Blocking of Person Information in Small Social Groupings: The Information of Person Categories

摘要

Information about others in one's immediate social environment is encountered sequentially over time. A great deal of variability exists over different social groupings in the patterning of this information. The information may be completely blocked by person (i.e., the information about each person is received in a single, uninterrupted blocked), completely random by person (i.e., the information about each person is interspersed among items about others in the group), or anywhere in between. Sequential blocking was varied continuously from complete person blocking (100%) to chance blocking (0%) in the present study. Also included in the present study were two variables designed to increase the salience of persons as organizing categories. The results of the present study revealed that increases in the degree of person blocking of the stimulus input led to a linear increase in the extent to which the information received by subjects about other persons was organized according to person categories. Blocking was alos shown to affect the subjects' recall of the stimulus items. The relative viability of two competing theoretical explanations for the blocking results are discussed along with the implications of the present results for current theoretical and empirical orientations toward impression formation research. (Author)