Contrast effect

Example contrast

A contrast effect is a cognitive distortion that leads to a more intense perception of information that is presented together with information that is in contrast .

Contrast effects occur when there is a negative relationship between the implications of the context information and the judgment. When judgments are made, positive context information leads to more negative evaluations and negative context information to more positive evaluations.

Contrast effects are omnipresent in human perception, cognition and the resulting behavior . An object appears heavier when compared to a light object or lighter when contrasted with a heavy object. The attractiveness of an alternative can be significantly increased if it is contrasted with a similar but worse alternative and vice versa.

Although both inner circles in the right picture are the same size, the left inner circle appears larger. The respective environment influences our perception, whereby the eye tends to overemphasize the existing differences. This contrast effect is essential for assessments. A weak employee is perceived by a team of even weaker employees as relatively high-performing and vice versa.

Contrast types

Simultaneous contrast

Contrast Effect2

A simultaneous contrast exists when two stimuli occur together. It describes the interaction of adjacent colored areas or the increase in contrast of the perceived color intensity.

When we perceive color , the complementary addition is perceived at the same time, i.e. simultaneously, and is radiated over the initial color. For example, consider the picture on the right. All three horizontal inner stripes are of the same color. However, their color impression is changed by the surrounding colors. With a vertical center line you can easily make this impression visible.

Successive contrast

One speaks of successive contrast when two stimuli follow one another closely in time and one perception is influenced by the other, e.g. B. by afterimages . This effect arises from the adaptation of the eye to a certain light stimulus. The neural reaction of the eye over time is weakened so that the complementary color system is no longer in equilibrium and corresponds to the opposite color of the original stimulus. For example, if you look at a red circle for a while and then turn your gaze to a white area, a faint green afterimage is created.

Self-demonstration

To demonstrate a contrast effect for yourself, you only have to hold one hand in cold water for about a minute and the other in warm water at the same time. Then you hold both hands in lukewarm water and you can experience the contrast effect yourself: The hand that was previously in the cold water now feels much warmer than the hand that was previously in the warm water, as it is always compared with the previous state .

Contrast Effects in Social Psychology

A contrast effect also denotes a tendency in the formation of judgments and social comparisons. An object that receives a medium evaluation (in the case of an isolated evaluation) is evaluated more positively if it is preceded by a negatively evaluated object (positive contrast effect), and more negatively if it is preceded by an object evaluated positively (negative contrast effect).

Assessments are often preceded by comparison processes, since, for example, when assessing whether a property has a high, medium or low degree, a norm or another comparison standard is required. When assessing characteristics (e.g., punctuality, conscientiousness, attractiveness), these comparisons often relate to the self, since the representations of the self are easily accessible in memory. However, other comparative standards also play a role in social comparison processes, e.g. B. siblings, classmates, colleagues, etc. Judgments are therefore always context-dependent. In the case of context effects, a general distinction can be made between contrast effects and assimilation effects (as opposed to contrast effects). In the case of a contrast effect, the actions or characteristics of other people are assessed separately from one's own point of view. Contrast effects often occur in the event of dissimilarity, and in cases in which a mean assessment would take place if viewed in isolation.

Explanatory models

Inclusion / exclusion model

The inclusion / exclusion model is a general model for the explanation of assimilation and contrast effects on the basis of mental constructions in judgment decisions.

Human judgment depends on the context . The evaluation of an object of judgment requires two kinds of mental representations: a mental representation of the object of judgment and one of the comparison standard. Both constructions are flexible and are created spontaneously on the basis of the available information. The representation of the judgment object therefore only consists of a subset of the potentially relevant information and can vary from situation to situation. If a certain evaluation or a judgment is used particularly often, then this can be called up as such and does not always have to be formed in situ.

The accessibility of information can be divided into two categories: chronically accessible information, which is constantly available and explains the stability of judgments, and temporarily accessible information. This type of accessibility depends on the context.

The impact of the information available depends on the categorization of the information. If information is included, i.e. included in the mental representation of the judgment object, an assimilation effect results . This creates a positive relationship between the implications of the context information and the judgment object. However, various specified boundary conditions can lead to available, relevant information being excluded from the representation of the judgment object. The information is excluded. The excluded information can then be used to construct the comparison standard; it favors contrast effects. The inclusion or exclusion of information is determined by three factors: relevance , representativeness and appropriateness.

Most of the time, our current thoughts have to do with what we are focusing on, i.e. H. they are relevant and are thus automatically included in the judgment object. However, if we perceive an “irrelevant” cause of accessibility (e.g. obvious priming ), the information is excluded and contrast effects arise. Context information that is perceived as inappropriate or atypical as well as information that breaks conversation rules also result in an exclusion of the activated information. The inclusion / exclusion model predicts the direction (assimilation or contrast) and size of the effect as well as the generalizability across different objects.

