Social judgments are usually made in the context of complex information including verbal cues.Here we investigated the impact of verbal statements on social judgments by biasing male and female neutral faces with desc...Social judgments are usually made in the context of complex information including verbal cues.Here we investigated the impact of verbal statements on social judgments by biasing male and female neutral faces with descriptives of differentially-valenced behaviour（criticizing or praising） targeting others or objects. Results showed significant main effects of valence and target, such that critical individuals were rated lower in likeability than praising ones and those targeting others relative to objects were valued less. In particular, those who criticized others were the most unlikeable. Among critical individuals, men were less likeable than women. Similarly, men became less valued while targeting others. Overall these findings suggest that the negative impact of critical attributes may trigger avoidance in social interaction while the positive impact of praise may trigger approach.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.31600880Chinese Fundamental Research Funding for Central Universities under Grant No.ZYGX2015002Interdisciplinary Development under Grant No.Y03111023901014007
文摘Social judgments are usually made in the context of complex information including verbal cues.Here we investigated the impact of verbal statements on social judgments by biasing male and female neutral faces with descriptives of differentially-valenced behaviour（criticizing or praising） targeting others or objects. Results showed significant main effects of valence and target, such that critical individuals were rated lower in likeability than praising ones and those targeting others relative to objects were valued less. In particular, those who criticized others were the most unlikeable. Among critical individuals, men were less likeable than women. Similarly, men became less valued while targeting others. Overall these findings suggest that the negative impact of critical attributes may trigger avoidance in social interaction while the positive impact of praise may trigger approach.
