Impression formation in the context of Sociological social psychology

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 is credited with the seminal research on impression formation and conducted research on how individuals integrate information about personality traits. Two major models have been proposed to explain how this process of integration takes place. The configural model suggests that people form cohesive impressions by integrating traits into a unified whole, adjusting individual traits to fit an overall context rather than evaluating each trait independently. According to this model, some traits are more schematic and serve as central traits to shape the overall impression. As an individual seeks to form a coherent and meaningful impression of another individual, previous impressions significantly influence the interpretation of subsequent information. In contrast, the algebraic model takes a more additive approach, forming impressions by separately evaluating each trait and then combining these evaluations into an overall summary. A related area to impression formation is the study of person perception, making causal attributions, and then adjusting those inferences based on the information available.