From “Bob/Kirk” to “Błażej/Piotrek” Effect – Replication of Social Bias Effect Towards People Whose Names Match Their Faces

The study explores the hypothesis that individuals show greater sympathy towards coherent name-face pairs compared to incoherent pairs, replicating the effect observed by Barton and Halberstadt. A structured questionnaire was designed where participants rated their sympathy for each name-face pair on a scale from 1 to 9, with 1 signifying "Would not like at all" and 9 denoting "Would like very much." Recruitment was conducted through the university's SONA platform, ensuring voluntary participation, anonymity, and confidentiality. Names and faces were paired based on responses from a pilot study, creating highly coherent or highly incoherent pairs. The first study was conducted with psychology students but failed to replicate the previous effect. As a result, a second experiment was carried out using the same survey with a general population, excluding psychology students. However, the effect still could not be replicated, raising questions about the extent to which cross-modal perception is as prevalent as previously thought.