Response Process in Judgmental Contrast

Abstract

College students ranked opposite-sex and same-sex celebrities on their attractiveness as potential partners for an evening (dateability) in Experiment 1 (n = 130). The opposite-sex rankings were used to establish three stimulus contexts varying in average dateability for each sex. Subjects then gave two types of magnitude estimations (line drawings and dollars) on the dateability of common stimulus names in the three contexts (Experiment 2, n = 117). Both types of magnitude estimations were inversely related to the average dateability of the entire ensemble; that is, judgmental contrast was demonstrated. Contrast was not, however, obtained in Experiment 3, when subjects (n = 43) made a between-sex celebrity-matching response on dateability. It was concluded that the observed contrast effects were due to contextual influences on response processes rather than perceptual processes.