title: The goal of forming accurate impressions during social interactions: attenuating the impact of negative expectancies.
abstract: Investigated the idea that impression formation goals may regulate the impact that perceiver expectancies have on social interactions. In simulated interviews, interviewers Ss were given a negative expectancy about one applicant S and no expectancy about another. Half the interviewers were encouraged to form accurate impressions; the others were not. As predicted, no-goal interviewers exhibited a postinteraction impression bias against the negative-expectancy applicants, whereas the accuracy-goal interviewers did not. Moreover, the ability of the accuracy goal to reduce this bias was apparently mediated by more extensive and less biased interviewer information-gathering, which in turn elicited an improvement in negative-expectancy applicants' performances. These findings stress the theoretical and practical importance of considering the motivational context within which expectancy-tinged social interactions occur.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe 85287.
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Neuberg
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D010553:Personality Development; D010560:Personnel Selection; D012718:Set, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception