Chronic and temporary distinct expectancies as comparison standards: automatic contrast in dispositional judgments

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Dispositional inferences are judgments about a person's stable traits.
• Outcome expectancies can serve as comparison standards influencing these judgments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if distinct outcome expectancies function as comparison standards.
• To examine how these standards affect dispositional inferences for behaviors.

Main Methods:

• Four studies were conducted using chronic or manipulated expectancy standards.
• Participants made dispositional judgments under varying cognitive load conditions.
• Behavior categorization and mediation analyses were employed.

Main Results:

• Distinct contextual expectancies led to contrastive dispositional judgments under cognitive load.
• Under no load, judgments were assimilated to expectancies (overcorrected).
• Effects were mediated by behavior categorization, suggesting distinct correction processes.

Conclusions:

• Outcome expectancies, when distinct, act as comparison standards in dispositional inference.
• Cognitive load and processing fluency modulate the direction of judgment (contrast vs. assimilation).
• Findings inform models of dispositional inference and correction processes.