Complexity, Extremity, Affect, and Threat as Dimensions of Person Perception

Summary

Using the Semantic Differential technique, this study of 345 male and female undergraduates replicated and extended work by Deaux and Farris on the effects of Ss' and stimulus persons' sex on cognitive complexity scores, response extremity, and overall evaluational affect. The dimension of threat was additionally examined regarding the tendency of disliked persons to be more complexly evaluated than liked persons. While the Deaux-Farris results were generally reaffirmed---males being more complex than females, both sexes being more complex with disliked than liked others, and females giving the more extreme and favorable responses---a seemingly anomalous finding with the present data was the positive correlation between cognitive simplicity and threat scores associated with disliked others, a result speculatively linked with the personality dimension of authoritarianism.