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Attention Allocation and Impression Formation

University of Michigan

Jill G. Klein

University of Michigan

William von Hippel

Ohio State University

An experiment examined the attention allocation strategies that perceivers employ when they are confronted with expectancy-relevant information and the mediating roles that these strategies play in impression formation. A dichotic listening task was used to measure subjects' attention allocation strategies. Subjects monitored a control child in one ear, while in the other ear they heard a target child perform in a manner that was either initially consistent or inconsistent with their expectations. They then evaluated the target on a number of dimensions. Subjects who received initially inconsistent information from the target allocated more attention to him and became more cognitively complex in their final evaluations than subjects who received initially consistent information. Furthermore, the greater attention paid by these subjects led them to become more moderate in their evaluations of the target. The results are discussed in light of the person perception literature.

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