Asch, Solomon (1907–1996)

Impression Formation

Asch's research was based on German Gestalt theory, which can be translated as the theory of the “whole.” According to Gestalt theory, when we see a face, we do not first perceive one eye, then the other eye, then the mouth, and so on. Instead, we immediately see the entire face (a gestalt), and this face is more than the sum of its parts (e.g., if an eye and the mouth changed places, we would perceive a very different face).

Asch was not the first psychologist to be interested in how people perceive others, but his approach was radically different from that of previous researchers. Earlier scholars were interested primarily in percetual accuracy—whether people could accurately guess the personalities of other individuals, whereas Asch was more interested in process—in learning how people form impressions of others. He conducted research designed to answer three questions about impression formation, which were derived from Gestalt theory. First, when people receive items of information about an individual, do they form a coherent and unified impression of that individual? Second, do some items of information organize the overall impression? And third, do early items influence how later items are interpreted?

Fundamental Questions

To answer his first question, Asch gave participants the following list of traits characterizing a fictitious “person X”: intelligent, a hardworker, skillful, warm, determined, practical, and cautious. Participants then wrote a sketch of person X and answered questions about other characteristics (e.g., generous, friendly) of that person. Asch found that participants formed a coherent and positive impression of person X based on the traits they were given.

To answer his second question, Asch gave participants another list of traits with a single change: warm was replaced by cold. This time participants formed a negative impression of person X. When Asch replaced the traits warm and cold with blunt and polite, nothing happened. Thus, in regard to his second question, Asch found that certain traits (warm and cold) were central for organizing participants' impressions of person X, whereas other traits (blunt and polite) were not.

To answer his third question, Asch gave participants one of two lists in which the order of the traits was reversed (either intelligent, hardworker, impulsive, critical, envious or envious, critical, impulsive, hardworker, intelligent). He found that participants' impressions of person X were more favorable when they received the first list than the second, revealing a primacy effect in which early traits in the list guided participants' interpretation [Page 29]of later traits (e.g., impulsive may be understood to mean spontaneous in the first list and aggressive in the second list).

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