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Spontaneous Goal Inference (SGI)
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Abstract
When people learn about or observe the behaviors of others, they tend to make implicit inferences from these behaviors (e.g., Uleman, Saribay, & Gonzalez, 2008). Such inferences are an essential part of a person's ability to understand his/her environment and to prepare appropriate behavior within that environment. In the present paper, we review the conditions under which people are more likely to make implicit goal inferences versus implicit trait inferences. The distinction between these two ways of understanding the behavior we observe has important consequences for how we make predictions about future behavior, set expectations for our interaction partners, and how we choose to behave. It can determine when we stereotype. However, until now, the literature has focused on trait inference as the dominant way perceivers make sense of their environment, with little discussion of inferences concerning a person's goals.
... If goals unfold interpersonally, it is logical to assume that one of the first steps in understanding others' goals involves people perceiving and understanding another's goal pursuits (Aarts et al., 2004). Yet surprisingly little is known about how people accomplish this task beyond the basic tenet that we infer another's goals by their behaviors (Aarts et al., 2004;Hassin et al., 2005;Meltzoff, 1995;Moskowitz & Okten, 2016). ...
... People make inferences about their own goals by observing their own goal-driven behaviors (Aronson, 1997;Bem, 1972). Similarly, people make inferences about others' goals by observing others' goal-driven behaviors (Aarts et al., 2004;Hassin et al., 2005;Meltzoff, 1995;Moskowitz & Okten, 2016). Given this, it is our assumption that people will rely on the same factors that influence their own commitment when judging another person's or group's commitment (Koo & Fishbach, 2008). ...
... First, the present work is unique because it extends prior research on motivation and perceptions of others in a direction that has received less attention outside of perceiving others' goals (i.e., goal contagion; Aarts et al., 2004). While research and discussion has concerned the perceived motivations in perceptions of others and what those perceptions tell us about the target's motivations and traits (e.g., Moskowitz & Okten, 2016), little has as examined the perception of others' motivations. ...
The present work examines how judgments of others’ commitment to a goal are influenced by three factors that influence one’s own goal commitment (satisfaction, investment, and alternatives). In two studies these three factors were manipulated. The results indicated that people rate another’s goal commitment higher when goal satisfaction is high, goal investment is high and goal alternatives are low. It was also found that satisfaction and investments alter perceptions of the other’s abilities, and that this relationship is partially mediated by perceived goal commitment. The present studies offer novel findings that highlight the information we use to judge the goal commitment of others and the consequences that are incurred when these judgments are formed.
... Although Jones and Davis' (1965) seminal theory identified such inferences-of intentionality, purpose, and an actor's goals-as the primary/foundational unit of the causal inference process, such goal inference has not been a dominant topic of exploration in social psychology literature. The research on attribution has highly concentrated on the role of personality traits (context-independent characteristics) in explaining other's actions (see, Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016, for a review). The issue of when it is that people ascribe context-dependent characteristics (goals) to individuals in their explanations has been surprisingly overlooked (Hassin, Aarts, & Ferguson, 2005;Van Overwalle, Van Duynslaeger, Coomans, & Timmermans, 2012). ...
... Existing work on the attribution process is biased by a focus on trait inference rather than goal inference (see Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). Well-known phenomena such as "the fundamental attribution error" and "confirmation bias" capture this focus. ...
... Goals are defined through a relationship between an actor of interest and a specific entity (e.g., goal object or situation; e.g., Bargh, 1990;Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2003;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Shah, 2003). Perceivers should apply this rule when making causal attributions. ...
In 4 studies, we show that two behavioral dimensions specified in Kelley’s (1967) model of attribution, consistency and distinctiveness of behaviors, determine perceivers’ likelihood to explain others’ behaviors in terms of their goals versus traits. Participants tended to attribute the cause of others’ behaviors to their goals (vs. traits and other characteristics) when behaviors were characterized by high distinctiveness (Study 1A & 1B) or low consistency (Study 2). On the other hand, traits were ascribed as predominant causal explanations when behaviors had low distinctiveness or high consistency. Study 3 investigated the combined effect of those behavioral dimensions on causal attributions and showed that behaviors with high distinctiveness and consistency as well as low distinctiveness and consistency trigger goal attributions. We discuss the implications of the present research in terms of going beyond the dominant approach of trait-situation dichotomy in attribution research.
... For example, it captures inferences within the same semantic domain regardless of whether the trait word presented by the experimenters (e.g., rude) matches the specific trait word encoded in memory by the research participant (e.g., rude, or inconsiderate, or ill-mannered, or discourteous, or impolite, or insolent, or disrespectful). 2 Furthermore, behavior prediction captures trait impressions, impressions of stable characteristics, without confounding them with other types of impressions that can be described with the same words despite carrying completely different functions (e.g., the trait of X vs. the goal to be X; see Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). ...
... Mainly, this paradigm allowed us to observe impression updating in a nuanced way, focusing on the degree of using an implied trait in future predictions (e.g., rather than merely recognizing or not recognizing an implied trait in a behavior sentence in a categorical fashion). Furthermore, this paradigm allowed us to test formation and updating of trait impressions, impressions of characteristics that are expected to be stable over time (impressions that are theoretically most relevant to future predictions), without confounding them with other types of impressions (e.g., evaluative impressions, goal impressions, attitude impressions; see Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). In addition, this paradigm revealed for the first time to our knowledge that STIs may get updated in usability, even upon learning one simple new behavior that contradicts the initially learned one. ...
People largely preserve spontaneously drawn trait inferences from others' behaviors in their memory, even when contrary information is present. However, we suggest that updating could be manifested in future predictions about others. Experiment 1 replicated previous work, showing no updating in the memory of initially inferred traits upon learning trait-inconsistent new information. Experiments 2–4 tested whether people’s reliance on the initially implied traits in their future predictions changed as an indicator of updating. Participants aligned their predictions with the initially implied traits when the new information was neutral. However, after learning trait-inconsistent (vs. neutral) new information, they made weaker future predictions consistent with the initially implied traits and stronger predictions consistent with alternative (inconsistent) traits, revealing updating. The patterns were similar across continuous and categorical prediction measures (Experiment 3) and generalized to other valence-matching impressions (Experiment 4). The present work reveals nuances that extend our understanding of impression updating and suggests a utility in combining memory measures of impression formation with behavior predictions.
... 2 It may strike some readers as ironic that the concept of trait, or more precisely the concept of perceived trait, has pervaded research in impression formation, person memory, and stereotypes in social psychology (e.g., Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). The irony derives from the position, often advanced by important authors, that the principal message of our discipline is that individual differences provide weak accounts of behavior, at best, and that situations are much more powerful in that regard (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). ...
... So, understandably, the first theories of how one infers invariant internal dispositions of people from observing the continuously varying stream of their behaviors emerged in that area of study (Heider, 1958). Although Heider (1958) was mainly concerned with motives, intentions, and sentiments (even if he sometimes referred to traits and skills), his followers almost always used dispositions as a proxy for traits (e.g., Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). The theory of correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965) described how perceivers move from the observation of a behavior to the inference of stable individual dispositions (or traits). ...
... 2 It may strike some readers as ironic that the concept of trait, or more precisely the concept of perceived trait, has pervaded research in impression formation, person memory, and stereotypes in social psychology (e.g., Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). The irony derives from the position, often advanced by important authors, that the principal message of our discipline is that individual differences provide weak accounts of behavior, at best, and that situations are much more powerful in that regard (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). ...
... So, understandably, the first theories of how one infers invariant internal dispositions of people from observing the continuously varying stream of their behaviors emerged in that area of study (Heider, 1958). Although Heider (1958) was mainly concerned with motives, intentions, and sentiments (even if he sometimes referred to traits and skills), his followers almost always used dispositions as a proxy for traits (e.g., Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). The theory of correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965) described how perceivers move from the observation of a behavior to the inference of stable individual dispositions (or traits). ...
... Perceiving someone's traits as the cause of their behavior can make people think that the person will behave the same way in the future, as traits are typically believed to be difficult to change or control. Goal inferences, however, can make people less likely to expect the same behavior in the future and more likely to acknowledge the role of situational factors in shaping others' behaviors (Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Stroessner & Dweck, 2015). Thinking about the earlier example, whereas you may not want to interact with an aggressive coworker, you may be more open to it if you think their behavior was caused by their goal of excelling at work than them being inherently aggressive. ...
... Moreover, the present work focused on the difference between goal and trait inferences in terms of context-dependency. Goal inferences, however, also differ from trait inferences in the degree of responsibility attributed to the agent of action (Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). Specifically, attributing someone's behavior to their goals can make people think that the person has responsibility for their behavior because goals are believed to be rather intentional and controllable (for a similar discussion, see Olcaysoy Okten & Moskowitz, 2020). ...
People make spontaneous inferences from others’ behaviors, such as spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) and spontaneous situation inferences (SSIs). People’s behaviors, however, are shaped by their goals as well, which are determined by their internal characteristics (e.g., traits) and by contextual factors (e.g., social roles). In three studies, we examined whether self-construal, culture, and holistic thinking were associated with spontaneous goal inferences (SGIs) and STIs. We found that the more people defined themselves interdependently and viewed the causality of events holistically, the more they made SGIs (Study 1). Moreover, Asian American participants (interdependent) made SGIs but no STIs from people’s behaviors, whereas European American participants (independent) made both (Study 2). Finally, participants primed with interdependence made SGIs but no STIs, whereas those primed with independence made both (Study 3). This research is the first to examine SGIs in relation to self-construal, culture, and holistic thinking.
... Goals are thought to be particularly important in action understanding (Bach et al., 2014;Csibra, 2008;Kilner, 2011;Rizzolatti & Fogassi, 2014), and more generally in social cognition (Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Olcaysoy Okten & Moskowitz, 2020). Empirical evidence has repeatedly shown that observers mostly understand others' actions in terms of goals (Baldwin et al., 2001;Buresh & Woodward, 2007;Hrkać et al., 2014;Novack & Goldin-Meadow, 2016;Novack et al., 2016;Vallacher & Wegner, 1987, 1989 and tend to implicitly infer and adopt others' goals (Aarts et al., 2004;Hassin et al., 2005;Laurin, 2016;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Olcaysoy Okten & Moskowitz, 2018). ...
... Goals are thought to be particularly important in action understanding (Bach et al., 2014;Csibra, 2008;Kilner, 2011;Rizzolatti & Fogassi, 2014), and more generally in social cognition (Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Olcaysoy Okten & Moskowitz, 2020). Empirical evidence has repeatedly shown that observers mostly understand others' actions in terms of goals (Baldwin et al., 2001;Buresh & Woodward, 2007;Hrkać et al., 2014;Novack & Goldin-Meadow, 2016;Novack et al., 2016;Vallacher & Wegner, 1987, 1989 and tend to implicitly infer and adopt others' goals (Aarts et al., 2004;Hassin et al., 2005;Laurin, 2016;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Olcaysoy Okten & Moskowitz, 2018). The importance of goals have been particularly endorsed by predictive approaches of action understanding (Donnarumma et al., 2017;Kilner, 2011;Kilner et al., 2007;Westra, 2019). ...
Although goals often drive action understanding, this ability is also prone to important variability among individuals, which may have its origin in individual social characteristics. The present study aimed at evaluating the relationship between the tendency to prioritize goal information over grip information during early visual processing of action and several social dimensions. Visual processing of grip and goal information during action recognition was evaluated in 64 participants using the priming protocol developed by Decroix and Kalénine (Exp Brain Res 236(8):2411–2426, 2018). Object-directed action photographs were primed by photographs sharing the same goal and/or the same grip. The effects of goal and grip priming on action recognition were evaluated for different prime durations. The same participants further fulfilled questionnaires characterizing the way individuals deal with their social environment, namely their sense of social power, dominance, perspective taking, and construal level. At the group level, results confirmed greater goal than grip priming effects on action recognition for the shortest prime duration. Regression analyses between the pattern of response times in the action priming protocol and scores at the questionnaires further showed that the advantage of goal over grip priming was associated with higher sense of social power, and possibly to lower dominance. Overall, data confirm that observers tend to prioritize goal-related information when processing visual actions but further indicate that this tendency is sensitive to individual social characteristics. Results suggest that goal information may not always drive action understanding and point out the connection between low-level processing of observed actions and more general individual characteristics.
... A large body of research has indeed supported the assumption that people form trait inferences spontaneously when confronted with an actor's behavior. If we learn, for instance, that Daniel laughed at a joke, we may infer that Daniel is a jolly person, thus assuming a trait as cause of the observed behavior -a spontaneous trait inference (STI; for recent reviews, see Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Uleman, Rim, Saribay, & Kressel, 2012). When drawing such inferences, we go beyond the given information and supplement self-generated information, for example by assuming that Daniel's single behavior was representative of an underlying stable disposition to be good-humoured. ...
... Previous research on impression formation from behavior has provided a vast amount of evidence that when observing others' behaviors, people spontaneously draw trait inferences (e.g., Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Uleman et al., 2012). In a series of five pre-registered studies we provide consistent evidence that people spontaneously and simultaneously infer both traits and states from behavior. ...
Perceivers routinely draw inferences about others from their behavior in an attempt to make sense of the world. Previous research has established that spontaneous inferences include stable characteristics such as traits and a number of variable person-related concepts such as goals, intentions, and motivations. The current research investigated the occurrence of more general spontaneous state inferences. In a series of four preregistered studies (N = 883), we adapted two established experimental paradigms frequently used in spontaneous social inference research to the investigation of spontaneous trait and state inferences. In Studies 1 and 2, we observed evidence for the occurrence of spontaneous state inferences from state-implying statements. In Studies 3 and 4, we observed the simultaneous occurrence of spontaneous trait and state inferences from statements that allowed for both inferences. In a fifth study (N = 97), we provide evidence that people represent states and traits as functionally different: Participants judged the likelihood of behavioral repetition higher when the same behavior was related to a trait-inference than a state-inference. The observation of multiple simultaneous spontaneous inferences in the current research suggests that further theory building regarding the underlying mechanisms and processes of spontaneous impression formation in person perception from behavior is warranted.
... When observing and categorizing behaviors, people form implicit inferences about the goals of the person, the traits of the person, their affect toward the person, and the attitudes held by the person (Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). Making inferences about such dispositional properties when observing actions is functional for various reasons. ...
... The present research contributes to the research program of the authors on impression formation and updating (e.g., Olcaysoy Okten et al., 2019; Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). The research question was initiated by Olcaysoy Okten as part of her dissertation work, whch aimed to apply an established procedure of memory updating in cognitive psychology (memory reconsolidation) to the research area on person memory and impression updating in social psychology. ...
Previous research has shown that perceivers spontaneously form trait inferences from others' behaviors received at a single point in time. The present work examined the persistence of spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) in the presence of trait-inconsistent information about others. We hypothesized that STIs should be resistant to change over time and in the presence of new trait-inconsistent information due to perceivers forming and storing multiple STIs independently in memory. Consistently, Experiments 1a and 1b showed that initial STIs were not affected by new trait-inconsistent information. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that STIs were persistent over 48 hours. Two experiments also tested memory reconsolidation as a possible mechanism of updating first impressions. While STIs were not substantially affected, spontaneous goal inferences (SGIs) were elevated among those with a better explicit memory of behaviors after learning trait-inconsistent information following a memory reactivation procedure. Implications of these findings on impression formation and updating processes are discussed. Imagine attending a dinner party hosted by an office mate where you observe a new colleague leaving the party without thanking the hostess. Then imagine another point in time where you witness the same person at the office asking her
... As a caution, the tendency for dispositional explanations found in our study may in part be an artefact of the method used. Comparing different mentee teachers may operate at a higher level of abstractness or construal, which promotes inferring of traits (Moskowitz & Okten, 2016). However, mentors were stimulated to talk in concrete terms about their mentee teachers and did offer other explanations as well, as indicated above. ...
... In study 4, the analysis of the repertory-grid interviews showed that mentors tended to use dispositional explanations in their descriptions. This may in part be an artefact of the method used, as comparing mentee teachers may operate at a higher level of abstractness and promote inferring of traits (Moskowitz & Okten, 2016). All interviews were conducted retrospectively at one point in time, and only the task-based interviews were conducted close to a mentoring event. ...
Novice teachers need mentoring support from experienced teachers as they prepare to become teachers. Such mentoring support needs to be responsive and adaptive to novice teachers’ learning. Mentor teachers therefore require knowledge of novice teacher learning and of mentoring activities to support this learning. These are critical but underdeveloped components in the knowledge base of mentoring. This thesis draws on mentor teachers’ practical knowledge to inform the knowledge base of mentoring, and focuses on the question: What is the content of mentor teachers’ practical knowledge of adaptive response to their mentee teachers’ learning? Through questionnaires and interviews, the study elicited four components of mentor teachers’ practical knowledge of adaptive mentoring: 1) their mentoring conceptions, 2) their knowledge of mentoring activities, 3) their knowledge of novice teacher learning, and 4) their heuristics for responding to specific mentoring situations. Findings show that adaptive mentors focus on novice teacher construction of practical knowledge of teaching, and that confronting novices with problems is a central activity of adaptive mentoring. The study provides representations of shared mentor teacher knowledge of adaptive mentoring and a component model of mentor practical knowledge of adaptive mentoring, useful for developers of mentor training. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/66718
... To form a correlation between the three variables the study will follow these strategies, as follows; first, the professionals will be selected from two career discipline careers; second, the professionals will have completed the Cattell 16PF personality trait inventory; third, the professionals will complete a grief/loss scale combined with a bereavement scale to define their level of status loss, with possible intentions to leave their positions or even contemplate leaving their professions (Calderwood, 2011;Choi et al., 2015;Jiang, 2014;Lawson et al., 2013;Morin et al., 2015;Moskowitz et al., 2016;and Rajecki et al., 2011;Samuel et al., 2015). ...
