forming impressions of personality

Replication of Asch (1946)

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Forming Impressions of Personality:

A Replication and Review of Asch's (1946) Evidence for a Primacy-of-Warmth Effect in Impression

Formation

Sanne Nauts1, Inge Huijsmans1, Oliver Langner2, Roos Vonk1 & Daniël H. J. Wigboldus1

1Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands

2Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany

Sanne Nauts

Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Phone: + 31 24 3615682

Fax: +31 24 3612677

E-mail: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


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Social psychological laboratories have undergone considerable change since the publication of

Asch's "Forming Impressions of Personality" (1946), leading to the inevitable demise of punch cards

and slide carousels in favor of more technologically advanced experimental equipment. Still, the basic

methodology underlying present-day person perception research is strongly grounded in (and often

remarkably similar to) the methodology first introduced by Asch, now 67 years ago (Gilbert, 1998).

With over 2750 references, Asch's seminal research has been heralded for its paradigm-shifting

methodology, in which impression formation was studied in a controlled laboratory setting, yielding

high internal validity and experimental precision (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Gilbert, 1998). But

Asch's legacy is by no means limited to the methodological realm: The ten experiments reported in

"Forming Impressions of Personality" have laid much of the groundwork for influential theories about

person perception (e.g., attribution theory; Jones & Davis, 1965; the continuum model of impression

formation; Fiske, Neuberg, Beattie, & Milberg, 1987).

Written long before the dawn of bite-size science (Bertamini & Munafo, 2012) and the advice

to "role-play grandma" to create a clear storyline (Bem, 1987, p. 27), "Forming Impressions of

Personality" is as interesting as it is multi-faceted. Asch (1946) offers a multitude of meandering

messages, frequently wedged between eloquent interludes, engaging observations, and elegant hand-

crafted figures. Although there may not be one single, unitary message to be taken from his work, the

one message that seems to have strongly resonated with present-day researchers concerns the primacy-

of-warmth-effect. The primacy-of-warmth effect (e.g., Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Wojciszke,

2005)1 entails that warmth has a primary role in impression formation, in the sense that warmth-related

judgments have a stronger influence on impressions (Wojciszke, Bazinska, & Jaworski, 1998), and

that warmth- related inferences are made more quickly than competence-related inferences (Ybarra,

Chan, & Park, 2001).

The goal of the present research is to critically examine the evidence that Asch's (1946)

research provides for such a primacy-of-warmth effect. Moreover, we will conduct a direct replication

of those studies of Asch's paper that are relevant to this particular effect. Replication attempts of


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Asch's work abound (e.g., Ahlering & Parker, 1989; Anderson & Barrios, 1961; Babad, Kaplowitz &

Darley, 1990; Grace & Greenshields, 1960; Hendrick & Constantini, 1970; Kelley, 1950; Luchins,

1948; Luchins & Luchins, 1986; McCarthy & Skowronski, 2011; McKelvie, 1990; Mensh & Wishner,

1947; Pettijohn, Pettijohn & McDermott, 2009; Semin, 1989; Singh, Onglacto, Sriram & Tay, 1997;

Veness & Brierley, 1963; Wishner, 1960), but most are conceptual rather than direct replications,

many are incomplete, few relate to the primacy-of-warmth-effect, and finally, their results do not

necessarily concur with Asch's original findings. Thus, although "forming impressions of personality"

has been regarded as the point of inception for the primacy-of-warmth-effect (e.g., Abele &

Bruckmüller, 2011; Abele & Wojciszke, 2007; Cuddy, Fiske & Glick, 2008; Fiske, Cuddy & Glick,

2007; Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, 2005; Kervyn, Yzerbyt, & Judd, 2010; Richetin,

Durante, Mari, Perugini & Volpato, 2012; Vonk, 1994), it is unclear to what extent Asch’s original

studies represent replicable evidence for such an effect. As one of the founding articles of the person

perception field, and perhaps even of social psychology more generally, we believe it is important to

establish its truth value and provide a replication attempt that provides researchers with sufficient data

to be able to interpret Asch's experiments, something we believe is not possible based on the data

reported in Asch's research due to incomplete reporting of the data, underpowered studies, and a lack

of systematic analysis of the data. Moreover, by conducting additional analyses based on more recent

insights in the person perception literature, we hope to shed more light on the processes that underlie

Asch's classic effects. Before going on to discuss the present replication attempt, we will first give a

short overview of Asch's main findings2.

