According to the cognitive-ecological model of social perception, biases toward individuals can arise as by-products of cognitive principles that interact with the information ecology. The present work tested whether negatively biased person descriptions occur as by-products of cognitive differentiation. Later-encountered persons are described by their distinct attributes that differentiate them from earlier-encountered persons. Because distinct attributes tend to be negative, serial person descriptions should become increasingly negative. We found our predictions confirmed in six studies. In Study 1, descriptions of representatively sampled persons became increasingly distinct and negative with increasing serial positions of the target person. Study 2 eliminated this pattern of results by instructing perceivers to assimilate rather than differentiate a series of targets. Study 3 generalized the pattern from one-word descriptions of still photos of targets to multisentence descriptions of videos of targets. In line with the cognitive-ecological model, Studies 4-5b found that the relation between serial position and negativity was amplified among targets with similar positive attributes, zero among targets with distinct positive or negative attributes, and reversed among similar negative targets. Study 6 returned to representatively sampled targets and generalized the serial position-negativity effect from descriptions of the targets to overall evaluations of them. In sum, the present research provides strong evidence for the explanatory power of the cognitive-ecological model of social perception. We discuss theoretical and practical implications. It may pay off to appear early in an evaluation sequence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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社会感知的差异：为什么后来遇到的个体被描述得更消极。


根据社会感知的认知生态模型，对个人的偏见可能是与信息生态相互作用的认知原则的副产品。目前的工作测试了负面偏见的人描述是否作为认知分化的副产品发生。后来遇到的人由他们独特的属性来描述，这些属性将他们与之前遇到的人区分开来。因为不同的属性往往是负面的，所以连续的人物描述应该变得越来越负面。我们发现我们的预测在六项研究中得到了证实。在研究 1 中，随着目标人员序列位置的增加，代表性抽样人员的描述变得越来越明显和负面。研究 2 通过指示感知者同化而不是区分一系列目标来消除这种结果模式。研究 3 将模式从目标静态照片的单字描述推广到目标视频的多句描述。与认知生态模型一致，研究 4-5b 发现序列位置和消极性之间的关系在具有相似积极属性的目标中被放大，在具有不同的积极或消极属性的目标中被放大为零，而在相似的消极目标之间则相反。研究 6 返回具有代表性的样本目标，并将序列位置负效应从目标的描述推广到对它们的总体评估。总之，本研究为社会感知的认知生态模型的解释力提供了强有力的证据。我们讨论了理论和实践意义。在评估序列的早期出现可能会有所回报。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。