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Social and Personality Psychology Compass 10/3 (2016): 164168, 10.1111/spc3.12235
Teaching & Learning Guide for: Spontaneous Goal Inference
(SGI)
Gordon B. Moskowitz*and Irmak Olcaysoy Okten
Lehigh University
Authors Introduction
When people learn about or observe behaviors of others, they tend to make attributions and
inferences about the cause of these behaviors. Additionally, perceivers make such conclusions
about why other people act as they do without necessarily being aware of these attributions
and inferences. Observing somebody taking the elevator up one flight, people tend to infer that
the person is lazy. Previous research on spontaneous inferences showed that people make trait
inferences from othersbehaviors as early as encoding the information in their memory. This
means that as soon as the other is observed to take the elevator up one flight, she/he is encoded
as a lazy personin the memory of the observer. Importantly, however, traits seem to not be
the only form through which the behaviors of others are represented in memory; information
about actors is also represented through their goals. Despite the importance of perceiving goals of
others as established by various research areas of psychology (e.g., developmental psychology,
theory of mind, goal priming) research on causal inference has only recently started to concen-
trate on goals as a critical form of spontaneous inference making. This line of research has sug-
gested that goals of others can actually be faster and more likely to be inferred than traits of
others, at least under certain circumstances. In this sense, researchers (Moskowitz & Olcaysoy
Okten, 2015) suggest that the possibility of inferring a persons goals may even precede the in-
ference of a trait. When this is likely is to occur is dependent on the perceivers specific goals, as
well as the type of behavior observed.
Author Recommends
Malle, B. F. (2008). Fritz Heiders legacy: Celebrated insights, many of them misunderstood.
Social Psychology,39(3), 163173.
In this article, Malle reviews critical ideas of Heider (1958) on attribution processes which
suggest that scholars have, for decades, misperceived Heiders description of the attribution
process. Specifically, he explains how Heiders terminology of personal-impersonal causal attribu-
tions from othersbehaviors has been replaced by a personal-situational attribution dichotomy in
the attribution literature which reduced the personal attributions to trait attributions, ultimately
rendering goal attribution/inference virtually ignored.
Uleman,J.S.,Newman,L.S.,&Moskowitz,G.B.(1996).Peopleasflexibleinterpreters:
Evidence and issues from spontaneous trait inference. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,
28, 211280.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
The authors review why and how people engage in spontaneous trait inferences (by referring
to developmental aspects and different paradigms through which the phenomenon has
been measured), conditions which affect the phenomenon (e.g., cognitive load, accessibility
of trait information), individual differences in the tendency to engage in STI, and the conse-
quences of such inferences.
Todorov, A., & Uleman, J. S. (2002). Spontaneous trait inferences are bound to actorsfaces:
evidence from a false recognition paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,83(5),
10511065.
In this article, Todorov and Uleman introduce a false recognition paradigm to spontaneous
inference research. With this measure, they were able to show that perceivers not only infer
traits from othersbehaviors without necessarily having the intention and awareness to do so
but also spontaneously bind the inferred traits to specific actors. As an implication of their
findings, they suggested that perceivers should tend to use the specific traits implicitly inferred
to make predictions about actorsfuture behaviors.
Hassin, R. R., Aarts, H., & Ferguson, M. J. (2005). Automatic goal inferences. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology,41(2), 129140.
Hassin and colleagues show for the first time in this article that perceivers tend to implicitly
infer goals (in addition to traits) from othersactions. Four studies using different methods
(cued-recall, probe recognition, lexical decision task) demonstrated that goals of actors are
inferred as soon as perceivers encode the information in their memory. Importantly, in order
to differentiate goalinferences from predictive inferences (in whichthe inference made is merely
a prediction of the upcoming action), they also exposed perceivers to blockedactions of others
(study 2); and these actions produced as much goal inference as unblocked actions of others.
Van Overwalle, F., Van Duynslaeger, M., Coomans, D., & Timmermans, B. (2012).
Spontaneous goal inferences are often inferred faster than spontaneous trait inferences. Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology,48(1), 1318.
In this article, using a false recognition paradigm, van Overwalle and colleagues show that
perceivers infer both traits and goals spontaneously from the same actions of others. Importantly,
when there was a 350 ms deadline of reaction time for implied goals and traits, perceivers tended
to make more false recognitions of goals than traits in othersactions, suggesting that goal infer-
ences are faster than trait inferences. Also, trait inferences were made as long as goal inferences
were made, implying that goal inferences may precede and increase the likelihood of trait infer-
ences. The researchers also refer to physiological research (ERP) conducted in their lab supporting
the hypothesis that spontaneous goal inference precedes the formation of trait inferences.
Reeder, G. D. (2009). Mindreading: Judgments about intentionality and motives in
dispositional inference. Psychological Inquiry,20(1), 118.
In this review, Reeder focuses on inferences from intentional and unintentional actions of
others. In explaining intentional actions of others, Reeder refers to perceiversinferences about
othersmotives which are affected by perceiversown goals and expectations such as prejudices.
Inferences of motives, he suggests, may result in both dispositional and situational attributions.
Moreover, Reeder explains the multiple inferences model (MIM) in which traits and motives
of others were suggested to be combined in explicit judgments of perceivers.
Teaching & Learning Guide for: Spontaneous Goal Inference 165
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 10/3 (2016): 164168, 10.1111/spc3.12235
Sample Syllabus
Topics for Lecture & Discussion
Week 1: Introduction & Overview
A general overview on person perception: How do we perceive others?
Readings:
Heider, F. (1944). Social perception and phenomenal causality. Psychological Review,51,
358374.
Asch, S.E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
41,258290.
Week 2: Foundational Theories of Attribution
What are the factors which affect our perception of others?
Readings:
Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965). A theory of correspondent inferences: From acts to
dispositions. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,2,219266.
Kelley, H. H. (1972). Attribution in social interaction. In E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, H. H.
Kelley, R. E. Nisbett, S. Valins, & B. Weiner (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior
(pp. 126). Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.
Week 3: Dual process models
Examining the role of consciousness and control versus more implicit inf luences on person per-
ception and causal attribution.
Readings:
Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum of impression formation, from category-
based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and
interpretation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,23,173.
Week 4: Assessing Impression Formation (Person Memory)
Methods that allow us to assess what people are thinking without asking them directly, and
when they can not accurately report what they were thinking.
Readings:
Hamilton, D. L., Katz, L. B., & Leirer, V. O. (1980a). Cognitive representation of personality
impressions: Organizational processes in first impression formation. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology,39,10501063.
166 Teaching & Learning Guide for: Spontaneous Goal Inference
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 10/3 (2016): 164168, 10.1111/spc3.12235
Wyer, R.S., Jr., & Srull, T.K. (1989). Memory and cognition in its social context. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Week 5: Fundamental Attribution Error
A bias people exhibit when thinking about the behavior of others is to not place enough atten-
tion on the forces in the situation that constrain and dictate that behavior. The reasons this bias
emerges is explored in this section.
Readings:
Gilbert, D. T. (1998). Ordinary personology. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey, (Eds.),
Thehandbookofsocialpsychology(4th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
Trope, Y. (1986). Identification and inferential processes in dispositional attribution.
Psychological Review,93,239257.
Malle, B. F. (2008). Fritz Heiders legacy: Celebrated insights, many of them misunderstood.
Social Psychology,39(3), 163173.
Week 6: Motivated Reasoning
Biases that shape the types of conclusions we draw when thinking about the causes for events.
Readings:
Kunda, Z. (1987). Motivated inference: Self-serving generation and evaluation of causal
theories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,53(4), 636647.
Miller, D. T., & Norman S. A., & Wright E. (1978). Distortion in person perception as a consequence
of the need for effective control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,36(6), 598607.
Week 7: Spontaneous Trait Inferences
A review of the findings and methodologies that suggest that perceivers infer traits from the ac-
tions of others without consciously intending to do soand without awareness of having done so.
Readings:
Uleman, J. S., Saribay, S. A., & Gonzalez, C. (2008). Spontaneous inferences, implicit
impressions, and implicit theories. Annual Review of Psychology,59,329360.
Week 8: Goal Priming and Implicit Motivation
A review of the literature suggesting that goals are not always consciously pursued, and that such
implicit goals have consequences for how we see others and choose to act.
Readings:
Aarts, H., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Hassin, R. R. (2004). Goal contagion: Perceiving is for pursu-
ing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87(1), 23.
Teaching & Learning Guide for: Spontaneous Goal Inference 167
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 10/3 (2016): 164168, 10.1111/spc3.12235
Moskowitz, GB. (2014). The implicit volition model: The unconscious nature of goal pursuit.
In J. Sherman, B. Gawronski, and Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual Process Theories of the Social Mind
(400422). New York: The Guilford Press.
Trzebinski, J. (1985). Action-oriented representations of implicit personality theories. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology,48(5660), 12661278.
Week 9: Goal Inference
When do we see traits in others versus goals?
Readings:
Read, S. J., Jones, D. K., & Miller, L. C. (1990). Traits as goal-based categories: The importance
of goals in the coherence of dispositional categories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
58(6), 10481061.
Reeder, G. D. (2009). Mindreading: Judgments about intentionality and motives in
dispositional inference. Psychological Inquiry,20(1), 118.
Week 10: Spontaneous Goal Inference
The case for the automatic nature and possible primacy of goal inferences as a way of making
sense of othersbehaviors.
Readings:
Hassin, R. R., Aarts, H., & Ferguson, M. J. (2005). Automatic goal inferences. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology,41(2): 129140.
Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten (2015). Spontaneous Goal Inference (SGI). Social and Personality
Psychology Compass.
Van Overwalle, F., Van Duynslaeger, M., Coomans, D., & Timmermans, B. (2012).
Spontaneous goal inferences are often inferred faster than spontaneous trait inferences. Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology,48(1), 1318.
168 Teaching & Learning Guide for: Spontaneous Goal Inference
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 10/3 (2016): 164168, 10.1111/spc3.12235
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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.
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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) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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It is argued that goals are central to the meaning and structure of many traits and help define the prototypicality structure of those traits. Partly on the basis of L. W. Barsalou's (1985) work on goal-derived categories, it was predicted that goals help define the judged prototypicality of many trait-related behaviors and the confidence with which people make trait inferences from those behaviors. Consistent with this hypothesis, ratings of the extent to which behaviors achieved the goal associated with a trait strongly predicted the typicality of the behaviors. Furthermore, the rated goal-relatedness of a behavior also strongly predicted the confidence with which people would make a trait inference from that behavior. It is suggested that goals play a major role in the conceptual coherence of traits and other social categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
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)
Article
The social psychological literature on automatic social inferences has focused on one construct that helps explaining human behavior—traits (e.g., Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988; Trope, 1986; Winter & Uleman, 1984). The dispositional roots of behavior, however, go beyond relatively stable constructs such as traits to include more transient causes such as one’s intentions and goals. Evidence from young infants and adult chimpanzees, knowledge acquired in the text-comprehension literature and hypotheses derived from the Automatic Causal Inferences framework (Hassin, Bargh, & Uleman, 2002), seems to converge: they all suggest that perceivers may automatically infer goals from behaviors. This paper reports four studies that examine this hypothesis. The first two use surprise cued-recall, and look at goal inferences when the road to goal achievement seems straightforward and when it seems blocked. Studies 3 and 4 use on-line methodologies—probe recognition task and lexical decision—to examine whether these inferences are made at encoding.
Spontaneous Goal Inference (SGI) Social and Personality Psychology Compass
  • Olcaysoy Moskowitz
  • Okten
Moskowitz & Olcaysoy Okten (2015). Spontaneous Goal Inference (SGI). Social and Personality Psychology Compass.
Week 10: Spontaneous Goal Inference The case for the automatic nature and possible primacy of goal inferences as a way of making sense of others' behaviors
  • G D Reeder
Reeder, G. D. (2009). Mindreading: Judgments about intentionality and motives in dispositional inference. Psychological Inquiry, 20(1), 1-18. Week 10: Spontaneous Goal Inference The case for the automatic nature and possible primacy of goal inferences as a way of making sense of others' behaviors. Readings: