Reactions to unfavorable personal evaluations as a function of the evaluator's perceived adjustment.

"Pairs of Ss listened to two… persons… evaluate the personality of one member of the pair. One of the stimulus persons made derogatory remarks about the 'involved' member, the other was… noncommittal… . In one experimental condition the derogator was pre-identified as… maladjusted, the nonderogator as well-adjusted. In another condition the identifications were reversed." The hypothesis was supported that the combined information, maladjustment and derogation, summate for the bystander to produce a negative impression, but that for the involved S there is a tendency to cancel out hostility that would be arounsed by the derogation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)