Overview of Asch (1946)

In "Forming Impressions of Personality" ten studies were reported (total N = 8343) in which Asch

(1946) presented participants with lists of traits containing small manipulations. For example, in

Study I, participants were exposed either to a list of traits containing the word "warm" or a list

containing the word "cold", while all other traits were identical for both groups. After this, they had to

write down what their impression of the target person was (open-ended measure), pick from a list of


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trait pairs which trait was most applicable to the target (trait-pair choice measure), and rank the traits

in the stimulus list in order of importance for determining their decisions (ranking measure). From this

study (frequently referred to as the warm-cold experiment) Asch inferred that participants rated

"warm" and "cold" as relatively central in determining their impressions. Moreover, participants more

often picked positive traits as fitting the target in the trait-pair choice measure in the warm condition

compared to the cold condition, except for several traits, such as strength, for which there was no

difference (though Asch could not explain why). Based on this experiment, Asch concluded that

participants' impressions are entirely transformed if "warm" is replaced by "cold". The nine

subsequent studies in "Forming Impressions of Personality" featured variations to this basic paradigm:

other traits were introduced, the order of traits was manipulated, participants were asked to give

synonyms for elements of the trait lists, or were asked to judge how the traits in a list relate to each

other. A short summary of all ten studies is provided in Table 1.

INSERT TABLE I HERE

Based on these ten experiments, Asch (1946) concluded that perceivers form coherent, unitary

impressions of others. To form such a unitary impression, perceivers attribute different meanings and

weights to traits, assigning a central role to some traits (these traits determine the meaning and

function of other traits) and a peripheral role to others (their meaning and function is determined by

the central traits). Which traits become central and which become peripheral is fully determined by the

context of the traits, so that the same trait can be central in one impression but peripheral in another.

As conclusion, Asch presents a Gestalt view on impression formation, emphasizing that traits interact

dynamically to shape each other's interpretation. For example, warmth may play a central role when

accompanied by traits like intelligent, skillful, industrious, determined, practical and cautious (as in

Asch's Study I), but this central role may disappear in the context of traits like obedient, weak,

shallow, unambitious, and vain (as in Asch's Study IV). This shows that impressions of personality are

extremely complex, and that the interpretation and meaning of a trait can completely change

depending on other traits being present (the change-of-meaning-explanation). Or, as Asch says it: "the


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gaiety of an intelligent man is no more or less than the gaiety of a stupid man: it is different in quality"

(p.287). Thus, Asch suggests that the influence of central traits is not merely due to a general affective

shift (or Halo-effect): instead, he argues that the cognitive content of specific traits changes (e.g., the

gaiety of an intelligent man is not merely more or less positive than the gaiety of a stupid man: it

entails different qualities and behaviors). Though there is evidence that both a change-in-meaning-

effect (e.g., Hamilton & Zanna, 1974; Zanna & Hamilton, 1977) and an affective shift (e.g., Kaplan,

1971; 1974) can influence impression formation, it is unclear which processes play a role in Asch's

studies. To find out more about this process, we will perform textual analyses of the open-ended

responses to investigate changes in affective content as well as meaning.

Interpretations of Asch's Work

Much like punch cards and slide carousels, the Gestalt-view of impression formation has slowly but

surely gone out of fashion (partly because there were more simple, parsimonious explanations for

Asch's data, e.g., Anderson, 1981; Rosenberg, Nelson & Vivekananthan 1968; Wishner, 1960).

Introductory textbook authors now generally put more emphasis on Asch's research (1946) as

providing evidence for a primacy-of-warmth-effect than on the Gestalt-model outlined in Asch's work.

For example, many textbooks refer solely to Asch's Study I while ignoring Study IV (that puts the

primacy-of-warmth-effect in a larger perspective4; e.g., Baron & Byrne, 2004; DeLamater & Meyers,

2010; Franzoi, 2009; Hogg & Vaughan, 2011; Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2011; Pennington, 2000;

Taylor, Peplau, & Sears, 2006; Stainton-Rogers, 2011; Worchel, Cooper, Goethals, & Olson, 2000; for

a notable exception, see Hewstone, Stroebe, & Jonas, 2007). Although Asch acknowledges the

importance of warmth and coldness in impression formation, in his view any trait can be central as

well as peripheral. Thus, no trait is central by design, and even traits that have special importance,

such as warmth and coldness, can become peripheral in a different context because the meaning and

weight of a trait is never fixed or stable. As apparent in Table I, based on the results of Study I, Asch

concluded that warmth could have a central role in impression formation. Importantly, however, he


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concluded based on the results of Study IV that warmth could become peripheral in other contexts.

Because Asch discounts a strong version of a primacy-of-warmth-effect in his theorizing, we believe

the only way to establish whether Asch has justifiably been regarded as the progenitor of the primacy-

of-warmth-effect is by going back to his initial observations. However, as we will describe in the next

section, Asch's initial observations have been sparsely replicated, and it is difficult to determine

whether they provide evidence for a primacy-of-warmth-effect.

Evidence for a Primacy-of-Warmth-Effect in Asch's Original Data (1946)

Asch's initial (1946) observations are based on three types of measures: open-ended questions in

which participants wrote down their general impression of the target, trait-pair choice measures in

which they chose which trait (out of a pair) is most applicable to the target (see Attachment I), and a

ranking measure in which they ranked the stimulus traits from most to least important in forming their

impression. In this section, we will review the extent to which these three measures provide evidence

for a primacy-of-warmth effect, starting with the open-ended questions.

Asch (1946) did not analyze the open-ended questions systematically, so it is difficult to

determine the extent to which they really provide evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect.

Researchers replicating Asch's research did not include the open-ended questions (e.g., Mensh &

Wishner, 1947; Semin, 1989), did not provide a systematic analysis of this measure (Veness &

Brierley , 1963), or failed to replicate Asch's effects (Luchins, 1948; Gollin, 1954). Thus, so far the

results of the open-ended question data are inconclusive regarding the evidence for primacy-of-

warmth, and they have not been analyzed in ways to clarify whether the change-of-meaning-effect

Asch proposes, or whether other processes best explain the given responses.

The trait-pair choice results in Asch (1946) suggest that changing a trait in a list from positive

(e.g., "warm") to negative (e.g., "cold") makes the overall impression that participants have more

negative (the negative trait of the trait-pairs is chosen more frequently). These effects have been

supported in several direct replications of Study I (Mensh & Wishner, 1947; Veness & Brierley, 1963;


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Semin ,1989), Study III (Semin, 1989) and Study IV (Mensh &Wishner, 1947). However, the extent to

which these data provide support for a primacy-of-warmth-effect is questionable, as replacing any

positive trait for any negative trait could potentially change the overall valence of the list. Thus, the

data for the trait-pair choice measure seem robust, but they may not provide the most stringent test of

the primacy-of-warmth hypothesis. Moreover, Asch could not explain why changing the central trait

in the list influenced only certain peripheral traits, although this was essential for his argumentation

favoring a change-of-meaning-explanation and discounting simple halo effects, which (in Asch's view)

should have influenced all traits. Later theorizing (e.g., Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Rosenberg,

Nelson, & Vivekananthan, 1968) may provide an explanation for Asch's findings: given that there are

two domains in social cognition (warmth and competence), changing a warmth-related trait should

change the interpretation of other warmth-related traits but not the interpretation of competence-

related traits. We would like to perform additional analyses to test whether, indeed, the influencing

effects of central traits are limited to traits of the same domain.

The ranking measures, in Asch's (1946) view, suggest that warmth is ranked as one of the

most important traits in Study I, but not in Study IV. For Studies I and IV, these results have been

replicated by Mensh and Wishner (1947). The original results of Asch's Study I are depicted in Table

II.

INSERT TABLE II HERE.

The ranking measures of Study I do not provide unequivocal evidence for a primacy-of-

warmth effect; in fact, in Study I, the number of participants indicating that warmth was the most

important trait guiding their impression is exactly as large as the number of participants indicating it

was the least important, a limitation Asch himself acknowledges, but that seems to have been

overlooked in many later references to his work. Moreover, the data are reported incompletely by

Asch so it is unclear which trait perceivers did rank first given that most participants did not rank

warmth as the most important trait in guiding their impression. In Study I, warmth is ranked in first


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position by 6 of the 42 subjects, which is the exact number that would be expected based on chance

(given that there are seven options). This could mean one of two things: either every trait was ranked

in first position by an equal number of participants (six, to be exact), which seems at odds with Asch's

position that warmth was a central trait in this list. Alternatively, there may be one trait that was put in

first position more often than warmth (so by more than six participants), which seems to be even more

strongly at odds with Asch's position that warmth was the central trait in this list. Thus, for the

ranking-measure, Asch's data are difficult to interpret because they are reported incompletely and to

the extent that they are interpretable, they do not provide evidence for a primacy-of-warmth-effect.5.

In sum, the open-ended responses seem important for Asch's (1946) theorizing, but they were

not systematically investigated by himself, and his contemporaries failed to replicate his effects on this

measure (Gollin, 1954; Luchins, 1948). The trait-pair choice measure does provide robust results, but

it does not provide a stringent test of the primacy-of-warmth effect. The ranking results do not provide

very clear evidence for a primacy-of-warmth-effect, are only reported partially, have been sparsely

replicated, and are underpowered. For all three measures, it is unclear whether the impressions

perceivers formed based on the different stimulus lists differed significantly from each other, and what

the effect size of these differences is. Because of this, we think a well-powered replication of Asch's

research is in order. In the present research, we will conduct a replication of Asch's Studies I, III and

IV (these are the studies that are most relevant for the primacy-of-warmth effect), aiming to provide

data that, unlike Asch's original work, are sufficiently powered, employ clear coding of the open-

ended questions, provide complete accounts of the data, and provide statistical analysis of the results.

In so doing, we aim to shed light on the replicable evidence that Asch's results provide for the primacy

of warmth in impression formation.

Moreover, we would like to add additional analyses of the trait-pair choice measure and

several additional analyses of the open-ended responses. Asch's ranking measure may be suboptimal,

as it presupposes that perceivers have full access to the factors that determine their impressions (which

is unlikely; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). We chose to focus our efforts on extra analyses for the trait-pair


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choice measure and open ended-measure because these measures do not rely on introspection to the

same extent. In our view, the descriptions of targets in particular may contain lots of new information

on the primacy-of-warmth-effect. Asch did not analyze the open ended-responses, and for 67 years,

researchers have focused on easy-to-analyze, top-down measures in impression formation, largely

ignoring the rich information contained in open ended-descriptions. We think it is worthwhile to open

this treasure chest and explore its contents (even though these analyses will be exploratory in nature).

Proposed Method

For the replication, we selected the experiments that have the strongest bearing on the primacy-of-

warmth-effect, namely Studies I, III, and IV of the original publication. Here, we outline the details of

the studies that we plan to conduct. Further, we give an overview of the known differences between

Asch's original work and the planned studies, and indicate how these differences could potentially

influence the results.

Study Outline

In our replication attempt, we will faithfully replicate Asch's (1946) method by exposing

participants to the stimulus lists (as depicted in Table I), and asking them to complete the open-ended

measure, trait-pair choice measure, and ranking measure. Asch only presented a frequency table of

participants' responses, and did not statistically analyze his results (Mensh & Wishner, 1947, do

provide some statistical analysis of their results, but these are very limited, e.g., they do not include

effect sizes). As an addition to his study, we will perform statistical analyses on the ranking measures,

to test if central traits are indeed ranked as more important than other traits, and to establish the effect

size. Moreover, we will examine if any trait is selected as the most important trait determining

perceiver's impressions significantly more often than other traits, something that is not possible based

on Asch's presentation of his data.


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In addition to the measures employed by Asch (1946), we will analyze the open-ended responses

based on the literature by Gollin (1954). Gollin distinguishes three types of impressions: unitary or

unified impressions (in which all the trait information is incorporated in a unified manner), simplified

impressions (impression in which part of the trait information is clearly ignored), and aggregated

impressions (impressions in which no unity is achieved at all). We will develop clear coding schemas

based on the research by Gollin, and will have the responses rated by two independent raters.

Moreover, we will add textual analyses of the open ended-responses to further investigate which traits

are central, and how changing one trait in the list can shift the interpretation and/or valence of other

traits in the list.

Participants and Design

This study will employ a between-subject design with seven conditions, as depicted in Table 3. We

will recruit 1050 participants (150 per condition) to participate in our study through MTurk.

INSERT TABLE III HERE

Procedure

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the seven stimulus lists (as depicted in Table 3) and

will be asked to form an impression of the target described in the list. Next, they will first be asked to

write down what their impression of the target is (open-ended question). After this, they will be

instructed to select the term in each trait pair (as depicted in Attachment I) that is most applicable to

the person (the trait-pair choice measure). Finally, they will once again be exposed to the stimulus list,

and will be asked to rank-order the traits from the most important trait in forming their impression to

the least important trait.

Analysis Plan

Because the hypotheses in Asch’s paper (1946) are not stated explicitly, we tried to formulate

hypotheses that fit with Asch's theorizing and are quantifiable and testable. Because there is a

subjective component to our operationalization of Asch's research questions, we formulated multiple


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hypotheses that cover a range of tests, from very lenient to very stringent. In this section, we will

describe the hypotheses for the three different measures: the ranking measures, the trait pair-choice

measure, and the open-ended measure. Because the study will be run on MTurk, we will remove any

participants who are not native speakers. Moreover, we will remove all participants who fail an

instructional manipulation check (Oppenheimer, Meyvis & Davidenko, 2009).

Ranking Measures

For the ranking measure, we propose the following hypotheses (ordered from most lenient to most

stringent):

Hypothesis 1: average rankings. The first hypothesis concerns the question whether the

average rank administered to a trait (e.g., warmth in Condition 1A) differs from the average rank given

to other traits in the same list. It contains the following sub hypotheses:

1a) Warmth and coldness are expected to be central in Conditions 1A and 1B. Thus, on

average, warmth and coldness should have a higher average rank than any of the other traits in

that condition.

1b) Warmth and coldness are expected to be peripheral in Conditions 2A, 2B, and 2C. Thus,

there should be at least one trait with a higher average rank than warmth and coldness in that

condition.

1c) Polite and blunt are expected to be peripheral in Conditions 3A and 3B. Thus, there should

be at least one trait with a higher average rank than politeness and bluntness in that condition.

Hypotheses 1a, 1b and 1c are quite lenient: in this scenario, warmth could be the most highly ranked

trait on average, even though warmth may not be the most important trait for many (or even any) of

the participants. We will analyze this using two different statistical techniques. First of all, we will use

a Wilcoxon signed rank analysis to investigate if the average rank for the focal trait (warmth and

coldness in Conditions 1 and 2, politeness and bluntness in Condition 3) differs from the average rank

of any of the other traits in a list. Moreover, we will perform an exploded Logit analysis: an analysis


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that qualitatively yields the same results as the Wilcoxon's test, but will give us an opportunity to look

at specific ranks in Hypothesis 2 (Allison & Christakis, 1994).

Hypothesis 2: average rankings for top choices. The second hypothesis concerns the

question whether the average rank administered to a trait differs from the average rank given to other

traits in the same list. Unlike Hypothesis 1, however, we only take the top ranks into account (Rank 1,

2 and 3). If warmth is indeed primary, this should not just be visible in the average rank over all ranks:

it should hold even if we ignore all rankings lower than 3. Thus, this hypothesis rules out the

possibility that warmth and coldness are regarded as central but are not well presented in the top ranks

(Rank 1, 2 and 3). Hypothesis 2 entails the following sub hypotheses:

2a) Warmth and coldness are expected to be central in Conditions 1A and 1B. Thus, on

average, warmth and coldness should have higher average ranks than any of the other traits in

that condition, even if we leave all ranks lower than 3 (4 and up) out of the analysis.

2b) Warmth and coldness are expected to be peripheral in Conditions 2A, 2B, and 2C. Thus,

there should be at least 1 trait that has a higher average rank than any of the other traits in that

condition, even if we leave all ranks lower than 3 (4 and up) out of the analysis.

2c) Politeness and bluntness are expected to be peripheral in Conditions 3A and 3B. Thus,

there should be at least 1 trait that has a higher average rank than any of the other traits in that

condition, even if we leave all ranks lower than 3 (4 and up) out of the analysis.

For these analysis, we will employ an Exploded Logit model. However, we will assign ties to all ranks

higher than 3, so that only the top ranks are analyzed (based on the recommendations of Allison and

Christakis, 1994).

Trait-Pair Choice Measures

For the trait-pair choice measures, the hypotheses are as follows:

3a) Perceivers in Condition 1A should have more positive inferences of traits than participants

in Condition 1B. Thus, there should be significant difference between conditions in the

number of times each trait is selected.


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3b) Perceivers in Condition 3A should not have more positive inferences of the target than

participants in Condition 3B. Thus, there should be no significant difference between the

conditions in the amount of times each trait is picked. If there is a significant difference, the

size of the effect should be significantly smaller than the difference between Conditions 1A

and 1B.

3c) Only traits that are related to the same domain as the trait that is changed should be

influenced. Thus, if "warm" is changed to "cold" in conditions 1A and 1B, only traits that are

warmth-related should be influenced.

Hypothesis 3a and 3b will be tested with an ANOVA. To test Hypothesis 3c, we will ask two

independent raters to indicate the extent to which the traits of the trait-pair choice lists are related to

warmth and competence. We expect that peripheral traits that are warm-related will differ between

conditions, but competence-related traits will not.

Open-Ended Measures

For the open-ended measures, the hypotheses are as follows:

4a) All perceivers form unified impressions of personality in all conditions.

4b) Warmth and coldness will be central traits in Conditions 1A and 1B, but not in Conditions

2A and 2B. Politeness and bluntness will not be central traits in Conditions 3A and 3C.

4c) Perceivers attribute different meanings to "warm" in Conditions 1A compared to

Conditions 2A and 2B. Perceivers attribute different meanings to "cold" in Condition 1B

compared to 2C, providing evidence for a change-of-meaning-effect.

To test Hypothesis 4a, we will employ a coding scheme based on Gollin (1954), as described above.

Because analysis of these qualitative data is time-consuming, we will randomly select a third of the

responses for every condition, yielding 50 responses per condition (350 responses in total). Two

independent raters will rate 10 percent of these responses to establish inter-rater reliability.

To test Hypothesis 4b, we will perform textual analyses of the data. The traits that are used in

participant's descriptions are extracted (negations such as "not warm" will be coded separately). We


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expect that central traits will be mentioned by participants more often (without negation) than

peripheral traits and thus should occur more frequently in the descriptions. Second, all traits will be

rated on valence and their relevance to competence and warmth (the extent to which they, cognitively,

refer to the warmth-domain or the competence-domain). We expect that changing a central trait will

lead to an affective shift (e.g., usage of more positive terms when "warmth" is the central trait) as well

as a cognitive shift (e.g., usage of more warmth-related terms if "warmth" is the central trait). These

analyses are new and exploratory in nature, but have the potential to shed new light on the centrality of

traits in perceivers' impressions, as well as on the veracity of a change-of-meaning-explanation for

these effects.

To test Hypothesis 4c, two independent raters will receive a short list with synonyms of

"warm". Next, they will be asked to rate which synonym is most applicable to the description. We will

employ a chi square-test to test if different options are selected for Condition 1A compared to 2A and

2B, and for Condition 1B compared to 2C.

Power Analysis.

Ranking measure. It is difficult to get a good estimate of the effect sizes in Asch's (1946)

studies. Although it is possible to get an idea of Asch's effect sizes based on the results reported in the

paper, most of his studies were likely underpowered (with only 20 to 26 participants per cell for

Studies III and IV). If we calculate effect sizes based on Study I, which may be slightly less

underpowered for the ranking measure than Studies III and IV, effect sizes seem large (around w =

.50). Because of the small sample sizes and potentially smaller effects for Studies III and IV, we

decided to use a slightly more conservative estimate of the effect size as a medium effect instead of a

large effect (w = .30 instead of w = .50). With this medium effects size and an alpha level of .80, this

would mean that we need approximately 151 participants per group (Cohen, 1992). Power analysis

with G*Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang & Buchner, 2007) yields a highly similar number of participants

(N = 152). Thus, we expect to need approximately 150 participants per condition, or 1050 participants


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in total. Because the experiment takes just a couple of minutes, and the analysis of the quantitative

data is not labor-intensive, this number seems feasible.

For the Wilcoxon signed rank-analysis, we need 64 participants per cell to pick up on a

medium effect size, so 150 participants per cell will suffice for this analysis, too. For the exploded

logit analysis, we need approximately 100 participants in total-again, 150 participants per cell will

suffice for this analysis.

Trait-pair choice measure. Because Hypothesis 3b is, in essence, a null hypothesis, we

would like to adjust the alpha level for this test to .95, in occurrence with Cohen's (1990)

recommendations for testing null effects. Again, the effect size is hard to determine;if, to be

conservative, we take a low to medium effect size (e.g., Cohen's d = 0.40), power analysis suggests

that we would need 136 participants per condition Thus, the sample size we need for the ranking

measures (150 participants per group) would suffice for the trait-pair choice analysis.

Open ended -measure. For Hypothesis 4a, Asch (1946) stated that every participant will

form a unified impression, and that every participant in his studies did so. Because this universal claim

will likely not hold in our data we would like to give a more qualitative view of the data by merely

presenting descriptives of the data.

To test Hypothesis 4b, we will perform simple t-tests to estimate the difference in occurrence

of traits within the conditions, as well as the difference in valence and domain of the terms mentioned

in the different conditions. We will include all participants in these textual analyses.

To test Hypothesis 4c, we will perform a Chi square test. With 50 participants per cell, the

effect size for the t-test would need to be on the higher end (Cohen's d = 0.70) for us to have enough

power with a sample size of 50 per cell to pick it up. The effect size for the Chi square test would need

to be large (w = .50). Although it would be preferable to have more power for these tests, the costs of

rating the responses of 350 respondents are already quite large, and we believe rating a large

percentage of responses will not be viable from a practical point of view. Moreover, because Asch

describes the effects of the open-ended responses as being very striking, and describes the differences


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between conditions as large, we believe it is reasonable to predict moderately large effect sizes for

these particular hypotheses.

Known Differences

Although we will try to replicate Asch (1946) as diligently and precisely as possible, there may

nevertheless be differences between our study and the original work. Some of these differences are

advantageous, for example:

1) Compared to the original studies, our research has more statistical power.

2) Unlike the original studies, we provide statistical analysis of the results.

3) Unlike the original studies, we can compare the conditions of Studies I, III and IV against

each other.

4) Unlike the original studies, we systematically analyze open-ended responses.

Other differences may be disadvantageous, for example:

5) Unlike the original studies, the present replication attempt will be carried out online. We

think it is important to carry out the experiments in English, as translating the materials could lead to

important differences in the strength and interpretation of the trait words between Asch's original study

and ours. Unfortunately, as we need many participants, and do not have access to sufficiently large

samples of English speakers in our lab, we would like to conduct the study online (through MTurk). It

is conceivable that Asch's participants (students) were a more homogenous or motivated group than

the participants in our study. Moreover, participants in Asch's study did not read the stimulus lists

themselves: they received instructions verbally and answered on a sheet of paper. It is possible that a

computer-based version of the experiment, in which the experimenter is not present while the

participant completes the experiment, will lead to slightly different responses (e.g., less socially

desirable responses). However, we have no specific reason to believe that a different mode of

administration will profoundly influence the role warmth plays in impression formation.


17

6) Unlike in the original studies, it is 2013. It is possible that words had slightly different

connotations in 1946 than they have in 2013, or that societal changes have brought about changes in

the way people form impressions of others, or how they report those impressions. For example, there

has been a considerable change in racial stereotypes, or people's willingness to report prejudiced views

of racial groups, since 1933 ( Devine & Elliot, 1995; Karlins, Coffman & Walters, 1969), suggesting

that these specific impression formation processes have changed over time. Though it is certainly

possible that the basic impression formation processes described by Asch in 1946 have also changed,

we believe that these processes may be less strongly influenced by social desirability concerns brought

forward by societal changes (compared to other impression formation processes, such as those related

to racial groups). Moreover, we believe that changes in language use may not be particularly

problematic, given that the specific words used in Asch' stimulus lists remain relatively frequent in the

English language.

Coda

Our motivation to replicate Asch's (1946) research might be taken by some as an attempt to discount

his work. In fact, nothing could be further removed from the truth. We greatly admire Asch's work,

which changed the face of person perception research and introduced an entirely new way of studying

first impressions. Exploring his original observations with present-day (statistical) standards in mind,

in our view, does not depreciate the brilliance of Asch's work, which lies in its Gestalt.


18

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Footnotes

1In the present research, in line with the recommendations by Fiske, Cuddy and Glick (2007), warmth

is used as an omnibus term that includes dimensions such as other-profitability (Peeters & Czapinski,

1990), morality (Wojciszke, 2005), and trustworthiness (Todorov, Said, Engell, & Oosterhof, 2008).

