This study suggests that being similar in likeability is not the reason we perceive liked individuals as being more similar. This is because there was no time difference among the decisions for liked and disliked celebrities. However, people tend to know more about liked celebrities which might account for some potential differences.

Alma College

Investigates how similar we perceive liked people and disliked when we don't know them very well (e.g. public figures and celebrities). Participants provided the names of 4 liked and 4 disliked celebrities. They were asked questions such as "How similar are Disliked Celebrity 1 and Disliked Celebrity 2 to each other in terms of __?" They also reported how much they knew and liked each individual. 

Experiment 5; My Friends Are All Alike

Alves, H., Koch, A., & Unkelbach, C. (2016). My friends are all alike—the relation between liking and perceived similarity in person perception. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 62, 103-117.

My Friends Are All Alike

Participants indicated that they had more knowledge about and liked celebrities compared to the disliked ones. In addition, they perceived all the liked celebrities to be more similar to each other. 

Exp. 5 Results: Liking, Knowledge, and Similarity (Alves et al., 2016)

There was no meaningful difference in how fast participants made liked–liked (mean time=5.15 seconds) and disliked–disliked (mean time=5.06 seconds) comparisons for the celebrities. 

Learn Before

Related