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Impression formation in social psychology refers to the processes by which different pieces of knowledge about another are combined into a global or summary impression. Social Psychologist Solomon Asch was a pioneer in Gestalt Psychology. He is credited with the seminal research on impression formation and conducted research on how individuals integrate information about personality traits. Two major theories have been proposed to explain how this process of integration takes place. The Gestalt approach views the formation of a general impression as the sum of several interrelated impressions. As an individual seeks to form a coherent impression of another person, previous impressions significantly influence the interpretation of subsequent information. In contrast to the Gestalt approach, the cognitive algebra approach asserts that individual experiences are combined with previous evaluations to form a constantly changing impression of the individual. A related area to impression formation is the study of person perception, making dispositional attributions, and then adjusting those inferences based on the information available.

Recent Studies

Impression formation is based on the characteristics of both the perceivers and targets. However, research has not been able to quantify the extent to which these two groups contribute to impression. Research was conducted to determine the extent of how impressions originate from ‘our mind’ and ‘target face’. Results demonstrated that perceiver characteristics contribute more than target appearance. Impressions can be made from facial appearance alone and assessments on attributes such as nice, strong, and smart based on variations of the targets’ face. The results show that subtle facial traits have meaningful consequences on impressions, which is true even for young children of 3 years old. Studies have been conducted to study impression formation in social situations rather than situations involving threat. Research reveals that social goals are capable of driving the formation of impressions and that there exists flexibility in the possible impressions formed on target faces.

Classic experiments
In a classic experiment, Solomon Asch principal theoretical concern revolved around understanding the mechanisms influencing a person's overall impression of others, principally trait centrality and trait valence of various personality characteristics.[1] His research illustrated the influential roles of the primacy effect, valence, and causal attribution on the part of the individual. [2][3][4][5] Based on the findings of ten experiments studying the effect of various personality adjectives on the resulting quality and character of impressions,several key principles of impression formation were identified.

1. Individuals have a natural inclination to make global dispositional inferences about the nature of another person's personality.

2. Individuals expect observed behaviors to reflect stable personality traits.

3. Individuals attempt to fit information about different traits and behaviors into a meaningful and coherent whole.

4. Individuals attempt to explain and rationalize inconsistencies when the available information does not fit with the global perception.