The Primacy-of-Warmth Effect on Spontaneous Trait Inferences and the Moderating Role of Trait Valence: Evidence From Chinese Undergraduates

Abstract

Research has shown that warmth and competence are the fundamental content dimensions underlying social judgment, and warmth judgments are primary. However, the overwhelming majority of research concerning “primacy-of-warmth” rests on trait judgment or lexical recognition, and little attention has been paid to spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) that are made on exposure to trait-implying behaviors. Two studies were performed to examine the primacy-of-warmth effect on STIs and to further explore whether trait valence moderates the effect. Consistent with our expectations, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 (for spontaneous trait activation and spontaneous trait binding, respectively) consistently demonstrated the primacy-of-warmth on STIs. Participants were more likely to draw STIs from behaviors implying warmth traits than those implying competence traits. Moreover, the primacy-of-warmth effect on STIs was moderated by trait valence. In concrete terms, participants were more likely to draw STIs from negative warmth behavioral sentences than negative competence behavioral sentences, whereas participants draw STIs from positive warmth behavioral sentences and from positive competence behavioral sentences equally. An original contribution made by our study is that we obtained the primacy-of-warmth effect on STIs, providing further evidence for the primacy-of-warmth effect in the domain of implicit social cognition.

Spontaneous Trait Inferences From Behavior: A Systematic Meta-Analysis

“…Depending on differences in independent versus interdependent self- and person construal (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 2010) and the related tendency to spontaneously use traits to explain observed behavior, it has been theorized that STIs should occur more frequently in samples with a predominantly individualistic (e.g., European and North American) cultural background compared with samples having a rather collectivistic (e.g., Asian) cultural background (e.g., Moskowitz, 2005; Uleman et al, 2008). The lack of significant cultural differences in the present meta-analysis is largely attributable to recent research conducted in Chinese (Lee et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2015, 2016, 2018; Wang & Yang, 2017; Yang & Wang, 2016; Zhang & Fang, 2016; Zhang & Wang, 2013, 2018) and Japanese samples (Shimizu, 2012; Shimizu & Uleman, 2021). Thus, the results of this meta-analysis suggest that STIs might not be as dependent on cultural differences in person construal as previously theorized.…”