Is it Context or Content?

Overview

The purpose of my project was to better understand how context can shape people’s perceptions of other people, and to see if the role of context is different for different groups of people. My hypothesis was that positive context would positively influence how participants rate the image of a person with an objectively neutral expression (and that the reverse would be true for negative context). I also believed that images of females would be rated as higher on traits associated with ‘warmth’. A third hypothesis was that the Senior age group in my study would rate all faces as more trustworthy on average than other age groups. The key manipulated independent variable in my study was the type of context image shown - positive, negative, or a non-emotive control image. In addition, the age group (Teen, Middle-Aged, and Senior) and gender (Male or Female) of my participants were also considered independent variables. The dependent variables were the quantitative ratings that participants gave to the facial images on the traits of kindness, happiness, trustworthiness, and worriedness, as well as the participants’ qualitative feedback. The quantitative ratings were measured on a scale of 1-6. The study results were ultimately mixed. It showed the expected context effects for certain subgroups (for example, a male face shown with positive context) but not for others. Female faces were rated meaningfully higher on kindness and happiness criteria. Finally, the sample size of the experiment did not allow for proper testing of the hypothesis that Seniors are more trusting. Areas for improvement and further testing include increasing the sample size, making sure participants of different age groups and genders are distributed equally across groups, and structuring the experiment to allow for context effects to be assessed via longer-term recall instead of immediately following the video.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Cognitive Science (Junior Division) · Entry J-06-02

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Behavioural and Social Sciences projects
• CSEF Behavioural and Social Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2026 project