Our research focuses on the negative relationship between the two fundamental dimensions of social perception, warmth and competence. Specifically, we examine antecedents and consequences of what has been called the compensation effect, i.e., perceivers’ tendency to differentiate two social targets in a comparative context on the two fundamental dimensions by contrasting them in a compensatory direction. In order to present our theoretical background and highlight the relevance of our empirical research, the first chapter of this theoretical part reviews the research that has identified competence and warmth as the two fundamental dimensions of social perception, and the second chapter reviews how these two dimensions have been used in social psychology. In the third chapter, we review the work that has concentrated on the properties of these two dimensions. And in the fourth and final theoretical chapter, we present recent research that has tested the compensation effect empirically and that constitutes the starting point of the present endeavor.
In the experimental part, our ambition has been to get a better understanding of the compensation effect.
In Chapter 5, we identify a necessary condition of the emergence of a compensation effect, namely that it is observed on the two fundamental dimensions of social perception, not on any given pair of dimensions. In three experiments we first replicate the compensation effect on the two fundamental dimensions, then we show that if the unmanipulated dimension is not one of the two fundamental dimensions, then a halo effect is observed when a compensation effect would have been observed with the fundamental dimensions.
In Chapter 6, we show how the compensation effect affects social perception beyond impression formation. We do so by showing a compensation effect on indirect measures.
In the Chapter 7 we test two original predictions based on the compensation effect. First we predict and find that context can affect the ratings of a specific group in a compensatory way. And we show that the compensation effect can be found on mean ratings, and at the correlational level. Second we predict and show that the compensation effect will lead to more differenciated judgments of groups that have a compensatory profile than those that have a halo profile.
This is a doctoral thesis based on a series of articles. Therefore we ask the reader to understand that there will be redundancies in the five theoretical introductions of the articles and a number of cross references.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BICfB/oai:ucl.ac.be:ETDUCL:BelnUcetd-11192008-095503 |
| Date | 27 November 2008 |
| Creators | Kervyn, Nicolas |
| Publisher | Universite catholique de Louvain |
| Source Sets | Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de la Communauté française de Belgique |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://edoc.bib.ucl.ac.be:81/ETD-db/collection/available/BelnUcetd-11192008-095503/ |
| Rights | mixed, J'accepte que le texte de la thèse (ci-après l'oeuvre), sous réserve des parties couvertes par la confidentialité, soit publié dans le recueil électronique des thèses UCL. A cette fin, je donne licence à l'UCL : - le droit de fixer et de reproduire l'oeuvre sur support électronique : logiciel ETD/db - le droit de communiquer l'oeuvre au public Cette licence, gratuite et non exclusive, est valable pour toute la durée de la propriété littéraire et artistique, y compris ses éventuelles prolongations, et pour le monde entier. Je conserve tous les autres droits pour la reproduction et la communication de la thèse, ainsi que le droit de l'utiliser dans de futurs travaux. Je certifie avoir obtenu, conformément à la législation sur le droit d'auteur et aux exigences du droit à l'image, toutes les autorisations nécessaires à la reproduction dans ma thèse d'images, de textes, et/ou de toute oeuvre protégés par le droit d'auteur, et avoir obtenu les autorisations nécessaires à leur communication à des tiers. Au cas où un tiers est titulaire d'un droit de propriété intellectuelle sur tout ou partie de ma thèse, je certifie avoir obtenu son autorisation écrite pour l'exercice des droits mentionnés ci-dessus. |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds