Posthumous Impression Formation

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Posthumous Impression Formation

• Scott Allison, Dafna Eylon, Jennifer Bachelder,
  and Emily Breiner
• University of Richmond

2
Background

• Research on impression formation has focused on
  impressions of living targets
• How do impressions of dead targets differ from
  impressions of living targets?

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Philosophical Views of Posthumous Impressions

• Death crystalizes the impression
• Tis after death that we measure men. -- James
  Barron Hope
• One does not know more facts about a man because
  he is dead. But what one knows hardens and
  becomes more definite.
  -- John Berger
• Death leads to a more favorable impression
• Dont insult the dead. -- Sophocles
• Death openeth the gate to good fame, and
  extinguisheth envy. -- Francis
  Bacon

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Examples of How We Honor the Dead

• Statues, monuments, shrines
• Names of buildings, cities, awards, roads,
  children
• Funerals, epitaphs, elegies, eulogies, headstones
• Epic stories, myths, legends
• Faces on coins, currency, stamps
• Moments of silence

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Two Main Issues

• The evaluative issue How do evaluations of the
  dead differ from evaluations of the living?
• The process issue How do we process
  information differently about the dead than about
  the living?

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Experiment 1 Posthumous Evaluations

• Do people show a death positivity bias in their
  impressions of the dead?
• Participants read a scenario describing a
  business leader and were asked to form an
  impression of him
• The business leader was either alive or dead, and
  was described as either competent or incompetent
  at his job
• 3 possible results
• Subjects perceive the dead the same way as the
  living
• Subjects show a death positivity bias
• Subjects show a death extremitization bias

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Experiment 1

• Design 2 (alive, dead) x 2 (competent,
  incompetent)
• Examples of competent/incompetent target actions
• Visionary/shortsighted investment decisions
• Hiring of good/bad employees
• Development of innovative/useless products
• Dependent measures
• How favorable is your impression of this person
• How much respect do you have for this person
• How good a leader and how good a businessman
• How proud would you and others be to work for
  this person
• How motivated and inspired by this person are you
  and others

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Experiment 1 ResultsEvidence for the Death
Positivity Bias
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Limits to the Death Positivity Bias

• Experiment 1 manipulated the targets standing on
  the competence dimension, but what about the
  morality dimension?
• Why might we expect a difference between
  competence and morality?
• When forming posthumous impressions, we may place
  greater weight on the targets standing on the
  morality dimension than the competence dimension
• Terror management theory Death anxiety
  intensifies allegiance to moral codes (Becker,
  1973). When mortality is made salient, people
  punish immoral targets and reward moral targets
  (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski,
  Lyon, 1989)

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Experiment 2 Overview

• Two competing hypotheses
• Death positivity for both competence and morality
  dimensions
• Death positivity for the dimension of competence
  but death extremitization for the dimension of
  morality
• Design 2 (status dead, alive) x 2 (dimension
  competence, morality) x 2 (valence positive,
  negative)
• Examples of moral/immoral target actions
• Legal/illegal disposal of toxic waste
• Generous/stingy treatment of employees
• Giving/not giving to charities

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Experiment 2 Results
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Experiment 3 Overview

• People are not always consistently good, bad,
  competent, or incompetent over their entire
  lifespan.
• In Experiment 3, the target underwent a change in
  competence or morality.
• Design 2 (status alive, dead) x 2 (dimension
  morality, competence) x 2 (order of change
  positive to negative, negative to positive)

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Experiment 3 Hypotheses

• Morality Dimension
• The St. Augustine effect. People love sinners
  who become great saints.
• The fallen angel effect. People loathe saints
  who become sinners.
• The above effects should be stronger when the
  target is dead than when the target is alive.
• Competence Dimension
• The diamond-in-the-rough effect. People love
  individuals who start out slow but then develop
  great competencies.
• The he-could-have-been-a-contender effect.
  People dislike individuals who fizzle out after
  showing early promise in abilities.
• The above effects should be stronger when the
  target is alive than when the target is dead.
  For dead targets, only the death positivity bias
  should emerge.

