The Content Preference And Its Context Effect In Person Perception And Evaluation

What are the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal cognition content in China and which dimension does people prefer when evaluating themselves and others? Recent research showed conflicting findings. Whereas studies in social cognition suggested that "warmth" could be the primary one among the fundamental dimensions, other researchers argued that morality may be a more important dimension than warmth in person perception and evaluation. In an attempt to reconcile the contrasting views, The Dual Perspective Model of fundamental dimension (DPM) contend that warmth receives more weights than competence in perceiving others while competence receives more weights than warmth in perceiving self.Study 1 showed that warmth, morality and competence are indeed separated from each other after controlling valence, which suggested that warmth, morality and competence are different component in interpersonal cognition. Study 2 showed that people prefer high warmth when evaluating both self and other. In addition, individual think they are more moral than other in reality, but ideally they wanted themselves to be more competent and wanted others to be more moral. Study 3 showed that contexts (club activity, academic activity, distribution of goods) did not influence the high warmth preference when evaluating self, but it moderated the preference for morality and competence. Study 4 showed that individual prefer high warmth than high morality when evaluating others, and the least preferred is competence. All of the preferences are influenced by context. Study 5 showed that when the environment-trait fit very well, people will more likely be accepted by others.All above suggested that people may have a strong preference for warmth when evaluating self and others, and the preference is stable across different contexts. In addition, individual care more about competence when evaluating self and care more about morality when evaluating others, but both of them are context-specific. So this research supported both the primary role of warmth and the dual perspective model, and also identified the critical conditions whereby both theories can be accommodated.