1984 Volume 55 Issue 3 Pages 166-172
The purpose of the present study was to investigate how dimensional (neatness, intelligence, warmth, self-confidence, and cheerfulness) weights in person perception varied according to perceiver's sex, perceiver's authoritarianism, and stimulus person's sex. Subjects were 36 males and 36 females. Thirty of their acquaintances (15 males and 15 females) served as stimulus persons. Subjects were asked to rate each stimulus person's personality on each dimension and overall similarity of personality for each pair of stimulus persons. Subjects were asked to rate male and female stimulus persons separately. Dimensional weights were estimated by calculating the correlation coefficient between perceived dissimilarity for each pair of stimulus persons on each perceptual dimension and overall dissimilarity for each pair of stimulus persons transformed from the directly rated overall similarity. The results suggested that the dimensional weights for cheerfulness and self-confidence were generally larger and that high authoritarians' dimensional weights concentrated upon particular dimensions. Results were discussed with reference to Rosenberg's (1977) multidimensional evaluative model.
