following three sub-processes :-

• Selection :- We take into account only some bits of information about the target person.
• Organization :- the selected information is combined in a systematic way.
• Inference :- We draw a conclusion about what kind of person the target is.

Some specific qualities, that influence impression formation, are :-

• The information presented first has a stronger effect than the information presented at the end. This is called the primacy effect.
• We have a tendency to think that a target person who has one set of positive qualities must also be having other specific positives that are associated with first set. This is known as halo effect, e.g., if we think that a person is ‘tidy’ then we are likely to think that this person must also be hard/working.
• Whatever information comes at the end may have a stronger influence on impression formation. This is known as the recency effect.