Warm-Cold Perceptions and Expectations of Future Contact

Darley and Berscheid (1967) found that the anticipation of personal contact increased liking. Contrary to this finding, Love, Mason, Owens, Mobley, and Lawless (1988) noted that the expectations of personal contact which threatens reduced all liking. In the fkst of two pilot studies, using a method similar to Kelley (19501, and in a 2 x 2 factorial design, a warm confederate was liked more than the same confederate as cold, however, when subjects expected to review their ratings with the codederate, the warm was liked less and the cold confederate liked more-this interaction feu short of sie- ., dicance. In the second study, when the expectation of contact was not structured as a threat, ratings of liking increased for both the warm and cold confederates. These two preliminary findings became the focus of the present experiment. Two introductory psychology classes with 106 college students were randomly assigned in a 2 x 3 design. A confederate was described to subjects as either warm or cold and indusrrious, critical, practical, and determined. Next, subjects viewed a 5-min. video of the confederate presenting a talk, then rated the confederate across 13 traits on Likert scales of 1 to 9. Two groups expected no contact (no contact). Two groups rated then expected to review their ratings with the confederate (contact plus threat). Two groups rated then expected to meet the confederate (contact only). There were no significant interactions or main effects. When expecting no contact, the warm was liked more than the cold confederate (in mean summed ratings from 74.63 to 72.94; SDs: 13.68 and 13.61, respectively). When subjects expected to review ratings with the confederate (contact plus threat), the warm person was liked more and the cold confederate less, a significant difference (Ms: 78.94 to 69.44; t= 1.88, p<.05; SDs: 15.47 to 13.13). Expecting contact only increased rated liking for both the warm and cold confederate (Ms: 78.26 to 76.12; SDs: 14.75 to 12.45). These results agree with Darley and Berscheid's predjction that expectations of future contact increase liking, however, contrary to their finding, expectations of future contact to review ratings led to significantly more liking only for a warm but not for a cold confederate

Anticipation (artificial intelligence · Contact hypothesis · Perception · Color perception and design · Psychology · Social Psychology

• The Warm‐cold Variable in First Impressions of Persons

  Open Access•Harold H Kelley•Journal of Personality•1950

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• Increased Liking as a Result of the Anticipation of Personal Contact

  Open Access•John M Darley, Ellen Berscheid•Human Relations•1967

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