Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Impression formation is the process by which individuals perceive, organize, and ultimately integrate information to form unified and coherent situated impressions of others. Internalized expectations for situated events condition what information individuals deem is important and worthy of their attention. Further, these expectations condition how individuals interpret this information. In face-to-face interaction, social cues including others' physical appearance, verbal and non-verbal behavior, and the social setting in which the exchange takes place combine with information in perceivers' memories to influence the ways in which they initially form impressions of others and themselves. These initial impressions serve as the basis for subsequent attributions. Key findings regarding impression formation come from a variety of theoretical literatures. Most notable are social cognition theories, expectation states theory, and affect control theory. Specifically, research in social cognition provides explanations of general information gathering and processing, expectation states theory offers additional insights with regard to information integration, while affect control theory highlights the importance of affective meanings to the process of impression formation and provides a testable mathematical calculus designed to predict its outcomes. Once raw information about a social object ... log in or subscribe to read full text