Effects of Asymmetric Questions on Impression Formation

Abstract

When examining social targets, people may ask asymmetric questions, that is, questions for which “yes” and “no” answers are neither equally diagnostic nor equally frequent. The consequences of this information-gathering strategy on impression formation deserve empirical investigation. The present work explored the role played by the trade-off between the diagnosticity and frequency of answers that follow asymmetric questions. In Study 1, participants received answers to symmetric/asymmetric questions on an anonymous social target. In Study 2, participants read answers to a specific symmetric/asymmetric question provided by different group members. Overall, the results of both studies indicate that asymmetric questions had less impact on impressions than did symmetric questions, suggesting that individuals are more sensitive to data frequency than diagnosticity when forming impressions.