Abstract
Four experiments investigated the effects of romantic goals on task and social impression formation. The clouded judgment hypothesis holds that romantic goals encourage positive biases on less relationship-relevant dimensions (e.g., task competence). The default positivity hypothesis holds that romantic goals encourage positivity biases on relationship-relevant dimensions in the absence of relevant information. The selective accuracy hypothesis posits that romantic goals encourage accuracy regarding relationship-relevant attributes (e.g., social competence) when relevant information is available. In four studies, male and female perceivers evaluated opposite-sex targets whom they expected to date (romantic goals) or to meet for nonromantic interaction (baseline). Videotaped targets displayed competence or incompetence on task (Experiments 1 and 2) or social (Experiments 3 and 4) dimensions. All three hypotheses were supported.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 232-241 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Social Psychology |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2002 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Social Psychology
- Sociology and Political Science
Keywords
- Attraction
- Bias
- Goals
- Impressions
- Positivity