Example of an Article Summary (Research Paper Sample)

Article Summary
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Article Summary
Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, Vol. 17(7), pp.592-598.
Core Concept(s)
As research examining the effects that individuals time of exposure to stimuli have on their interpretation of what different facial expressions mean, more emphasis has been placed on the differences in impression based on the duration of exposure. From the research findings, it was clear that the participants based their judgments of the different faces based on several expectations or characteristics including individuals’ likeability, their attractiveness, competence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness. Willis & Todorov (2006) outlined that increasing the duration for which the participants were exposed to the faces did not in any way increase the correlations attained during the experiment. It was discovered that when the time individuals were exposed to the different faces was increased from 100 mins to 500 mins the participants in the experiment became more negative in their judgment. In line with this, the duration, the duration participants took to respond was significantly reduced and the level of confidence the participants exhibited in making their judgments increased. Nonetheless, when the time of exposure was added from 500 mins to 1000 mins, the participant’s response time and their unique judgment of characteristics did not experience any significant transformation. However, in such a case, individuals’ confidence in judging traits increased. It can only be deduced that the more time individuals were exposed to the different faces, the more their confidence grew in judging different traits. On the same note, the more time individuals were exposed to the faces resulted in the participants having quite varied impressions of the faces they were exposed to throughout the experiment.
Scope of Research
Willis & Todorov (2006) sought to help readers understand the effects of individuals’ time of exposure to stimuli on the meanings that they develop. Often people make out the characteristics of other people around them by looking at their facial appearances. This article serves to offer more information on the minimal conditions that would determine the inferences that people make of individuals around them. By relying on five experiments that are each focused on a characteristic, the exposure time for different faces was altered at intervals. It was then unraveled that the judgments that the participants made out of the different faces after a 100-ms exposure had so much in common with the judgments that individuals fabricated of other people’s faces without any time constraints in play like in the case of the experiments that were conducted. This finding was a clear indication to the truth that the exposure time that the participants were subjected to the faces was enough for them to form an impression of the faces.
Implications of Findings
The experiments done in the research assist people to understand the implications of exposure time to meaning creation in understanding facial impressions. It is believed that individuals could make out meaning about another person’s personality traits by merely looking at another person’s facial features. For instance, people with their eyebrows nearer to their eyes are often considered firm, earnest and deep in character. Although such an idea may sound farfetched, the truth is that facial appearances have a massive impact on social outcome and this is something that applies universally. In almost every area of life it is often a common occurrence that attractive individuals would attain better outcomes compared to the unattractive people. The effects that individuals’ baby face appearances have on other people’s believes and practices is just as influential as the effects of people’s attractiveness universally. For example, when it comes to the decisions that are made in the court system, people with baby faces are less likely to receive extreme judicial verdicts in court when compared to individuals with mature-faces.