0000000000001876
AUTHOR
Paul Barker
The dynamic interactive pattern of assimilation and contrast: Accounting for standard extremity in comparative evaluations
Abstract Social judgments are often influenced by comparison to some standard in the environment, either moving the judgment closer (assimilating) to or away (contrasting) from this standard. Which direction this effect will take depends heavily on the relative standing of these standards on the judgment dimension compared to the target of the judgment. In previous research, items and comparison standards were often selected arbitrarily, ignoring or simplifying their influence substantially. The current work takes a fine-grained holistic curve fitting approach to measure response patterns across a wide range of standard extremities, showing that a narrower approach can pose limits to the ge…
Assimilation and Contrast in Spontaneous Comparisons: Heterogeneous Effects of Standard Extremity in Facial Evaluations
Judgments we make about others often depend on the standards we use as comparisons. Investigations into the outcomes of these comparisons and potential moderators have often been limited to single dimensions and preselected standards. The current work instead uses multiple evaluative facial dimensions and a multitude of comparisons. A series of 4 experiments ('N' = 665) attempted to detect contrast from extreme (Study 1) and assimilation to moderate standards in within (Studies 2 and 3) and between-subjects designs (Study 4). Results showed inconsistent evidence for both comparison effects and significant heterogeneity across the evaluative dimensions that were sampled. An additional 5 stud…