The dependency of interpersonal evaluations on context‐relevant beliefs about the other

Subjects differing in cognitive complexity formed impressions of another based on positive information about the other's work behavior and negative information about social behavior, or vice versa. Immediate impressions written to one context, and work‐ and social‐evaluation measures, reflected the valence of the information; general evaluative measures tended to neutrality. Impressions (written to the other context) and evaluations obtained two weeks later showed similar results. These results, in conjunction with those of subsidiary analyses involving Fishbein's attitude model, were interpreted as supporting a view of beliefs as substantive cognitions rather than as vacuous elements functioning only to contribute increments of affect.