Selective availability model

Selective Availability Model ( selective accessibility model, SEM ) of Mussweiler is another model that explains the origin of assimilation and contrast effects in judgment decisions and social comparisons.

For an assessment process and comparison process, it is necessary to search for relevant information about the judgment object and the comparison standard. To search for and activate knowledge relevant to assessment, hypothesis-testing processes are used, which are often selective as they only focus on one central hypothesis . This is called the mechanism of selective availability.

One can basically differentiate between two hypotheses, one of which is checked. You can either test the probability that the judgment object is similar to the comparison standard (similarity hypothesis) or the probability that the judgment object differs from the comparison status (dissimilarity hypothesis). Which of the hypotheses is tested depends on the generally perceived similarity between the object of judgment and the comparison standard, which is determined in a first step of the selective availability mechanism through a rapid, superficial judgment process; a few properties are briefly examined to determine whether the subject of judgment and the comparison standard are generally similar or dissimilar. Appropriate information is now found and activated based on the hypothesis. This selectively activated information means that the probability is very high that the initial hypothesis will be confirmed and that an assimilation effect (in the case of similarity hypothesis) or a contrast effect (in the case of dissimilarity hypothesis) will occur.

Examples

Evaluation of texts

Student teachers are asked to rate two texts that they were told were written by 13-year-olds. Before the assessment, the test subjects were primed for either differences or similarities . It was found that the test subjects who focused on differences through priming rated the texts more differently. The test subjects who focused on similarities rated the texts as significantly more similar.

Judges' judgments

Experienced judges should evaluate two exercises in artistic gymnastics from a video as objectively as possible according to the evaluation rules. The judges were told that the gymnasts either belonged to the same national team (focus on similarity) or on different teams (focus on dissimilarity). In the first exercise, half of the judges saw a better exercise (high comparison standard) and the other half saw a worse exercise (low comparison standard). The second exercise was the same for all judges. The judges who focused on similarities approached the comparison standard (first gymnast) with their assessment of the second gymnast, while the judges who focused on dissimilarities showed a contrast effect.

attractiveness

In terms of physical attractiveness, contrast effects can also have an impact on self-assessment. After looking at very attractive same-sex stimulus people, men and women consider themselves less attractive (negative contrast effect) than people who had not seen these images. After considering unattractive test subjects, their own attractiveness was rated higher (positive contrast effect).

literature

• Tilmann Betsch , Joachim Funke , Henning Plessner : Thinking - judging, deciding, problem-free. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-642-12473-0 .
• Hans-Werner Bierhoff: Social Psychology: A Textbook. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018842-9 .

See also

• Assimilation (learning psychology)
• Cognitive psychology
• Cognitive bias
• Norbert Schwarz
• Social Comparison Theory

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M.Sc. Giovanni Adornetto: The influence of the breadth and variety of categories on the evaluation of a product.
2. ↑ http://www.personalbebeispiel.de/kontrasteffekt.html
3. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated August 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ^ Tilmann Betsch, Joachim Funke, Henning Plessner: Thinking - judging, deciding, problem-free. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-642-12473-0 , p. 47
6. ^ Hans-Werner Bierhoff , Michael Jürgen Herner: Term dictionary social psychology. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-17-016982-3 , p. 127.
7. ↑ Hans-Werner Bierhoff: Social Psychology: A Textbook. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018842-9 .
8. ^ Bless, H. & Schwarz, N. (2010). Mental Construal and the Emergence of Assimilation and Contrast Effects: The Inclusion / Exclusion Model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 319-373.
9. ↑ Specialization in social psychology Lecture: Professor Dr. Herbert Bless Prof. Dr. Dagmar Stahlberg ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ http://sitemaker.umich.edu/norbert.schwarz/files/bless___schwarz_iem_advances_2010_ip.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Thomas Mussweiler: Comparison Processes in Social Judgment: Mechanisms and Consequences. In: Psychological Review. 110, 2003, pp. 472-489.
12. ↑ Britta Pohlmann, Jens Möller: Assimilation and contrast effects in the evaluation of texts. In: Journal for Educational Psychology. 21, No. 3/4, 2007, pp. 297-303.
13. ↑ Lysann Damisch, Thomas Mussweiler, Henning Plessner: Olympic Medals as Fruits of Comparison? Assimilation and Contrast in Sequential Performance Judgments. In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 12, 2006, pp. 166-178.
14. ^ Bill Thornton, Scott Moore, Physical Attractiveness Contrast Effect: Implications for Self-Esteem and Evaluations of the Social Self. In: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 19, 1993, pp. 474–480 ( Archived copy ( Memento of the original from January 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ).