Impression formation and cooperative behavior

Two studies investigated how behavioral information about the morality or intelligence of another person in ̄uences impressions, expectations of cooperative behavior, and own cooperation in a mixed-motive interdependence situation. Consistent with the moralityimportance hypothesis, results revealed that morality information in ̄uenced impressions, expectations of other's cooperative behavior, as well as own cooperation more strongly than intelligence information, and led to greater con®dence in expectations and better recall. Consistent with the negativity e€ect hypothesis, negative information about morality and intelligence had more impact on impressions and interactionrelevant measures than positive information. An additional ®nding was that people overall expected more cooperation from others than they were willing to display themselves, and that this di€erence was especially pronounced for unintelligent and moral targets. Explanations and implications are discussed from a behavioral-adaptive perspective on impression formation. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. One reason that people form impressions of each other is that impressions help us to anticipate others' behavior, and to respond to it e€ectively. When you meet somebody for the ®rst time, it is important to know whether or not this person will adopt a favorable, cooperative attitude toward you. Your ®rst impression of the person helps you to answer this question, and to decide how to behave yourself. This function of impression formation is especially important if you are dependent on someone. For example, when someone is able to a€ect your outcomes, you will pay more attention to this person than you might have done otherwise, and you will really be motivated to form an accurate, individuated impression of him or her (e.g. Berscheid, Graziano, Monson, & Dermer, 1976; Erber & Fiske, 1984; Neuberg & Fiske, 1987; Ruscher & Fiske, 1990). CCC 0046±2772/99/020305±24$17.50 Received 30 September 1996 Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 23 December 1997 European Journal of Social Psychology Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 29, 305±328 (1999) *Correspondence to: Dr Ellen De Bruin, Department of Social Psychology, Free University of Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. e-mail: enm.de.bruin@ psy.vu.nl In studies of the e€ects of such outcome dependency on impression formation, two aspects have received little attention. First, this research generally does not involve measures of behavior toward the person who is the object of the impression. Although it is assumed either implicitly or explicitly that outcome dependencyÐor its mutual form, interdependenceÐincreases attention and accuracy motivation because `thinking is for doing' (Fiske, 1992; see also e.g. Bruner & Tagiuri, 1954; Heider, 1958; Jones & Thibaut, 1958), it is not tested whether or how these impressions actually in ̄uence behavior. Participants in such paradigms remain `one-way mirror observers'. Second, studies on outcome dependency generally investigated either cooperative or competitive dependence, and neglected so-called mixed-motive situations, in which the needs and interests of the persons concerned partly correspond and partly con ̄ict (see Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; an exception, however, is found in De Dreu, Yzerbyt & Leyens, 1995). Such situations are important not only because they are quite common in everyday life, but also because they make that one's impression of the other person really matters. Because these situations provide no clues as to whether to view the other as a `partner' or as an `opponent', it becomes especially useful to form an impression of the other person and of the behavior one may expect from him or her, in order to decide how to behave toward this person. We chose to con®ne the current research to a speci®c mixed-motive interdependence context: a two-person social dilemma. This is an interdependence situation in which noncooperation results in greater outcomes for self than cooperation, irrespective of the other's behavior, but in which mutual cooperation yields greater outcomes for both persons than does mutual noncooperative behavior. AN INTERDEPENDENCE ANALYSIS OF EVALUATIVE