... 4) Personality Trait Theory has been instrumental in the study of cognitive reasoning and goal inferences if the individual's behavior. The personality traits satisfy one's goals, individual's sense of behavior, mental energy, motivation, drive, yields a feeling of control in the mind of the perceiver, and their readiness to make significant changes (Moskowitz et al., 2016). ...
The study takes place at the workplace, which is continuously changing due to changes due to an array of reasons. The research is an examination of the workforce professional's experiences while there are continuous organizational changes, and what personality traits will be over consuming creating a form of cognitive dissonance towards their organization. The research centers on the assessment which is the bereavement, grief and loss scale to determine whether or not the professional is contemplating leaving their organization or their drastic measures such as leaving their profession. The non-experimental research method invites two significantly different professions to participate in a questionnaire. The correlational design has been selected to determine whether, or not a personality trait could cause cognitive dissonance or would it be the environment that is continuously changing with no end in sight. The assessment tools are scales based on the loss of status, financial security, community reputation and affiliation social and a loss of their social network. The grief could be a serious challenge to the professional's family and work/life balance if they left their profession with no destination. It is all a form of bereavement which is a natural sensation and emotion. Bereavement is an inner sense of loss and grief that is an extreme event that creates a form of chemicalization, which affects the individual's mental, emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of the human cognition. This research results are essential in today's world of continuous organizational changes. The research sought to find a correlation between several variables the significantly different professions, a similarity of personality traits of both professions experiencing organizational changes; and a correlation between personality traits and cognitive dissonance. Lastly the causality could be the assessment which could determine whether a professional stay, or intentions to leave or drastic measures of leaving their profession.
... When individuals seek to comprehend the reasons behind a person's actions, they frequently invoke mental states, encompassing both personal motivations (e.g., underlying goals or intentions) and contextual factors (e.g., desired outcomes or external influences). Numerous researchers have proposed that a person's mental states, including beliefs, goals, and intentions, serve as a fundamental framework for understanding and explaining behaviour (Malle & Holbrook, 2012;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Reeder, 2009). This mentalising framework is not limited to explaining others' behaviour; it can also be applied to understand our own actions. ...
In recent years, narrative accounts of the self have gained increasing attention. It is widely accepted that humans are storytelling creatures, that stories shape our self‐conception, and that we fail to be agents without a narrative framework. While there is less agreement on what constitutes a narrative, it is generally understood to be more than a chronological listing of life events; it is also an account of the explanatory relationships among these events—a story of how events lead to other events. However, specifying the nature of this explanatory relationship has proven difficult. As critics have pointed out, narrativists often resort to simplistic notions of narrative when faced with criticism. The concept of narrative explanation needs to be elaborated in a way that is both substantive enough to exclude trivial behaviours from being considered narratives and nonrestrictive enough to accommodate ordinary lives that may not be particularly story‐like. In this paper, I review existing accounts of narrative explanation and propose a teleological account, according to which narratives consist of goal‐directed explanations of a sequence of events. I argue that a teleological account of narrative explanation can be a fruitful way to clarify the concept of “narrative” in the context of the narrative self by addressing the most common objections.
... People therefore generalize their learning to new traits, such as assuming that a person who is polite is also friendly [90], allowing social choices in new settings [78]. Similarly, people can spontaneously infer goals in others [91] to generalize knowledge to new situations [92] with little effort. ...
... Personality traits, though, are not the only attributes that perceivers consider when evaluating others. Evaluations are influenced heavily by the target's perceived goals and intentions (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954;Heider, 1958;Kunda, 1987;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy, 2016). If the model in Figure 1 is a general one, then perceivers who attribute goals and intentions to partisans on both sides of a controversial issue might differ dramatically in the goals and intentions they attribute to those who agree versus disagree with them. ...
Numerous recent texts have explained societal polarization, emphasizing biased input through increased accessibility of extreme partisan information. We examined instead the possible role of biased output through biased attribution of personality traits to issue partisans. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that attributing personality traits to those who agree versus disagree with an attributor on controversial social issues might lead attributors to adopt more polarized impressions and behavioral intentions toward issue partisans, as well as to adopt more polarized attitudes toward the issue itself. These hypotheses were supported with two different social issues—abortion and kneeling during the national anthem. The results were interpreted as consistent with previous theory and research on both attributional bias and self-generated attitude polarization.
... It is human nature to form "first impressions" or perceptions about the people we meet based on observable verbal and non-verbal behaviours. Social psychologists suggest that the central unit used to understand the behaviour of those around us is closely bound to our perceptions about personality traits [1]. Information about others' traits plays an integral role when inferring their behaviour in a new setting [2], which in turn can help us prepare our own behavioural response when we interact with them. ...
Humans are predisposed to forming “first impressions” about the people we encounter including impressions about their personality traits. While the relationship between personality and strategic decision-making has been widely explored, we examine the role of personality impressions in predicting strategic behaviour and devising behavioural responses. In a laboratory setting, after only 4-minutes of “small talk”, subjects developed a sense of the personality of their partners, particularly extraversion, which consequently changed their behaviour in future interactions. Subjects cooperated more in public goods games when they believed their partner to be extraverted and found it more difficult to out-guess opponents they perceived as similar to themselves in a level-k reasoning task, having engaged in conversation with them. We trace how language can generate these effects using text analysis, showing that talking more makes individuals appear extraverted and pro-social which in turn engenders pro-social behaviour in others.
... Another tactic is to discern perceptible cues that betray an individual's desires, such as their gaze, body posture, and where they have positioned themselves in space. Indeed, a rich and growing interdisciplinary literature suggests that people are adept at detecting other peoples' desires under a variety of circumstances (Aarts et al., 2004;Clark, 2011;Davis et al., 2021;Heider, 1958;Jones & Davis, 1965;Kelley, 1967;Morelli et al., 2018;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Reeder & Trafimow, 2005;Zaki, 2020). ...
Selfishness is central to many theories of human morality, yet its psychological nature remains largely overlooked. Psychologists often draw on classical conceptions of selfishness from evolutionary biology (i.e., selfish gene theory), economics (i.e., rational self-interest), and philosophy (i.e., psychological egoism), but such characterizations offer limited insight into the psychology of selfishness. To address this gap, we propose a novel framework in which selfishness is recast as a psychological construction. From this view, selfishness is perceived in ourselves and others when we detect a situation-specific desire to benefit the self that disregards others’ desires and prevailing social expectations for the situation. We argue that detecting and deterring such psychological selfishness in both oneself and others is crucial in social life—facilitating the maintenance of social cohesion and close relationships. In addition, we show how using this psychological framework offers a richer understanding of the nature of human social behavior. Delineating a psychological construct of selfishness can promote coherence in interdisciplinary research on selfishness and provide insights for interventions to prevent or remediate the negative effects of selfishness.
... To assess pro-group intent, group members may first rely on the effort-ability dimension represented in attribution theory (Weiner, 1995(Weiner, , 2018. Moskowitz and Olcaysoy Okten (2016) argue that people commonly infer the goals (intentions) of others based on observed behaviors. Showing effort is among the behaviors that make ascriptions of intent likely, since effort implies striving towards a desired endstate (i.e., goal; Dik & Aarts, 2008). ...
How do task groups react to poor performers? We integrate attribution theory with individual motivation theories in a novel, parsimonious model that makes nuanced predictions. Our model asserts that group members assess the poor performer's intent to help the group (i.e., pro-group intent) by first considering the poor performer's characteristics suggested by attribution theory: effort and ability. While attribution theorists have mainly assumed that low effort reflects lacking desire to contribute to group goals and that it is infeasible to acquire ability, motivation theories assume individuals set their goals to perform tasks and acquire skills based on both desirability (value) and feasibility (expectancy). As group members may well assume that a poor performer uses these criteria when forming a pro-group intent to contribute to group goals, low effort may also reflect the infeasibility of making the required contributions, and low ability may reflect a low desire to acquire new skills. Therefore, our model of pro-group intent predicts that desirability-feasibility assumptions moderate the effort-ability effect on reactions to poor performers and that evaluations of pro-group intent mediate this effect. Indeed, in five experiments (total N = 1011), low effort only produced more negative reactions than low ability when a desirability attribution was made for effort, and a feasibility attribution was made for ability. In contrast, reversing these assumptions eliminated the effort-ability effect. This interaction was fully mediated by the performer's perceived pro-group intent. We discuss how our (meta-) intentional perspective informs existing accounts of poor performers, group processes, and motivation science.
