1997 Volume 37 Issue 1 Pages 37-49
The purpose of this study was to investigate longitudinal changes in the dimensional structure of in-terpersonal perception and score changes on dimensions by means of“ierarchical Principal Component Analysis (HPCA), Murakami (1990) ”. Ninety-seven female college freshmen rated the impression of a same-sex freshman whom they initially encountered on twenty 7-point-scales. Identical subjects rated the same target person five times within eight months. They also completed the Repertory Grid Testmeasuring subject's cognitive complexity a year after the last impression ratings.
Major findings obtained were as follows: (1) Three common dimensions were extracted as a result of HPCA: “Personal Likability”, “Social Evaluation”and“Activity”. (2) Two independent dimensional scores on the same perceptual dimension were extracted during each of the five ratings. These were stable scores across five times and changing scores. (3) The patterns of change on the evaluative two dimensions and the activity dimension were different. (4) It was suggested that cognitive complexity is related to impressions of others during encounters.