2We do not claim to provide a complete and unbiased view of Asch's (1946) complex work; in trying

to provide a readable overview, we have omitted countless details that are only accessible in the

original work. For a truly complete appreciation of Asch, please read Asch.

3A well-informed reader may notice that Asch writes in his introduction that he tested over a 1000

participants, but the results of 834 (not 1000) are reported in Asch's method-sections.

4Although some authors additionally refer to Study VI or VII about primacy-effects.

5We would like to note that our goal is not to question the veracity of the primacy-of-warmth effect

per se (there is a lot of research suggesting that warmth plays a central role in impression formation;

for a review, see Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Wojciszke, 2005). Instead, the aim is to investigate to

what extent Asch's initial observations can be taken as evidence for a primacy-of-warmth-effect, and

to what extent they suggest that there may be limitations or boundary conditions to such an effect (as

Asch hypothesized). We believe this is not merely important from a historical perspective: person

perception researchers have been strongly inspired by Asch's research, and we hope that a more

complete, interpretable overview of his results, combined with some additional analyses that explain

more about the processes underlying the effects can inform new research.


25

Tables

Table 1.

Short Overview of the Methods of the Ten Experiments Reported in Asch (1946), Including the

Conclusions that Asch Draws Based on the Experiments.

Study Included? Stimulus lists Method and Conclusions

I

yes group A (N = 90):

intelligent, skillful,

industrious, warm,

determined, practical,

cautious

group B (N = 76):


industrious, cold,


cautious

Participants read the stimulus lists, and wrote down the impression they had of the target

(open-ended measure). Next, they had to indicate for a list of traits (see Attachment I)

which was most in accordance with their impression (trait-pair choice measure). Next,

they had to rank order which traits of the stimulus list were most important in

determining their impressions (ranking measure).

Summary of Asch's main conclusions:

a) Based on the open-ended measure, Asch concluded that perceivers formed a unitary

impression, that changes radically when "warm" is changed to "cold".

b) Based on the trait-pair choice measure, Asch concluded that impressions reversed for

certain qualities (e.g., generous, happy), but not others (e.g., honest, strong) when

"warm" is changed to "cold".

c) Based on the ranking measures, Asch concludes that some characteristics (such as

warmth) were more central than others.

II no (N = 56): intelligent,

skillful, industrious,


cautious

Participants read the stimulus list and completed the open-ended measure and ranking

measure.


a) Based on the ranking measure, Asch concluded that omitting warm/cold from the

stimulus list does not function entirely as an omission. Instead, approximately half of the

subjects spontaneously forms a warm impression, the other half a cold one.

III

yes group A (N = 20):


industrious, polite,


cautious

group B (N = 26):


industrious, blunt,


cautious


measure.


a) Based on the ranking measure, Asch concluded that changing a peripheral quality,

such as "polite" to "blunt", influences participant's impression less strongly than

changing a central quality, such as "warm" to "cold"

IV yes group A (N = 23):

obedient, weak, shallow,


measure.


26

warm, unambitious, vain

group B (N = 21): vain,

shrewd, unscrupulous,

warm, shallow, envious

group C (N = 20):

intelligent, skillful, sincere,

cold, conscientious,

helpful, modest


a) Based on the open-ended measure, Asch concluded that "warm" is interpreted

differently in this context than in the context of Study I.

b) Based on the ranking measure, Asch concluded that warm/cold is much less important

in determining impression than it is in Study 1: it has become peripheral and is no longer

central. Thus, a trait can be central or peripheral depending on the context of the

impression.

V no group A (N = 38): kind,

wise, honest, calm, strong

group B (N = 41): cruel,

shrewd, unscrupulous,

calm, strong

Participants read the stimulus list and completed the open-ended measure and give

synonyms for calm and strong (synonym measure).


a) Based on the synonym measure, Asch concluded that people attribute a different

(more positive) meaning to calm and strong in group A than group B. Thus, the

interpretation of a trait depends on the context.

VI

no group A (N = 34):

intelligent, industrious,

impulsive, critical,

stubborn, envious

group B (N = 24):

envious stubborn, critical,

impulsive, industrious,

intelligent

Participants read the stimulus list and completed the open-ended measure, trait-pair

choice measure and ranking measure.


a) Based on the trait-pair choice measure, Asch concluded that more positive qualities

are chosen for group A compared to group B, suggesting that traits early in the list have a

stronger influence on impressions (evidence for a primacy-effect).

b) Based on the ranking measure, Asch concluded that traits early in the series are ranked

as more important in determining participant's impressions (also evidence for a primacy-

effect).

VII no group A (N = 27):


industrious, determined,

practical, cautious, evasive

group B (N = 30): evasive

skillful, industrious,


cautious, intelligent

Participants read the stimulus list and completed the open-ended measure, trait-pair

choice measure and ranking measure.


a) Based on the trait-pair choice measure, Asch concludes that more positive qualities are

chosen for group A compared to group B, suggesting that traits early in the list have a

stronger influence on impressions (evidence for a primacy-effect).

b) Based on the ranking measure, Asch concluded that traits early in the series are ranked

as more important in determining participant's impressions (also evidence for a primacy-

effect).

This is a replication of Study VI with similar (though slightly weaker) effects.

VIII no Group A (N=24):

intelligent, industrious,

impulsive, critical,

stubborn, envious

Participants either read the stimulus list as if it described one person (group A) or as if it

described two people (group B) and had to complete the open-ended and trait-pair choice

measure.

Participants in group B later heard that the lists described one single person instead of


27

Group B (N = 52):

person1:intelligent,

industrious, impulsive

person 2: critical, stubborn,

envious

two, and were asked to again form an impression (second open-ended measure).


a) Based on the open-ended questions, Asch concluded that perceivers have trouble

forming a unified impression in group B, but not in group A, suggesting that the

interpretation given to traits depended on the context of other traits, With a sudden

change in context, participants' initial interpretations were no longer fitting.

IX no IX part1: intelligent-

skillful-warm

IX part2: group A (N =

22): warm

group B (N = 33): cold

Participants read the stimulus list and completed the open-ended measure and trait-pair

choice measure.


a) Based on the trait-pair choice measure, Asch concluded that warmth is central, but that

it has more weight than in Study I, suggesting that even if warmth may have been central

in Study I, it was influenced by the context of other, peripheral traits. Thus, the weight

and meaning of central traits depends on the context.

X no Participants saw all of the

following four sets:

Set 1: quick, skillful,

helpful

Set 2: quick , clumsy,

helpful

Set 3: slow, skillful,

helpful

Set 4: slow, clumsy,

helpful

He also uses a similar

methodology with

different stimulus lists but

similar results.

Participants read all four stimulus list and completed the open-ended measure and

indicated which traits they thought resemble each other (e.g., does "quick" from Set 1

resemble "quick" from Set 2, or "slow" from Set 3?; the similarity measure).


a)Based on the similarity measure, Asch concluded that different traits are sometimes

judged as more similar (e.g., quick in Set 1 and slow in Set 3) than similar traits (e.g.,

quick in Set 1 compared to quick in Set 2). This suggests that the meaning and

interpretation of traits depends on the context.

Note: Studies that will be included in our replication attempt are marked with "yes" under "included?".

"Stimulus lists" features the lists of stimuli that participants were exposed to.


28

Table II

Original Data of Experiment I (Asch, 1946); Distribution of Ranking of the “Warm-Cold” Qualities in

Order of Their Importance in Forming Impressions.

Warm Cold

Rank

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

6

15

4

4

4

3

6

14

35

10

10

10

7

14

12

8

1

2

3

2

13

27

21

2

5

7

5

33

Total

42

100

41

100


29

Table III

Conditions Included in our Replication and the Stimulus List Participants are Exposed To.

Condition in our Replication Condition in Asch (1946) Stimulus List

Condition 1 A

Condition 1 B

Condition 2 A

Condition 2 B

Condition 2 C

Condition 3 A

Condition 3 B

Study I, Group A

Study I, Group B

Study IV, Group A

Study IV, Group B

Study IV, Group C

Study III, Group A

Study III, Group B


industrious, warm,

determined, practical, cautious


industrious, cold, determined,

practical, cautious

obedient, weak, shallow,

warm, unambitious, vain

vain, shrewd, unscrupulous,

warm, shallow, envious

intelligent, skillful, sincere,

cold, conscientious, helpful,

modest


industrious, polite,



industrious, blunt,



30

Attachment I

Checklist (Trait-Pair Choice Measure) as Used in Asch (1946)

"Choose the characteristic that is most in accordance with the view you have formed."

1. generous-ungenerous

2. shrewd-wise

3. unhappy-happy

4. irritable-good natured

5. humorous-humorless

6. sociable-unsociable

7. popular-unpopular

8. unreliable-reliable

9. important-insignificant

10. ruthless-humane

11. good looking-unattractive

12. persistent-unstable

13. frivolous-serious

14. restrained-talkative

15. self centered-altruistic

16. imaginative-hard headed

17. strong-weak

18. dishonest-honest


31

Attachment II

Grant Application

Activity Expected costs

Recruiting 1050 participants through MTurk

Hiring an RA to rate 350 open-ended responses*

1050 * $0.70 = $735

$1200

total costs $1935

*Undergraduate Research Assistants at Radboud University Nijmegen costs €21.21 per hour

(including taxes, social security and health insurance requirements) and may not be paid less due to

University regulations. We expect that an RA will be able to rate 10 responses per hour on the

dimensions specified in the analysis plan (35 hours in total), and that we will need approximately

seven hours extra to have 10% of the responses by an independent rater (another RA), and have the

raters discuss cases on which they do not agree. This means that we will need approximately 42 hours

in total (€890, 82, which is approximately $1200).

forming impressions of personality

Documents

warmth effect

replication of asch

aschs work

impressions of personality

publication of aschs

warmth related inferences

review of aschs

aschs seminal research