Ratings by college Ss of a young, female stimulus person on three status-relevant traits (ambitious, educated, cultured) and three status-non-relevant traits (friendly, moral, lazy) were compared when that person was photographed in a neutral (nature setting) vs a high, medium, or low status background (house type). It was hypothesized that: trait ratings would vary as a function of background across all traits, status-relevant traits would be more sensitive to background effects, and men and women would not differ in their ratings. All hypotheses were confirmed.
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