Tag Archives: Ambiguity

Proposed that such assessments occur because the meaning of most characteristics is ambiguous, which allows people to use self-serving trait definitions when providing self-evaluations. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that people provide self-serving assessments to the extent that the trait is ambiguous, that is, to the extent that it can describe a wide variety of …

Continue reading “Dunning, D., Meyerowitz, J. A., & Holzberg, A. D. (1989). Ambiguity and self-evaluation: The role of idiosyncratic trait definitions in self-serving assessments of ability.”

The present research shows that although people believe that learning more about others leads to greater liking, more information about others leads, on average, to less liking. Thus, ambiguity–lacking information about another–leads to liking, whereas familiarity–acquiring more information–can breed contempt. This “less is more” effect is due to the cascading nature of dissimilarity: Once evidence …

Continue reading “Norton, M. I., Frost, J. H., &Ariely, D. (2007). Less is more: The lure of ambiguity, or why familiarity breeds contempt.Journal of personality and social psychology, 92(1), 97-105.”