IMPRESSION-FORMATION IN INFORMAL CONVERSATIONS

Reactions to the statements made during an informal conversation are l ikely to be influenced by perceptions of their pragmatic implications (i.e., why the statements occurred) as well as their literal implicati ons for the persons and objects to which they refer. Recipients' sensi tivity to a statement's pragmatic meaning may depend on [a) their info rmation processing objectives at the time they encounter the statement and (b) the extent to wh ich the statement violates normative expecta tions concerning the content and style of messages that are typically transmitted in the social context in which it occurs. These hypotheses are supported by research in which subjects were asked to form impres sions of persons on the basis of information exchanged during conversa tions in which they both did and did not actively participate. The cog nitive mediators of the impressions formed in informal conversations a re quite different from those that have usually been investigated in p revious research on person memory and judgment, in which only the sema ntic implications of the information presented typically come into pla y.