Dependent Measures
After seeing each interview, all subjects were asked,
"How much do you think you would like this
teacher?," and were asked to rate him on an 8-point
scale ranging from "like extremely" to "dislike extremely."
The questionnaire then read: "Listed below
are some characteristics of the teacher you saw.
Please indicate how you think you would feel about
each of the characteristics if you were to take a
course from the teacher" The characteristics included
physical appearance, mannerisms, and for the
Belgian instructor, accent. The subjects rated each
characteristic on the scale below:
— extremely appealing
— very appealing
— somewhat appealing
— slightly appealing
— slightly irritating
— somewhat irritating
— very irritating
— extremely irritating
In addition, 34 subjects were told that the investigators
were interested in knowing "how much, if at
all, your liking for the teacher influenced the ratings
you just made." The subjects indicated their answers
on scales of the following type:
My liking for the teacher caused me to rate his
physical appearance:
much higher
higher
slightly higher
had no effect
slightly lower
lower
much lower
Another 56 subjects were asked to indicate "how
much, if at all, the characteristics you just rated influenced
your liking of the teacher." The subjects
indicated their answers on scales of the following
type:
Physical appearance made me like him:
much more
more
slightly more
had no effect
slightly less
less
much less
After responding to the questionnaire, the subjects
were quizzed intensively about their reactions to the
videotapes and to the questionnaire items, and then
were debriefed.
Results
The results demonstrate that global assessment
of a person can powerfully alter evaluations
of particular attributes. That is, this is
the case if one is willing to make the assumption
that the attributes manifested by the
confederate were in fact constant across experimental
conditions. Although this is a reasonable
assumption, it is by no means indisputable.
It might have been the case, for
example, that the teacher smiled a lot in his
warm guise, thus making his appearance more
appealing and/or frowned a lot in his cold
guise, thus making it less appealing. Similarly,
his mannerisms, both physical and verbal,
might have differed when he was playing the
two roles. It is even conceivable that his accent
might have been less pronounced and
harsh when he was playing the warm role
than when playing the cold role.
In order to demonstrate that the teacher's
physical appearance did not in fact differ
across the two conditions, a follow-up study
was conducted with 34 subjects from the same
introductory psychology pool. These subjects
were shown the interviews minus the audio
portions (purportedly for a study of nonverbal
communication) and were then asked to rate
the physical appearance of the teacher, as well
as his mannerisms. The subjects shown the
warm version rated the teacher's physical appearance
and mannerisms only trivially higher
than the subjects shown the cold version (for
both, t < 1). This indicates that the physical
appearance and nonverbal mannerisms of the
teacher did not in fact differ across conditions.
Thus, it can be assumed that the ratings of
physical appearance for the original subjects
differed solely because of the global affective
difference induced by the audio portion of the
interview.