... Other inference types are also made spontaneously to make sense of behavior-goal inference (e.g., Hassin et al., 2005;Olcaysoy Okten & Moskowitz, 2020) and evaluative inference (Olcaysoy Okten et al., 2019;Schneid et al., 2015). Just as with an STI, a spontaneous goal inference occurs without intent and awareness, but rather than the inference being to an invariant aspect of the person's character such as a trait, the inference is to the person's goals and intentions that can vary across situations (e.g., Malle, 2008;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). The relationship among inference types is of interest to researchers. ...
Behavior is a reflection of the intentions, attitudes, goals, beliefs, and desires of a person. These intra-individual factors are coordinated with what opportunities the situation affords and the perceived constraints placed on the person by their context and the norms of the culture they are in. Further, the intentions, attitudes, goals, beliefs, and desires of a person are often not known to them in any given moment, and because they reside within the mind of that person they are almost always not known to the people who are perceiving that person. To know anything about other people we must observe and identify/classify their behavior and then attribute to the observed behavior inferences and judgments about the internal states of that person serving as the motivating force behind their behavior. This entry explores this process of attribution. Heider described attribution as the process that determines “how one person thinks and feels about another person, how he perceives him and what he does to him, what he expects him to do or think, how he reacts to the actions of the other.” The entry explores the rules that people follow in order to make sense of behavior, and the rational versus non-rational nature of the procedure. Even when highly motivated to think rationally, this process can be biased, and flaws can appear in the attribution process, such as from chronic differences among perceivers due to culture, experience, or personality. How the process would unfold if accurate and purely rational is contrasted with how it unfolds when biased. How we feel, and how we choose to act, are derived from how we make sense of the world. Thus, attribution processes are foundational for understanding how we feel, for establishing expectations, and planning how to act in turn.
... A substantial body of research suggests that perceivers spontaneously draw inferences from observed behaviors even when they do not have the intention to form a social impression. Such unintentional inferences have been found to give rise to impressions of other people's traits (i.e., spontaneous trait inference; see Uleman, Newman, & Moskowitz, 1996) and goals (i.e., spontaneous goal inference; see Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). For example, when learning that Avery received an A on a math exam, people may spontaneously infer that Avery is smart; and when learning that Alex donated $100 to a local food bank, people may spontaneously infer that Alex had the goal to help. ...
A substantial body of research suggests that perceivers spontaneously draw inferences from observed behaviors even when they do not have the intention to form a social impression. Such unintentional inferences have been found to give rise to impressions of other people’s traits (i.e., spontaneous trait inference; see Uleman, Newman, & Moskowitz, 1996) and goals (i.e., spontaneous goal inference; see Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016). For example, when learning that Avery received an A on a math exam, people may spontaneously infer that Avery is smart; and when learning that Alex donated $100 to a local food bank, people may spontaneously infer that Alex had the goal to help. Although these impressions can be the result of intentional processes, the notion of spontaneous inference suggests that they may also arise from unintentional processes.
The current chapter reviews research on a related, yet conceptually distinct phenomenon: unintentional influences in intentional impression formation. The central focus of our review is on the finding that mere co-occurrence of stimuli can produce evaluative responses that are diametrically opposite to intentionally formed impressions based on the particular relation between the co-occurring stimuli. This phenomenon is similar to the concept of spontaneous inference, in that it involves unintentional effects in impression formation. However, it is different from the concept of spontaneous inference, in that it arises in contexts where people do have the intention to form an impression. Another important difference is that, while prior research on spontaneous inference has predominantly focused on impressions with specific semantic content (e.g., intelligent vs. unintelligent), evidence for unintentional influences in intentional impression formation is primarily coming from studies on broad evaluative impressions (e.g., good vs. bad).
... Another tactic is to discern perceptible cues that betray an individual's desires, such as their gaze, body posture, and where they have positioned themselves in space. Indeed, a rich and growing interdisciplinary literature suggests that people are adept a detecting other peoples' desires under a variety of circumstances (Aarts et al., 2004;Clark, 2011;Davis et al., 2021;Heider, 1958;Jones & Davis, 1965;Kelley, 1967;Morelli et al., 2018;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Reeder & Trafimow, 2005;Zaki, 2020). ...
Selfishness is central to many theories of human morality, yet its psychological nature remains largely overlooked. Psychologists often rely on classical conceptions of selfishness from economics (i.e., rational self-interest) and philosophy (i.e. psychological egoism), but such characterizations offer limited insight into the richer, motivated nature of selfishness. To address this gap, we propose a novel framework in which selfishness is recast as a psychological construction. From this view, selfishness is perceived in ourselves and others when we detect a situation-specific desire to benefit oneself that disregards others’ desires and prevailing social expectations for the situation. We argue that detecting and deterring such psychological selfishness in both oneself and others is crucial in social life—facilitating the maintenance of social cohesion and close relationships. In addition, we show how utilizing this psychological framework offers a richer understanding of the nature of human social behavior. Delineating a psychological construct of selfishness can promote coherence in interdisciplinary research on selfishness, and provide insights for interventions to prevent or remediate negative effects of selfishness.
... Research on spontaneous inferences illustrates that people infer characteristics such as traits, goals, beliefs, and values from others' behaviors readily, as early as they encode others' behaviors into memory (Carlston & Skowronski, 1994;Ham & Vonk, 2011;Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten, 2016;Uleman et al., 2008). These inferences provide not only a sense of meaning and predictability in a complex social world, but also help the perceiver make related predictions and decisions about the actors and adjust their own attitudes and behaviors toward the actors (Allport, 1954;Bruner, 1957;Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, 1996;McCarthy & Skowronski, 2011). ...
A large body of work has shown that perceivers form spontaneous inferences about others' characteristics (e.g., mean, bad) as soon as they observe their behaviors. However, a question that has not been addressed by previous research is the integration of contingencies of those actions (e.g., perceivers' ultimate goals) that are typically learned over time into the initial spontaneous impressions of those others. Three experiments examined updating of spontaneously formed trait inferences (STIs) and evaluative inferences (SEIs) as a function of the contingency information that alters the meaning of the initial information. All three studies showed that perceivers update their SEIs (both positive and negative) immediately after learning about the contingencies (i.e., transforming information). STIs, however, were not updated, even when the contingency information was provided immediately after the initial behavior information (Experiment 3). Instead, in all three experiments participants formed multiple STIs; one from the behavior information before and one from the information after the contingency. It was only when participants had the opportunity to elaborate on their trait judgments within explicit measures that they revised their judgments and aligned them with the contingency information. The results and the implications of the findings are discussed in light of the theoretical models suggesting separate mechanisms of semantic and evaluative processing in person perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
This research examines how exposure to different motives of scientists affects the impact of scientific consensus on public attitudes toward cultured meat. While scientific consensus on the safety of cultured meat generally increased positive attitudes toward it, this effect depended on information about scientists’ motives. Exposure to information about scientists’ financial motives weakened the positive effect of scientific consensus because it undermined trust in scientists. Information about scientists’ prosocial motives did not influence the scientific consensus effect. These findings suggest that perceived motives can shift trust in experts, thereby affecting the influence of experts on public attitudes.
Objective
When task groups depend on all members’ contributions, one poor performer can threaten the entire group’s goal attainment. The model of pro-group intent (M-PGI) stipulates that group responses to such poor performers are primarily determined by the group’s assessment of that person’s willingness to help the group ( attributed pro-group intent). Despite supportive evidence, past research has neglected whether model predictions hold under conditions more representative of group life. The current study thus tests the M-PGI in (a) personal interaction, (b) settings beyond the work context, and (c) repeated decisions.
Method
The current paper reports two experiments using repeated decision scenarios across a range of group situations (i.e., within-participant designs). The main experiment, moreover, manipulated whether two group members discussed their response to a described poor performer (interacting dyads) or decided individually (nominal dyads; between-participant factor).
Results
Results provide consistent evidence for the M-PGI across contexts. Process analyses provide some evidence that model effects were stronger in interacting (vs. nominal) dyads.
Conclusions
Interacting groups focus on poor performers’ intent when determining their responses. I discuss the implications of the M-PGI for group dynamics theory and research, as well as a range of applied fields.
In this research, the individual's response to the outcome of his behavior
(investment in the stock market) is measured in the form of the
corresponding inference theory (Attribution theory), In fact, this theory
considers that what factors do people attribute to the outcome of their
behavior (investment in the virtual stock market). This assessment was
carried out in a quasi-experimental way on a number of people who were
alike in terms of knowledge of investing in the exchange, in three steps.
The results indicate that when people get negative returns, they attribute it
to external factors; and, conversely, when they achieve positive returns,
they attribute the result to their intrinsic qualities. These two results are in
fact consistent with the concept of the theory of the corresponding
inference (Attribution theory), and in some way, confirm this theory in
practice.
