IMPRESSIONS FROM EVENTS.

A large study of event stimuli developed new equations for describing how people react to events. Exploratory work found several new interaction terms affecting the impression formation process. To demonstrate the generality of the impression formation process across subject populations and study procedures, the results from the current study were compared to four others: two earlier studies on U.S. college undergraduates, a study of Belfast, Northern Ireland, high school students, and an Arabic study of well-educated Egyptians and Lebanese. Striking similarities in evaluation dynamics appeared in all studies. All English-speakers had similar potency and activity dynamics, while the Arabic study showed subtantial differences in the processing of these dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]