Abstract
The perseverance of personality impressions was examined in two experiments within a debriefing paradigm.
The paradigm used in the present study was as follows:
1. Subjects were initially asked to evaluate a stimulus person based on an unambiguous information (positive or negative) and an ambiguous information (neutral).
2. Debriefing: Afterward they were informed that the unambiguous information was irrelevant to the stimulus person.
3. Then they were asked to revaluate the stimulus person only based on the ambiguous information.
Major findings were as follows:
1. Even after debriefing, the subjects who initially had read the positive information revaluated the stimulus person more positively than did the subjects who had read the nagative information.
2. This perseverance effect was more salient under the recall condition than under the nonrecall condition.
3. This perseverance effect was more salient under the interpretation condition than under the non-interpretation conditon.
