Relational versus structural goals prioritize different social information

Bibliographic Data

ID6205522
AuthorsGandalf Nicolas (0000-0001-8215-1758, Princeton University), Susan T Fiske (0000-0002-1693-3425, Princeton University), Alex Koch (0000-0002-6267-8066, UCLouvain), Roland Imhoff (0000-0003-0807-463X, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), Christian Unkelbach (0000-0002-3793-6246, University of Cologne), Julie Terache (0000-0002-9728-346X, UCLouvain), Antonin Carrier (0000-0001-5921-0887, Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire), Vincent Yzerbyt (0000-0003-1185-4733, UCLouvain)
Year2022
Volume122
Issue4
Pages659-682
Publication date2022-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/pspi0000366
PMID34138603
OpenAlexW3167843502
LanguageEN
Citations received10

People gather information about others along a few fundamental dimensions; their current goals determine which dimensions they most need to know. As proponents of competing social-evaluation models, we sought to study the dimensions that perceivers spontaneously prioritize when gathering information about unknown social groups. Because priorities depend on functions, having relational goals (e.g., deciding whether and how to interact with a group) versus structural goals (e.g., getting an overview of society) should moderate dimensional priorities. Various candidate dimensions could differentiate perceivers' impressions of social groups. For example, the Stereotype Content model argues that people evaluate others in terms of their Warmth (i.e., their Sociability and Morality) and Competence (i.e., their Ability and Assertiveness). Alternatively, the Agency-Beliefs-Communion (ABC) model proposes conservative-progressive Beliefs. Five studies (N = 2,268) found that participants consistently prioritized learning about targets' Warmth. However, goal moderated priority: When participants had a relational goal, such as an unknown group increasing in their neighborhood, they showed more interest in targets' Sociability, a facet of Warmth. When participants had a structural goal, such as an unknown group increasing in their nation, they showed more interest in the groups' Beliefs, as well as increased interest in Competence-related facets. Diverse methods reveal interest in all dimensions, reconciling discrepancies among social-evaluation models by identifying how relational versus structural goals differentiate priorities of the fundamental dimensions proposed by current models. Results have implications for fundamental dimensions of social cognition, more generally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Assertiveness · Cognition · Competence (human resources) · Epistemology · Impression formation · Morality · Perception · PsycINFO · Social cognition · Social group · Social perception · Behavioral Health and Interventions · Computational and Text Analysis Methods · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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