Learning as a function of perceived similarity to self.

The article focuses on learning as a function of perceived similarity to self. Learning to perceive others is construed in this study as a problem of mediated generalization. It is assumed perceptions of the self will have generality to other persons as a direct function of how similar these persons are perceived to oneself. Therefore, it was predicted that ease of learning to associate names of persons to adjectives perceived as highly relevant to the self will be a function of the perceived similarity of these persons to the self. The Ss in the study consisted of 43 undergraduate students. Using a paired associate learning task, each S had to learn to associate the name of three persons known to him with a group of adjectives which S had indicated were highly characteristic of himself. The results of the study indicate that persons perceived as most similar to the self are associated with these adjectives with significantly fewer errors than those perceived as having intermediate similarity to the self. However, persons perceived as least similar to the self were learned with a mean number of errors, which did not differ significantly from the mean errors of persons perceived either as the most similar or intermediate to the self. Analysis of the data indicates that the specific role of the person perceived did not differentially influence the experimental results.