Abstract
A within-subjects design was used to study the impression formation of groups that were held constant in length of description, but differed in the order of presentation of the desirable and undesirable members and in the number of members. The procedure followed closely that of previous person impression-formation studies (Anderson, 1972). A significant primacy effect was found when one adjective was used to describe each member, but a significant recency effect was found when three adjectives were used to describe each member. It was suggested that if a reasonable amount of information is given for each member of a group, then for a more desirable impression to be formed overall, the most desirable members should be presented last. This suggestion is the opposite of that which has been proposed to maximize the desirability of an individual person.
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Lyons, G., Bjork, R. A., & Riskey, D. Group impression formation. Manuscript in preparation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1978.
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Strange, K.R., Schwei, M. & Geiselman, R.E. Effects of the structure of descriptions on group impression formation. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 12, 224–226 (1978). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329677
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329677