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First published June 1990

Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Spontaneous Trait Inference

Leonard S. Newman and James S. UlemanView all authors and affiliations
Volume 16, Issue 2
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167290162004

Abstract

Previous research has shown that the trait implication of a behavior cues recall of that behavior even when subjects have no impression formation goals. This suggests that trait inferences are made spontaneously at encoding, but alternative explanations have suggested that retrieval processes alone can account for these data. In Experiment 1, encoding conditions were varied by subtly priming alternative traits relevant to ambiguous behaviors. Contrary to retrieval interpretations, the effectiveness of trait cues varied with the nature of the primes and awareness of the primes at encoding. Primes led to both assimilation and contrast effects and seemed to operate primarily by inhibiting alternative trait constructs. In Experiment 2, contrast effects were found with the same stimuli when priming was blatant and inferences were made intentionally. Results are discussed in terms of the role of construct activation and inhibition in spontaneous and intentional trait inferences.

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1.
1 In the Herr (1986) study, priming with exemplars of extreme hostility or nonhostility resulted in contrast effects on judgments of an ambiguously hostile person. Herr proposed that when an extreme category or category exemplar is primed that lack of overlap between its features and those of the target stimulus leads it to serve as an anchor with which subsequent behaviors are contrasted. Although no data were collected on memory for priming stimuli, it is not unreasonable (see Taylor & Thompson, 1982, on vivid stimuli) to assume that extreme exemplars, (e.g., Hitler, Santa Claus, Charles Manson) would remain in awareness longer than more moderate stimuli. Therefore, Herr's extreme and moderate primes may also have differed in terms of subjects' awareness of them while making judgments. It is clear, though, that a variety of different mechanisms can produce assimilation and contrast effects (Schwarz & Strack, 1989).
2.
2 In previous experiments using paradigms similar to the one used here (e.g., Winter & Uleman, 1984; Winter, Uleman, & Cunniff, 1985) trait-cued recall of the actor (an occupational role) was typically worse than recall for other sentence parts. In the present study as well, an average of 1.71 actors (in this case, names) were recalled, whereas the mean recall of other sentence parts was 2.11 (t[128] = 3.6, p <.001). This might suggest that the effectiveness of trait cues reflects only categorizations or summaries of behaviors and not true trait inferences (i.e., inferences about the stable qualities of people). Discussion of this issue and its significance is beyond the scope of this article. However, as literally every behavior recalled by subjects in the present study included some name or pronoun, we were able to code whether subjects recalled the right or wrong sex of the sentence actor. On 117 occasions overall, a subject remembering a behavior could not recall the precise actor associated with that behavior but did recall the correct actor sex. On only 8 occasions was a behavior recalled but the wrong sex indicated. Clearly, subjects were not simply guessing about the actor's gender identity (X2[1, N = 125] = 95.05, p > .001). Although this test does not establish a direct link between representations of actors and the trait concepts represented by the cues, these results indicate that subjects were at least encoding and retrieving behaviors along with representations of people.

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Volume 16, Issue 2
Pages: 224 - 240
Article first published: June 1990
Issue published: June 1990

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Leonard S. Newman
New York University
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James S. Uleman
New York University
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