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Experiment 3 Results
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Process Issues The Why and How of the
Death Positivity Bias?

• The bias may reflect the use of the social norm
  or heuristic, Show respect for the dead.
• This explanation suggests shallow, superficial
  processing
• Applies to targets with whom we share a weak unit
  relationship
• Death makes salient the miraculous uniqueness of
  the person -- the ache of cosmic specialness
  (Becker, 1973). This specialness tends to be
  most recognizable at lifes salient transitions
  of birth and death.
• This explanation suggests deeper, more systematic
  processing
• Applies to targets with whom we share a strong
  unit relationship

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Process Issues Associated With Posthumous
Impression Formation

• Impressions of Living Targets
• The perceiver forms an impression of the targets
  personality
• Impressions are made via on-line
  processing
• Impressions show a primacy effect
• Trait inferences made quickly
• Impressions are subject to change in response to
  changes in the targets behavior
• Shallow processing more likely
• Impressions are formed in the service of behavior

• Impressions of Dead Targets
• The perceiver uses the targets moral actions as
  the main basis for the impression
• Impressions are made via memory-based
  processing
• Impressions show a recency effect
• Trait inferences made slowly
• Impressions are stable and immutable the target
  becomes frozen in time
• Deeper processing more likely
• Impressions serve more cosmological functions

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Experiment 4 Overview

• Purpose To investigate differences in the
  processing of information about living versus
  dead target persons
• Method
• Behavioral information about a target (either
  living or dead) displayed sequentially on a
  computer screen
• Subjects presented with 12 target behaviors
  corresponding to 3 trait dimensions (athleticism,
  intelligence, and sociability)
• Dependent measures
• Favorability of the impressions
• Response latencies of trait ratings
• Free recall of information about target
• Confidence in trait ratings

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Experiment 4 ResultsReplication of the Death
Positivity Bias
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Experiment 4 Response Latencies of Trait Ratings
Evidence of on-line processing of living target
and memory-based processing of dead target
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Experiment 4 Response latency for morality

• Subjects asked to type the first word that comes
  to mind

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Experiment 4 Confidence of Trait Ratings
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Experiment 4

• Subjects forming posthumous impressions were
  quicker to indicate a willingness to say nice
  things about the target

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Experiment 4

• Subjects forming posthumous impressions recalled
  more behavioral information about the target

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Summary of Findings Experiments 1 and 2

• People show a death positivity bias, forming more
  favorable impressions of dead targets than of
  living targets
• People display the bias independent of the
  targets standing on intellectual or
  ability-related dimensions (Experiment 1)
• People show a death extremitization bias when
  forming an impression of a target based on the
  targets standing on the dimension of morality
  (Experiment 2)

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Summary of Findings Experiment 3

• When perceiving a change in a target
• People are sensitive to a change in a targets
  abilities when the target is alive but are
  insensitive to the change when the target is dead
• People are sensitive to the direction of change
  in morality
• Impressions of a living target are based on
  information about the targets moral actions
  performed early in life
• Impressions of a dead target are based on the
  targets moral actions performed later in life
  near the time of death (St. Augustine effect)

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Summary of Findings Experiment 4

• Replication of the Death Positivity Bias
• People engage in on-line processing of living
  targets and memory-based processing of dead
  targets
• People are more confident of their impressions of
  living targets than of dead targets
• Perceiving a dead target primes the notion of
  morality
• People are quicker to praise the dead than the
  living, suggesting that the DPB reflects the use
  of a heuristic
• People also recall more information about the
  dead, suggesting overall deeper processing of the
  dead

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Future Directions

• Issues pertaining to evaluation
• Is the death positivity bias moderated by the
  strength of the unit relationship between the
  perceiver and the target person?
• Is the death positivity bias part of a more
  general Life Transition Positivity Bias
  phenomenon?
• Issues pertaining to process, stability, and
  meaning
• Does the targets standing on the dimension of
  morality receive more weight when the target is
  dead than when the target is living?
• Are posthumous impressions more stable and
  immutable than impressions of the living?
• How are posthumous impressions affected by the
  circumstances of the targets death?
• Do people draw meaning from posthumous
  impressions?