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6.5 COGNITIVE APPROACH TO IMPRESSION 
FORMATION : 
 
 The term cognitive means perception, thinking, reasoning 
and other related mental processes. Impression formation is a 
cognitive process in which we combine available information about 
others into a weighted average in which each piece of information 
about another person is weighted in terms of its relative 
importance. The various factors that influence the relative weight 
age are as follows.
1. The Sources of Input: The information from sources we trust 
or admire is weighted more heavily than information from 
sources we distrust (Rosenbaum and Levin, 1969). 
2. Positive and Negative Nature of Information: We tend to 
weight negative information about others more heavily than 
positive information. 
3. Unusual or Extreme Behaviour: The information that 
describes behaviour or traits that are unusual or extreme are 
more valued and weighted. 

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4. Primacy Effect: Information received first tends to be weighted 
more heavily than information received later. 
Modern investigators have attempted to understand 
impression formation in terms of the basic knowledge of Social 
Cognition i.e., the ways in which we notice, store, remember and 
integrate social information. According to cognitive view our basic 
ideas about how impressions are formed and changed is influenced 
by two factors: Exemplars of the trait and mental summaries that 
are abstracted from repeated observations of other’s behaviours. 
We would discuss each of these briefly. 
• Exemplars: It refers to concrete examples of behaviour other 
have performed that are consistent with a given traits. According 
to this view when we make judgements about others, we recall 
examples of their behaviour and base our judgement (and our 
impressions) on these. For e.g., we may recall that during our 
first meeting with person, how he/she was rude, made criticism 
about others, and did not co-operate with sick person who was 
with us. We will recall all these pieces of information and 
conclude that this person posses the trait of “inconsideration.” 
• Abstractions: It refers to mental summaries that are abstracted 
from repeated observations of other‘s behaviour. According to 
this view when we make judgement about others we simply 
bring our previously formed abstractions to mind, and then use 
these as the basis for our impressions and our decisions. If we 
have previously judged a person to be unfriendly, pessimistic, 
etc., we will combine these traits into an impression of this 
individual. 
A large number of research evidence (Klein and Loftus, 
1993, Klein et al., 1992) supports the view that concrete examples 
of behaviour and mental abstractions play a role in impression 
formation. The nature of impressions considerably shifts as we gain 
increasing experience with others. 
Research studies by Sherman and Klein (1994) have 
explained how our impressions of others develop. According to 
them our initial impression of others consists primarily of examples 
of behaviour they have shown that are indicative of various traits. 
After we have had more experience with people, however, our 
impressions shift towards consisting mainly of abstractions ----- 
mental summaries of their behaviour on many occasions.
In sum, existing evidence indicates that information does not 
occur in a cognitive vacuum. On the contrary, mental framework 
representing our previous experience in many social situations, and 

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