This article investigates how the activation of a specific exemplar influences the direction and the size of context effects on evaluative judgments about other specific exemplars or about a superordinate category. The activation of an untrustworthy politician decreased judgments of trustworthiness of politicians in general but increased judgments of the trustworthiness of specific exemplars. The assimilation as well as the contrast effect were attenuated when additional judgment-relevant exemplars were activated. The results suggest that the impact of a specific context information depends on the amount of other judgment-relevant information that can be used in constructing a mental representation of the judgmental target or of a comparison standard. Implications for scandal management are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, N. H. (1981). The foundations of information integration theory. New York: Academic Press.
2.
Barsalou, L. W. (1987). The instability of graded structure: Implications for the nature of concepts. In U. Neisser (Ed.), Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization (pp. 101-140). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
3.
Bless, H. , & Schwarz, N. (1998). Context effects in political judgment: Assimilation and contrast as a function of categorization processes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 159-172.
4.
Bless, H. , & Wänke, M. (2000). Can the same information be typical and atypical? How perceived typicality moderates assimilation and contrast in evaluative judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 306-314.
5.
Converse, P. E. (1964). The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In D. E. Apter (Ed.), Ideology and discontent (pp. 202-261). New York: Free Press.
6.
Corbett, M. (1991). American public opinion. New York: Longman.
7.
Ebbighausen, R. , & Neckel, S. (Eds.). (1989). Anatomie des politischen Skandals [The anatomy of political scandals]. Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp.
8.
Eiser, J. R. (1990). Social judgment. London: Open University Press.
9.
Erikson, R. S. , Luttbeg, N. R., & Tedin, K. L. (1988). American public opinion. New York: Macmillan.
10.
Fiske, S. T. , & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum of impression formation, from category-based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 1-74.
11.
Garment, S. (1991). Scandal: The culture of mistrust in American politics. New York: Doubleday.
12.
Herr, P. M. (1986). Consequences of priming: Judgment and behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 51, 1106-1115.
13.
Herr, P. M. , Sherman, S. J., & Fazio, R. H. (1983). On the consequences of priming: Assimilation and contrast effects. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 323-340.
14.
Higgins, E. T. (1996). Knowledge activation: Accessibility, applicability, and salience. In E. T. Higgins & A. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 133-168). New York: Guilford.
15.
Kahneman, D. , & Miller, D. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136-153.
16.
Krosnick, J. A. , & Abelson, R. P. (1992). The case for measuring attitude strength. In J. M. Tanur (Ed.), Questions about questions (pp. 177-203). New York: Russell Sage.
17.
Martin, L. L. , Seta, J. J., & Crelia, R. A. (1990). Assimilation and contrast as a function of people’s willingness to expend effort in forming an impression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 27-37.
18.
Ostrom, T. M. , & Upshaw, H. S. (1968). Psychological perspective and attitude change. In A. C. Greenwald, T. C. Brock, & T. M. Ostrom (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attitudes (pp. 217-242). New York: Academic Press.
19.
Petty, R. E. , & Krosnick, J. A. (Eds.). (1995). Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
20.
Schwarz, N. , & Bless, H. (1992a). Constructing reality and its alternatives: Assimilation and contrast effects in social judgment. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgment (pp. 217-245). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
21.
Schwarz, N. , & Bless, H. (1992b). Scandals and the public’s trust in politicians: Assimilation and contrast effects. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 574-579.
22.
Schwarz, N. , Strack, F., & Mai, H. P. (1991). Assimilation and contrast effects in part-whole question sequences: A conversational logic analysis. Public Opinion Quarterly, 55, 3-23.
23.
Smith, E. R. , & Zárate, M. A. (1992). Exemplar-based model of social judgment. Psychological Review, 99, 3-21.
24.
Stapel, D. A. , & Schwarz, N. (1998). The Republican who did not want to become president: Colin Powell’s impact on evaluations of the Republican Party and Bob Dole. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 690-698.
25.
Strack, F. , & Martin, L. L. (1987). Thinking, judging, and communicating: A process account of context effects in attitude surveys. In H. J. Hippler, N. Schwarz, & S. Sudman (Eds.), Social information processing and survey methodology (pp. 123-148). New York: Springer Verlag.
26.
Sudman, S. , Bradburn, N., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Thinking about answers: The application of cognitive processes to survey methodology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
27.
Wänke, M. , Bless, H., & Schwarz, N. (1998). Contrast and assimilation in product line extensions: Context is not destiny. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 7, 299-322.
28.
Winkielman, P. , & Schwarz, N. (1998). Contrast and assimilation with and without awareness. Manuscript submitted for publication.
29.
Wyer, R. S. , & Srull, T. K. (1989). Memory and cognition in its social context. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
