Impression formation and cooperative behavior

Two studies investigated how behavioral information about the morality or intelligence of another person influences impressions, expectations of cooperative behavior, and own cooperation in a mixed-motive interdependence situation. Consistent with the morality-importance hypothesis results revealed that morality information influenced impressions, expectations of other's cooperative behavior, as well as own cooperation more strongly than intelligence information, and led to greater confidence in expectations and better recall. Consistent with the negativity effect hypothesis negative information about morality and intelligence had more impact on impressions and interaction-relevant measures than positive information. An additional finding was that people overall expected more cooperation from others than they were willing to display themselves, and that this difference was especially pronounced for unintelligent and moral targets. Explanations and implications are discussed from a behavioral-adaptive perspective on impression formation. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.