Perceptions of Attitude Similarity: Effect of Anchored versus Unanchored Positions

Undergraduates read anecdotes that described four target persons. The descriptions manipulated targets' level of favorability on each of four evaluative dimensions. When information about a target's standing was provided on dimensions on which subjects' own positions were on the average middling, but not securely anchored in the external environment (common sense, likability), their subsequent perceptions of attitude similarity to the target increased monotonically as a function of the favorability of the initial information about the target. When initial information about the target was provided, instead, on dimensions on which subjects' own positions were securely anchored near the midpoint (educational attainment, annual income), they perceived greatest attitude similarity to that target closest to their own objective position and perceived least similarity to targets who occupied either a more or a less favorable position than self. These findings, and those of a separate questionnaire study, suggest that people do not uniformly attribute culturally desirable positions to themselves or see themselves as most similar to desirable others. Instead, they do so only on dimensions on which their own positions are not securely anchored in external reality.