TASK 2: Impression Formation (8 points)

For this exercise, you are going to replicate Asch’s “warm/cold” study (please make sure you select this study and not his line study) on a small scale. You will need a total of eight people who will be your participants (if your current circumstances make it difficult to find these people in person, you can even conduct this online if necessary).

1. Select FOUR people and do the following (they shouldn't know about the others doing this so do this individually):

(a) Ask them to form an impression in their head of an *imaginary* person who has the following 7 characteristics: INTELLIGENT, SKILLFUL, INDUSTRIOUS, WARM, DETERMINED, PRACTICAL, CAUTIOUS.

(b) Then, for EACH of the following list of 4 opposite adjective pairs, read the PAIR to them one by one.

*generous ; selfish*

*ignorant ; wise*

*happy ; sad*

*good-natured ; irritable*

(c) For each pair, ask them to pick which word in the pair best fits the person of whom they have formed an impression.

2. Select FOUR OTHER people and repeat the procedure, but this time, replace the word “warm” with “cold.” so your original list of traits includes: INTELLIGENT, SKILLFUL, INDUSTRIOUS, COLD, DETERMINED, PRACTICAL, CAUTIOUS.

For this post, explain your mini study. Provide each of the following modeled after journal articles:

1. Introduction (this is a biggie) - Don't forget to clearly explain the study done by Asch, and for your study, clearly identify what the independent and dependent variables were and the hypothesis (based on Asch).

2. Method (subjects, procedure etc.) - explain basics of your study in a few lines

3. Results (since we only have 8 participants this won't be complicated data but it's always nice to provide basic info maybe in a table - #? gender? basics of your group? percents?)

4. Discussion (this is the biggie and should be the longest part of the assignment) - In this section, consider if the results match research findings and what they tell us about impression formation. It is very important to provide depth in your discussion section by considering and applying concepts from your readings but also to consider limitations, implications etc. both of the concepts and of the study itself even if you didn't get the type of results as expected.

Looking forward to reading about your views on NfC and especially to reading about your "experiments" :) Don't forget to respond meaningfully to others!

--Dr. L

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