در این پژوهش عکسالعمل فرد در مقابل نتیجه رفتارش یعني سرمایهگذاري در بورس، در قالب
تئوري استنباط متناظر )تئوري اسنادي( سنجیده شده است. بهعبارت دیگر، افراد نتیجه عملکرد خود
یعني سرمایهگذاري در بورس را به چه عواملي نسبت ميدهند. این ارزیابي در قالب پژوهش
شبهتجربي بر روي افرادي که از نظر آگاهي نسبت به سرمایهگذاري در بورس در یک سطح بودند
)دانشجویان رشته مدیریت صنعتي و حسابداري(، صورت گرفته است و نتایج نشان ميدهد هنگامي
که افراد از سرمایهگذاري خود بازده منفي کسب ميکنند آن را به عوامل بیروني نسبت ميدهند؛ و
در مقابل، زماني که بازده مثبت بدست ميآورند، آن را ناشي از ویژگيهاي دروني خود ميدانند.
این دو نتیجهبا مفهوم تئوري استنباط متناظر)تئوري اسنادي( مطابقت دارد و آن را در عمل تأیید مي
کند.
When people judge acts of kindness or cruelty, they often look beyond the act itself to infer the agent’s motives. These inferences, in turn, can powerfully influence moral judgements. The mere possibility of self-interested motives can taint otherwise helpful acts, whereas morally principled motives can exonerate those behind harmful acts. In this Review, we survey research showcasing the importance of inferred motives for moral judgements, and show how motive inferences are connected to judgements of actions, intentions and character. This work suggests that the inferences observers draw about peoples’ motives are sufficient for moral judgement (they drive character judgements even without actions) and functional (they effectively aid observers in predicting peoples’ future behaviour). Research that directly probes when and how people infer motives, and how motive properties guide those inferences, can deepen our understanding of the role of inferred motives in moral life. When people judge an agent’s action, they often look beyond the act itself to infer the agent’s motives. In this Review, Carlson et al. survey research on the role of inferred motives in moral judgement and describe how motive properties serve as inputs to these inferences.
Les neurones miroirs et les principales théories associées ont occupé et occupent encore une place importante dans les neurosciences et la psychologie, s’immisçant même très fréquemment dans de nombreux domaines non scientifiques. Malgré d’importantes limites, ils persistent à inspirer les chercheurs qui leur trouvent des implications potentielles dans tous les champs de la cognition humaine. Le présent article se propose de faire un point sur les principales limites méthodologiques et théoriques qui ont été formulées à l’encontre des neurones miroirs. Dans une première partie, nous montrons qu’il n’existe presque aucune méthode pour étudier sans ambiguïté les neurones miroirs chez l’être humain. Dans une deuxième partie, nous montrons que le mécanisme miroir, à travers la simulation motrice, se heurte à des limites théoriques irrésolubles, et qu’il ne permet pas de rendre compte de la complexité des phénomènes auquel il prétend répondre. Nous concluons sur le fait que les neurones miroirs gagneraient à perdre leur attribut « miroir ».
Causes of behavior are often classified as either dispositional (e.g., personality) or situational (e.g., circumstances). However, the disposition–situation dichotomy confounds locus (internal vs. external) and stability (unstable vs. stable) of attribution, rendering it unclear whether locus or stability drives changes in dispositionality. In the present research, we examine the dispositional shift—that is, psychologically distant (vs. near) events are attributed to dispositional (vs. situational) causes. Using construal level theory, we hypothesize that the dispositional shift is caused by a change in stability (but not necessarily locus) of attribution. Two experiments support this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, distant (vs. near) future events were attributed to more stable causes. In Experiment 2, actions by a socially distant person (vs. oneself) were also attributed to more stable (but also more internal) causes. Thus, important psychological manipulations, here psychological distance, can influence causal dimensions selectively, supporting the independence of stability and locus of attribution.
Past research documented liberals’ greater tendency than conservatives to take situational determinants of others’ actions into account when forming causal attributions (e.g., Skitka et al., 2002), and conservatives’ greater tendency to seek consistency (e.g., Nail et al., 2009). We hypothesize that liberals (vs. conservatives) should be more likely to make spontaneous goal inferences (SGIs). Conservatives, however, should tend to implicitly infer invariant rather than variant characteristics from others’ behaviors, drawing spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) rather than SGIs. Experiment 1 and 2 supported those hypotheses by illustrating differences in the type of implicit inferences formed by liberals and conservatives in a false recognition paradigm common to the STI literature. Experiment 3 revealed similar differences in conservatives’ and liberals’ goal and trait inferences when making open‐ended causal explanations for others’ actions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
In everyday life, we use folk theories about the mind and behavior to understand ourselves and others. An important part of our folk theory of mind is our intuitions about the role of the self in mental functioning—namely, whether the self is able to control each mental operation. The current study explored beliefs about the nature of control over emotional aspects of mental experience from middle childhood through adulthood. Elementary school children (n = 46), middle schoolers (n = 46), 18-year-olds (n = 46), and adults (n = 104) were presented with vignettes depicting characters experiencing negative emotions. Participants evaluated the intentionality, changeability, and chronicity of the characters’ responses. Results showed that by elementary school, children share adults’ view that emotions are largely outside of volitional control. However, beliefs about the changeability and chronicity of emotions mature beyond middle childhood. Between elementary school and adulthood, participants decreased their endorsement of the ability to change one’s current negative emotions and increased their beliefs in the chronic, enduring nature of these responses. With age, these changeability and chronicity beliefs also came to differ depending on the emotional response (i.e., feeling grumpy, being nervous, acting mean). Together, these findings suggest that intuitions about the controllability of emotional experience become more differentiated and less optimistic across development.
Within social psychology, it is well accepted that trait inference is the dominant tool for understanding others’ behavior. Outside of social psychology, a different consensus has emerged, namely, that people predominantly explain behavior in terms of mental states. Both positions are based on limited evidence. The trait literature focuses on trait ascriptions to persons, not explanations of behavior. The mental state literature focuses on explanations of ordinary behaviors (for which social scripts provide mental states), not of expectancy-violating behaviors. We examined the critical test case for the two opposing positions: explanations of expectancy-violating behaviors. Participants provided open-ended explanations of puzzling actions, which were content-analyzed for use of mental states, traits, and other causal background factors. Across four studies, three stimulus sets, and two subpopulations, people overwhelmingly offered mental states when explaining puzzling actions (compared with ordinary actions), while they struggled to generate traits and other background factors.
Although dispositional inferences may be consciously drawn from the trait implications of observed behavior, abundant research has shown that people also spontaneously infer trait dispositions simply in the process of comprehending behavior. These spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) can occur without intention or awareness. All research on STIs has studied STIs based on behaviors of individual persons. Yet important aspects of social life occur in groups, and people regularly perceive groups engaging in coordinated action. We propose that perceivers make spontaneous trait inferences about groups (STIGs), parallel to the STIs formed about individuals. In 5 experiments we showed that (a) perceivers made STIGs comparable with STIs about individuals (based on the same behaviors), (b) a cognitive load manipulation did not affect the occurrence of STIGs, (c) STIGs occurred for groups varying in entitativity, (d) STIGs influenced perceivers' impression ratings of those groups, and (e) STIG-based group impressions generalized to new group members. These experiments provide the first evidence for STIGs, a process that may contribute to the formation of spontaneous group impressions. Implications for stereotype formation are discussed.
Because 1 function of categorization is to provide structure and control to social interactions and because individuals differ in the extent to which they desire control and structure, individual differences in personal need for structure (PNS) should moderate the extent to which people categorize. Spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) were used to assess the use of traits in categorization. High-PNS Ss were more likely to form STIs and more likely to recall names of target actors in the stimulus sentences. This research provides evidence for the organization of behavioral information in person nodes in circumstances where processing goals did not explicitly request such organization. It also provides a link between the examination of chronic sources of motivation and social categorization, perhaps the most fundamental social-cognitive variable.
This article analyzes the similarities and differences in forming impressions of individuals and in developing conceptions of groups. In both cases, the perceiver develops a mental conception of the target (individual or group) on the basis of available information and uses that information to make judgments about that person or group. However, a review of existing evidence reveals differences in the outcomes of impressions formed of individual and group targets, even when those impressions are based on the very same behavioral information. A model is proposed to account for these differences. The model emphasizes the role of differing expectancies of unity and coherence in individual and group targets, which in turn engage different mechanisms for processing information and making judgments. Implications of the model are discussed.
Much of psychology focuses on universal principles of thought and action. Although an extremely productive pursuit, this approach, by describing only the “average person,” risks describing no one in particular. This article discusses an alternate approach that complements interests in universal principles with analyses of the unique psychological meaning that individuals find in their experiences and interactions. Rooted in research on social cognition, this approach examines how people’s lay theories about the stability or malleability of human attributes alter the meaning they give to basic psychological processes such as self-regulation and social perception. Following a review of research on this lay theories perspective in the field of social psychology, the implications of analyzing psychological meaning for other fields such as developmental, cultural, and personality psychology are discussed.
Why is he poor? Why is she failing academically? Why is he so generous? Why is she so conscientious? Answers to such everyday questions-social explanations-have powerful effects on relationships at the interpersonal and societal levels. How do people select an explanation in particular cases? We suggest that, often, explanations are selected based on the individual's pre-existing general theories of social causality. More specifically, we suggest that over time individuals develop general beliefs regarding the causes of social events. We refer to these beliefs as social explanatory styles. Our goal in the present article is to offer and validate a measure of individual differences in social explanatory styles. Accordingly, we offer the Social Explanatory Styles Questionnaire (SESQ), which measures three independent dimensions of social explanatory style: Dispositionism, historicism, and controllability. Studies 1-3 examine basic psychometric properties of the SESQ and provide positive evidence regarding internal consistency, factor structure, and both convergent and divergent validity. Studies 4-6 examine predictive validity for each subscale: Does each explanatory dimension moderate an important phenomenon of social cognition? Results suggest that they do. In Study 4, we show that SESQ dispositionism moderates the tendency to make spontaneous trait inferences. In Study 5, we show that SESQ historicism moderates the tendency to commit the Fundamental Attribution Error. Finally, in Study 6 we show that SESQ controllability predicts polarization of moral blame judgments: Heightened blaming toward controllable stigmas (assimilation), and attenuated blaming toward uncontrollable stigmas (contrast). Decades of research suggest that explanatory style regarding the self is a powerful predictor of self-functioning. We think it is likely that social explanatory styles-perhaps comprising interactive combinations of the basic dimensions tapped by the SESQ-will be similarly potent predictors of social functioning. We hope the SESQ will be a useful tool for exploring that possibility.
Allport's The Nature of Prejudice is a social psychological classic. Its delineation of the components and principles of prejudice remains modern, especially its handling of cognitive factors. The volume's cognitive contentions are outlined, and then extended with an application from attribution theory. An "ultimate attribution error" is proposed: (1) when prejudiced peonle perceive what they regard as a negative act by an outgroup member, they will more than others attribute it dispositionally, often as genetically determined, in comparison to the same act by an ingroup member: (2) wlhen prejudiced people perceive what they regard as a positive act by an outaroup member, they will more than others attribute it in comparison to the same act by an ingroup member to one or more of the following: (a) "the exceptional case," (b) luck or special advantage, (c) hig,h motivation and effort, and (d) manipulable situational context. Predictions are advanced as to which of these responses will be adopted and under which conditions the phenomenon will be magnified.
An actor may display inconsistent behavior across different situations (e.g., conscientious in one situation, nonconscientious in another) and yet still be perceived as a coherent person. How do perceivers accomplish this? To investigate this question, in two experiments, participants read about a target person whose behavior across eight situations varied randomly or covaried systematically with goal-relevant situations. In Experiment 1, although the two targets displayed equivalent amounts of variability, participants (a) found the systematic target more coherent and (b) were more likely to associate the systematic target with an underlying goal. In Experiment 2, this finding was extended to group targets but, as expected, not to low entitativity groups, suggesting that participants make such inferences only when there is an a priori expectation of coherence. These findings indicate that the target's goal is an important component of perceived coherence.
Accusations of discriminatory treatment of minority persons in the criminal justice system create a need for policy and procedure development to create real and perceived equal treatment. A facial recognition deficit among law enforcement officers and witnesses for persons of another "race" contributes to unequal treatment of minority group members. This article demonstrates the other-race effect in an unusual context, reveals theoretical weaknesses, reveals the role of categorical processes in the phenomenon, and discusses policy implications. Experiment 1, based on feature and trait ratings, demonstrates that identical and racially ambiguous faces with different racial markers (hair) are perceived according to the marker. Experiment 2 demonstrates an other-race recognition effect using these faces. A feature acting as a racial marker can cause a face to be perceived and remembered differently. Other-race faces are perceived categorically, which drives the recognition process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In a modified 4 * 4 factorial design with race (Black-White) of the harm-doer and race (Black-White) of the victim as the major factors, the phenomenon of differential social perception of intergroup violence was established. In the study, which used a modification of Interaction Process Analysis, 96 White paid undergraduates, observing a videotape of purported ongoing interaction occurring in another room, labeled an act (ambiguous shove) as more violent when it was performed by a Black than when the same act was perpetrated by a White, indicating that the concept of violence was more accessible when viewing a Black, as compared to a White, committing the same act. Causal attributions were also divergent. Situation attributions were preferred when the harm-doer was White, and person (dispositional) attributions were preferred in the Black-protagonist conditions. Results are discussed in terms of perceptual threshold, stereotypy, and attributional biases. (21 ref)
Perceivers received information about a target person’s level of athletic performance (e.g., kicking a soccer ball) and the situational forces surrounding that performance. Perceivers’ inferences about the effort and ability of the target depended on whether the situational forces involved psychological forces (a bribe offered for low performance) or physical forces (a wind that hindered performance). Replicating past research, psychological forces had a stronger impact on inferred ability given the presence of low performance, as opposed to high performance. Additional analyses indicated that this pattern was mediated by inferences about the effort of the target. In contrast, physical forces appeared to have a direct impact on inferences of ability and affected inferences based on both low and high performance. The results suggest that perceivers make inferences about multiple attributes within a target person and, in the process, attempt to reconcile those inferences.
The theory outlined in the present chapter adopts a cognitive approach to motivation. In the pages that follow we describe a research program premised on the notion that the cognitive treatment affords conceptual and methodological advantages enabling new insights into problems of motivated action, self-regulation and self-control. We begin by placing our work in the broader historical context of social psychological theorizing about motivation and cognition. We then present our theoretical notions and trace their implications for a variety of psychological issues including activity-experience, goal-commitment, choice, and substitution. The gist of the chapter that follows describes our empirical research concerning a broad range of phenomena informed by the goal-systemic analysis. Motivation Versus Cognition, or Motivation as Cognition Motivation versus cognition: the “separatist program. ” Social psychological theories have often treated motivation as separate from cognition, and have often approached it in a somewhat static manner. The separatism of the “motivation versus cognition ” approach was manifest in several major formulations and debates. Thus, for example, the dissonance versus self-perception debate (Bem, 1972) pitted against each other motivational (i.e., dissonance) versus cognitive (i.e., self-perception) explanations of attitude change phenomena. A similar subsequent controversy pertained to the question of whether a motivational explanation of biased causal attributions in terms of ego-defensive tendencies (cf. Kelley, 1972) is valid, given the alternative possibility of a purely cognitive explanation (Miller & Ross, 1975). The separatism of the “motivation versus cognition ” approach assigned distinct functions to motivational and cognitive variables. This is apparent in major social psychological notions of persuasion, judgment or impression formation. For instance, in the popular dual-mode theories of
Three experiments obtained evidence that spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) occur on-line, at encoding. In each, participants read many sentences on a computer screen. After each paragraph, they indicated whether it included a test probe word. Paragraphs that imply but do not contain traits should increase errors or reaction times (RTs) to trait probes. In Experiment 1, trait-implying paragraphs produced more errors than control paragraphs, supporting the hypothesis. In Experiments 2 and 3, with feedback on each trial, longer RTs supported the hypothesis. STIs had the same effects as McKoon and Ratcliff's "predicting inferences. " Unexpectedly, participants gained control over STIs and predicting inferences, so that RT differences (and error differences in Experiment 1) declined over trials. Analyses of reading times in Experiment 3 ruled out several alternative explanations. Results demonstrate that social inferences can occur spontaneously at encoding and suggest that immediate feedback may make control possible.
The intention-to-behavior process is analyzed with respect to implementation intentions. These intentions link an intended goal-directed behavior to an anticipated situational context. The reported experimental evidence suggests that implementation intentions create a heightened accessibility of the mental representation of the specified situational cues and induce direct (automatic) control of the intended behavior through these cues. The formation of implementation intentions promotes goal achievement through both of these processes because they eliminate classic problems associated with the control of goal-directed action. Similarities and differences to other theoretical approaches on intentions, planning, and action control are discussed.
Judgments about the intentionality of other people's behavior are central to social perception. Perceivers typically explain a target person's intentional behavior in terms of the target's motives. In turn, inferences about motive often inform trait inferences about the target. In comparison to past theories, this multiple inference model portrays perceivers as interested in the specific beliefs and motives of others, rather than viewing perceivers as focusing on abstract causal reasoning. The model is applied to the literatures on attitude, morality, and ability attribution. In contrast to intentional behavior, perceivers explain a target person's involuntary, unintentional behavior by using a simpler process of global causal attribution.
The accessibility of a category in memory has been shown to influence the selection and interpretation of social information. The present experiment examined the possibility that information relevant to a trait category (hostility) presented outside of conscious awareness can temporarily increase that category's accessibility. 108 male undergraduates initially performed a vigilance task in which they were exposed unknowingly to single words. Either 0, 20, or 80% of those words were semantically related to hostility. In an unrelated 2nd task, 20 Ss read a behavioral description of a stimulus person (SP) that was ambiguous regarding hostility and then rated the SP on several trait dimensions. The amount of processing Ss gave to the hostile information and the negativity of their ratings of the SP both were reliably and positively related to the proportion of hostile words to which they were exposed. Several control conditions confirmed that the words were not consciously perceived. It is concluded that social stimuli of which people are not consciously aware can influence conscious judgments. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
120 female undergraduates rated significant persons in their lives on repertory test dimensions. The 5 independent variables were priming (for family life vs, peer life vs, no priming), instrumentality of the psychological dimensions to the actors' goals from family vs peer life, consistency of knowledge about family and peer actors' goals, types of rated persons, and concentration on the persons before ratings. Ratings on dimensions instrumental to family goals were more variable after priming for family life. In contrast, the dimensions instrumental to peer goals were more variable, after priming for peer life. These relations were more marked after concentration, especially among Ss with high consistency of knowledge about family or peer actors' goals. Results support the hypotheses that an individual may have alternative systems of psychological knowledge that are organized in the form of action-oriented representations and in which categories of actors' goals and psychological conditions of achieving the goals play a central role. Ratings in the no-priming conditions corresponded well to the findings of earlier studies on implicit personality theories. (24 ref)
Denis J. Hilton, Richard H. Smith, and Sung Hee Kim proposed in 1995 that making dispositional inferences requires the use of John Stuart Mill's method of agreement. However, their data were based on "incomplete" information that may have obscured the use of Mill's method of difference. Consistent with this suspicion, a study with "complete" information revealed the joint operation of both Mill's methods. Dispositions to the actor required not only low distinctiveness but also low consensus, whereas dispositions to the stimulus required not only high consensus but also high distinctiveness. In contrast, causal explanations to the person, stimulus, or occasion were determined by the method of difference only.
The joint model integrates Mill's methods of difference and agreement for making causal attributions, and introduces a novel type of context attributions which reflect the opposite categories of the standard attribution responses provided in previous covariation research (external versus the person, general versus the stimulus, and stable versus the occasion). The joint model predicts that attributions to standard causes require Mill's method of difference and that attributions to context causes require Mill's method of agreement. Two empirical studies demonstrated that the joint model fitted adequately with all of subject's standard and context attribution responses, in contrast to earlier theorizing and data involving only the method of difference (cf. Cheng & Novick, 1990) or only the method of agreement (cf. Hilton, Smith & Kim, 1995) which received less empirical support.
The ability to interpret and predict the actions of others is crucial to social interaction and to social, cognitive, and linguistic development. The current study provided a strong test of this predictive ability by assessing (1) whether infants are capable of prospectively processing actions that fail to achieve their intended outcome, and (2) how infants respond to events in which their initial predictions are not confirmed. Using eye tracking, 8-month-olds, 10-month-olds, and adults watched an actor repeatedly reach over a barrier to either successfully or unsuccessfully retrieve a ball. Ten-month-olds and adults produced anticipatory looks to the ball, even when the action was unsuccessful and the actor never achieved his goal. Moreover, they revised their initial predictions in response to accumulating evidence of the actor's failure. Eight-month-olds showed anticipatory looking only after seeing the actor successfully grasp and retrieve the ball. Results support a flexible, prospective social information processing ability that emerges during the first year of life.
Traditional approaches have long considered situations as “noise” or “error” that obscures the consistency of personality and its invariance. Therefore, it has been customary to average the individual's behavior on any given dimension (e.g., conscientiousness) across different situations. Contradicting this assumption and practice, recent studies have demonstrated that by incorporating the situation into the search for consistency, a new locus of stability is found. Namely, people are characterized not only by stable individual differences in their overall levels of behavior, but also by distinctive and stable patterns of situation-behavior relations (e.g., she does X when A but Y when B). These if … then … profiles constitute behavioral “signatures” that provide potential windows into the individual's underlying dynamics. Processing models that can account for such signatures provide a new route for studying personality types in terms of their shared dynamics and characteristic defining profiles.
We present four experiments in which participants were exposed to texts depicting behaviors that afforded inferences about actors' traits and goals. Results from a false recognition task with varying response deadlines revealed heightened activation of goal inferences already within a 350ms response deadline. In contrast, trait inferences were made only when there was no response deadline, and when the behavior also implied a goal. These results indicate that spontaneous inferences on goals are often encoded more strongly in memory and are reactivated much more quickly in comparison with spontaneous trait inferences. Moreover, spontaneous trait inferences are often facilitated when an inference is first made on the goal of the behavior. These findings are discussed in light of recent developmental and neuroscientific evidence on social inferences, and current theories on impression formation.
Three experiments investigated whether inferring goals from another agent's behavior is a motivational process and, more specifically, whether the motivation to infer a goal is enhanced by the amount of behavioral effort that is perceived. Participants were exposed to behavior that varied in intensity to induce different perceived amounts of effort, after which the motivation to infer the goal of the actor's behavior was measured. Experiment 1 employed a text comprehension task, whereas Experiment 2 used an animated film task. Subjective experiences were used to measure the motivation to infer the goal. A third experiment assessed motivation with a behavioral measure. Results showed that an increase in perceived effort enhances the motivation to infer the goal of an actor, and that this effect was specific for situations in which goal content was unknown. Implications for the literature on goal inferences are discussed.
In four studies, a new methodology was employed to explore whether both high- and low-prejudiced Whites (Ws) spontaneously stereotype African Americans (AAs). On several computer trials, three behavior descriptions were displayed one at a time beside a photo of a person, after which participants completed a 4-item recognition test for words in the descriptions. On target trials in Studies 1 and 2, one word was an AA-stereotypic trait implied but not seen in a behavior description. As predicted, both high- and low-prejudiced Whites were more likely to report erroneously that they had seen the implied trait when the stereotypic behavior had been displayed beside an AA rather than a W photo, indicating spontaneous stereotyping of AAs. Study 4 replicated this effect in a high cognitive load condition. Nonstereotypic trait inferences were made equally often for W and AA photos (Study 2), and evidence of spontaneous stereotyping was obtained only when AA photos were paired with Stereotypic behaviors (Study 3).
This article reports the results of a meta-analytic integration of previous research on perceptions of ingroup and outgroup variability. The following patterns were observed: The tendency to perceive greater variability for the ingroup relative to the variability perceived for the outgroup (relative heterogeneity) was demonstrated to be a significant but small effect. The basic relative heterogeneity effect is the result of a small shift away from the midpoint of the scale toward homogeneity for the outgroup, coupled with a smaller, slight shift away from the midpoint of the scale toward heterogeneity for the ingroup, in addition, perceptions of group variability were demonstrated to vary in predictable and interesting ways. For example, relative heterogeneity decreases as the relative size of the ingroup decreases, producing a relative homogeneity effect on the part of small minorities. Relative heterogeneity is strongest when the ingroup and outgroup comprise real, enduring groups, and weakest when the ingroup and outgroup comprise artificial, laboratory-created groups. Discussion considers the implications of these results for the various proposed mediating mechanisms for perceptions of group variability, and for an understanding of the phenomenology of being in a group.
Subjects were presented with behavioral vignettes that either suggested traits in the actors or suggested that the behavior was caused by the situation. A word-fragment completion procedure was used to determine whether suggested traits were activated during processing of the vignettes. One issue of interest was whether suggested traits were activated both in the context of behavior identification and in the context of inferences about actors. To distinguish between these two forms of activation, fragments of implied traits were presented either with or without the relevant actor label. It was reasoned that if a trait is linked to an actor, the actor cue should facilitate trait completion. Subjects' orienting task was also manipulated: half were asked to form impressions of the actors and half to allocate causality to the actor or to the situation. Trait priming proved to be common for subjects instructed to form impressions of actors, even in conditions that did not elicit dispositiona' inferences. Actor cues were effective in aiding trait completion for these subjects, but only when covariation information implied a person attribution. There was no evidence of trait priming following the causal allocation task In the context of Trope's distinction between behavior identification and dispositional inference, it is argued that these results show that trait concepts are involved in the identification of behavior independently from their involvement in dispositonal inferences.
Hindu Ss were asked to attribute the behavior of in-group (Hindu) and out-group (Muslim) members performing socially desirable or undesirable acts in terms of internal and external causes for the behavior. Subjects made internal attributions of in-group members performing socially desirable acts and external attributions for undesirable acts. The converse was true for attributions made by the Hindu Ss with respect to the same behavior performed by Muslims. The results were discussed in terms of the importance of attribution theory principles for studying prejudice and the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
People make a variety of automatic inferences when observing others' actions. These include inferences about stable dispositions as well as transitory goal states and social situations. However, models of social inference have rarely considered whether different types of automatic inferences can co-occur. We present three experiments in which participants were incidentally exposed to texts depicting behaviors that afforded inferences about actors' traits and the social situations these actors were experiencing. Results from lexical decision and probe-recognition tasks revealed heightened activation of both trait and situational inferences; furthermore, this co-occurring activation was spontaneous, unconscious, and independent of processing resources or specific impression-formation goals. A fourth experiment extended these findings by showing that when participants were asked to make deliberate attributional judgments of the same set of behaviors, typical goal-directed biases reflecting the selection of either trait or situational interpretations emerged. Implications for social inference processes are discussed.
A series of experiments on comprehension and memory of common goal-directed events was carried out. Empirically based Plan schemata for two videotaped events were derived by asking subjects which actions were done “in order to” do other actions. An experiment on memory for videotaped events found a hierarchical pattern of recall and that the recall of goal-directed actions was superior to that of non-goal-directed actions, supporting the hypothesis that Plan schemata are used in the recall of events. An additional experiment showed that the temporal order of actions in observed events is reconstructed from the underlying Plan schema. A parallel series of recall experiments was carried out using prose descriptions of the videotaped events. Results replicated the earlier studies, suggesting that the recall of narrative prose is largely determined by the Plan schema of the underlying events.
This chapter describes the naive explanation of human actions, theory of correspondent inferences, personal involvement and correspondence, and the recent research concerning phenomenal causality and the attribution of intentions. The cognitive task of establishing sufficient reason for an action involves processing the available information about, or making assumptions about, the links between stable individual dispositions and observed action. The dispositional attributes are inferred from the effects of action, but not every effect is equally salient in the inference process. The perceiver's fundamental task is to interpret or infer the causal antecedents of action. When a person's actions have certain consequences, it is important for the perceiver to determine whether the person was capable of producing these consequences in response to his intentions. Where an actor fails to produce certain effects that might have been anticipated by the perceiver, there may be ambiguity as to whether the actor did not want to produce the effects, or wanted but was not able to. The attribution of intentions is that actions are informative to the extent that they have emerged out of a context of choice and reflect a selection of one among plural alternatives. However, the distinctiveness of the effects achieved and the extent to which they do not represent stereotypic cultural values, determine the likelihood that information about the actor can be extracted from an action. To say that an inference is correspondent, then, is to say that a disposition is being rather directly reflected in behavior, and that this disposition is unusual in its strength or intensity. In-role behavior is supported by too many reasons to be informative about the actor. However, out-of-role behavior is more informative because the effects of such actions are distinctive and not to be dismissed as culturally desirable.
The present study examined the immediate and delayed effects of unobtrusive exposure to personality trait terms (e.g., "reckless," "persistent") on subjects' subsequent judgments and recollection of information about another person. Before reading a description of a stimulus person, subjects were unobtrusively exposed to either positive or negative trait terms that either could or could not be used to characterize this person. When the trait terms were applicable to the description of the stimulus person, subjects' characterizations and evaluations of the person reflected the denotative and evaluative aspects of the trait categories activated by the prior exposure to these terms. However, the absence of any effects for nonapplicable trait terms suggested that exposure to trait terms with positive or negative associations was not in itself sufficient to determine attributions and evaluations. Prior verbal exposure had little effect on reproduction of the descriptions. Moreover, no reliable difference in either evaluation or reproduction was found between subjects who overtly characterized the stimulus person and those who did not. Exposure to applicable trait terms had a greater delayed than immediate effect on subjects' evaluations of the stimulus person, suggesting that subjects may have discounted their categorizations of the stimulus person when making their immediate evaluations. The implications of individual and situational variation in the accessibility of different categories for judgments of self and others are considered.
Causal explanation and dispositional attribution are distinguished. Causal explanation involves giving an explanation for why a particular event occurred, whereas dispositional attribution involves learning about the characteristics of some entity. Moreover, it is proposed that production of causal explanations requires J. S. Mill's (1872/1973) method of difference, whereas production of dispositional attributions requires Mill's method of agreement. Experiment 1 shows that both the method of difference and the method of agreement are used to make causal explanations. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 indicate that lay attributors consistently favor use of the method of agreement but not the method of difference to make dispositional attributions of both facilitatory and inhibitory characteristics. The distinction between causal explanation and dispositional attribution is used to organize seemingly contradictory findings and to provide an integrative framework for models of causal judgment.
• As the title suggests, this book examines the psychology of interpersonal relations. In the context of this book, the term "interpersonal relations" denotes relations between a few, usually between two, people. How one person thinks and feels about another person, how he perceives him and what he does to him, what he expects him to do or think, how he reacts to the actions of the other--these are some of the phenomena that will be treated. Our concern will be with "surface" matters, the events that occur in everyday life on a conscious level, rather than with the unconscious processes studied by psychoanalysis in "depth" psychology. These intuitively understood and "obvious" human relations can, as we shall see, be just as challenging and psychologically significant as the deeper and stranger phenomena. The discussion will center on the person as the basic unit to be investigated. That is to say, the two-person group and its properties as a superindividual unit will not be the focus of attention. Of course, in dealing with the person as a member of a dyad, he cannot be described as a lone subject in an impersonal environment, but must be represented as standing in relation to and interacting with another person. The chapter topics included in this book include: Perceiving the Other Person; The Other Person as Perceiver; The Naive Analysis of Action; Desire and Pleasure; Environmental Effects; Sentiment; Ought and Value; Request and Command; Benefit and Harm; and Reaction to the Lot of the Other Person. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
• As the title suggests, this book examines the psychology of interpersonal relations. In the context of this book, the term "interpersonal relations" denotes relations between a few, usually between two, people. How one person thinks and feels about another person, how he perceives him and what he does to him, what he expects him to do or think, how he reacts to the actions of the other--these are some of the phenomena that will be treated. Our concern will be with "surface" matters, the events that occur in everyday life on a conscious level, rather than with the unconscious processes studied by psychoanalysis in "depth" psychology. These intuitively understood and "obvious" human relations can, as we shall see, be just as challenging and psychologically significant as the deeper and stranger phenomena. The discussion will center on the person as the basic unit to be investigated. That is to say, the two-person group and its properties as a superindividual unit will not be the focus of attention. Of course, in dealing with the person as a member of a dyad, he cannot be described as a lone subject in an impersonal environment, but must be represented as standing in relation to and interacting with another person. The chapter topics included in this book include: Perceiving the Other Person; The Other Person as Perceiver; The Naive Analysis of Action; Desire and Pleasure; Environmental Effects; Sentiment; Ought and Value; Request and Command; Benefit and Harm; and Reaction to the Lot of the Other Person. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Attribution theory is concerned with the attempts of ordinary people to understand the causes and implications of the events they witness. It deals with the “naive psychology” of the “man in the street” as he interprets his own behaviors and the actions of others. For man—in the perspective of attribution theory—is an intuitive psychologist who seeks to explain behavior and draw inferences about actors and their environments. To better understand the perceptions and actions of this intuitive scientist, his methods must be explored. The sources of oversight, error, or bias in his assumptions and procedures may have serious consequences, both for the lay psychologist himself and for the society that he builds and perpetuates. These shortcomings, explored from the vantage point of contemporary attribution theory, are the focus of the chapter. The logical or rational schemata employed by intuitive psychologists and the sources of bias in their attempts at understanding, predicting, and controlling the events that unfold around them are considered. Attributional biases in the psychology of prediction, perseverance of social inferences and social theories, and the intuitive psychologist's illusions and insights are described.
105 male undergraduates were primed with either competitive or neutral words outside of awareness and then played a prisoner's dilemma game. Results indicate that the subliminal primes, in interaction with the Ss' behavioral predispositions toward competitiveness or cooperation in the game situation, had a significant influence on competitiveness. Competitive Ss played more competitively when exposed to the competitive primes than when exposed to the neutral primes. Competitive Ss exposed to the competitive primes played much more competitively than did cooperative Ss exposed to the same competitive primes. Mediating mechanisms and the generalizability of subliminal priming effects are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
A theory of lay epistemics is described and applied to a range of topics within social-cognitive psychology. The theory addresses the process whereby human knowledge is formed and modified, and it highlights the epistemic functions of hypothesis generation and validation. Hypothesis generation is assumed to depend on knowers' cognitive capability and their epistemic motivations. Hypothesis validation is assumed to be based on preexisting inference rules that, in the knower's mind, connect given categories of evidence with given hypotheses. The same knowledge-acquisition process is assumed to underlie numerous social-cognitive phenomena including attribution, dissonance, attitude formation, and judgmental accuracy. The lay epistemic analysis thus serves to integrate seemingly diverse social psychological topics under the same fundamental principles. The same analysis also has implications for synthesizing notions of adaptive and maladaptive thinking, and of lay and scientific inference. Besides the unifying coherence it lends to previously separate domains of study, the epistemic framework offers novel suggestions for future research on numerous social-cognitive topics.