Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 36 (Advances in Experimental Social Psychology)

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ADVANCES IN

Experimental Social Psychology

VOLUME 36

This Page Intentionally Left Blank

ADVANCES IN

Experimental Social Psychology

EDITED BY

MARK P. ZANNA DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO WATERLOO, ONTARIO, CANADA

VOLUME 36

Elsevier Academic Press 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, California 92101-4495, USA 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8RR, UK

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright ß 2004, Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. The appearance of the code at the bottom of the first page of a chapter in this book indicates the Publisher’s consent that copies of the chapter may be made for personal or internal use of specific clients. This consent is given on the condition, however, that the copier pay the stated per copy fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (www.copyright.com), for copying beyond that permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law. This consent does not extend to other kinds of copying, such as copying for general distribution, for advertising or promotional purposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. Copy fees for pre-2004 chapters are as shown on the title pages. If no fee code appears on the title page, the copy fee is the same as for current chapters. 0065-2601/2004 $35.00 Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Right Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, E-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier homepage (http://elsevier.com), by selecting ‘‘Customer Support’’ and then ‘‘Obtaining Permissions.’’ For all information on all Academic Press publications visit our Web site at www.academicpress.com ISBN: 0-12-015236-3 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 04 05 06 07 08 09 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ix

Aversive Racism John F. Dovidio and Samuel L. Gaertner I. II. III. IV. V. VI.

The Nature of Aversive Racism. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . The Operation of Aversive Racism . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Emergency Intervention. .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Dissociated Attitudes.. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Combating Aversive Racism . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Summary and Conclusions .. . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . References . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. .

4 7 10 19 25 37 43

Socially Situated Cognition: Cognition in its Social Context Eliot R. Smith and Gu¨n R. Semin I. II. III. IV. V.

Cognition is for Action . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Cognition is Embodied. . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Cognition is Situated: Emergent from Interaction of Agent and Task and Social Environment. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Cognition is Distributed Spatially and Temporally Across Tools, People, and Groups .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Summary . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . References . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. .

57 67 74 89 104 105

Social Axioms: A Model for Social Beliefs in Multicultural Perspective Kwok Leung and Michael Harris Bond I. II. III.

Beliefs in Social Psychological Research .. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Social Axioms as a Basic Psychological Construct. . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Dimensions of Social Axioms . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . v

122 127 132

vi IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.

CONTENTS A Global Study of Social Axioms . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Evidence for the Meaning and Usefulness of the Social Axiom Dimensions. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Clustering Nations in Terms of Their Citizens’ Beliefs. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Roles of Social Axioms for Individual Behavior. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Conclusions and Directions for Future Research . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Appendix.. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . References. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. .

139 157 170 172 180 190 191

Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of Violent Content on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior Craig A. Anderson, Nicholas L. Carnagey, Mindy Flanagan, Arlin J. Benjamin, Jr., Janie Eubanks, and Jeffery C. Valentine I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI.

Introduction . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . The General Aggression Model.. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . GAM and Violent Video Games . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Overview of the Present Studies . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Experiment 1 . . .. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Experiment 2 . . .. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Experiment 3 . . .. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Correlation Study 1 . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Updated Meta-Analysis . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . General Discussion. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Appendix.. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . References. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. .

200 202 204 207 207 215 224 232 237 240 244 246

Survival and Change in Judgments: A Model of Activation and Comparison Dolores Albarracı´n, Harry M. Wallace, and Laura R. Glasman I. II. III. IV.

Introduction . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Attitude Change and Survival: Preliminary Definitions . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Activation/Comparison Model .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . Conclusion . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . References. . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. .

252 255 258 291 307

CONTENTS

vii

The Implicit Volition Model: On the Preconscious Regulation of Temporarily Adopted Goals Gordon B. Moskowitz, Peizhong Li, and Elizabeth R. Kirk I. II. III. IV. V.

Introduction.. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Goals as Mental Representations: The Implicit Triggering of Goals. .. . . . . . .. . Implicit Regulation via Intentions .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Compensatory Cognition and Compensatory Behavior . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . Conclusion . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . References . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. .

317 326 371 383 402 404

Index ........................................................................................... Contents of Other Volumes ...............................................................

415 429

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CONTRIBUTORS Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which authors’ contributions begin.

Dolores AlbarracI´n (251), Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 Craig A. Anderson (199), Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 Arlin J. Benjamin, Jr. (199), Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211 Michael Harris Bond (119), Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., CHINA Nicholas L. Carnagey (199), Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 John F. Dovidio (1), Department of Psychology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 133456 Janie Eubanks (199), Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211 Mindy Flanagan (199), Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211 Samuel L. Gaertner (1), Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19713 Laura R. Glasman (251), Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 Elizabeth R. Kirk (317), Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015 Kwok Leung (119), Department of Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., CHINA Peizhong Li (317), Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015

ix

x

CONTRIBUTORS

Gordon B. Moskowitz (317), Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015 GU¨n R. Semin (53), Social Psychology Department, Free University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS Eliot R. Smith (53), Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 Jeffery C. Valentine (199), Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211 Harry M. Wallace (251), Department of Psychology, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212

AVERSIVE RACISM

John F. Dovidio Samuel L. Gaertner

Race relations in the United States, especially in terms of whites’ orientations toward blacks, have been characterized by inconsistencies and ambivalence. This duality has existed virtually from the beginning. The United States was founded on the principle of ‘‘liberty and justice for all’’ and on ‘‘the proposition that all men are created equal.’’ Nevertheless, it was not until 175 years after these basic human rights were proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution that the initial civil rights legislation was passed and the United States formally recognized that black and white people were equal under the law. Such structural changes in the law, however, do not mean that racial attitudes of white Americans will quickly reflect this new legal standard. Myrdal (1944) identified the paradox between historical egalitarian values and racist traditions in the United States, describing the ‘‘American dilemma.’’ According to Myrdal, the dilemma involves The ever-raging conflict between, on the one hand, the valuations preserved on the general plane which we call the ‘‘American creed,’’ where the American thinks, talks, and acts under the influence of high national and Christian precepts and, on the other hand, the valuations on the specific planes of individual and group living, where personal and local interests; economic, social, and sexual jealousies; consideration of community prestige and conformity; group prejudice against particular persons or types of people; and all sorts of miscellaneous wants, impulses, and habits dominate his outlook. ( p. xliii)

1 ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 36

Copyright 2004, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 0065-2601/04 $35.00

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JOHN F. DOVIDIO AND SAMUEL L. GAERTNER

The American dilemma of 1944 was thus between egalitarian ideals and personal and social forces that promote prejudice and discrimination. In this chapter we examine one contemporary legacy of this historical dilemma—‘‘aversive racism.’’ Elements of the American dilemma still remain. On the one hand, in the United States the principle of equality continues as a fundamental social value (Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, & Krysan, 1997). Moreover, whites’ expressions of prejudice toward traditionally underrepresented groups, and toward blacks in particular, have declined substantially over time. As Bobo (2001) concluded in his review of trends in racial attitudes, ‘‘The single clearest trend in studies of racial attitudes has involved a steady and sweeping movement toward general endorsement of the principles of racial equality and integration’’ (p. 269). From 1960 to the present, public opinion polls have revealed that whites increasingly support integration in schools, public transportation, jobs, and housing; whites’ support for interracial marriage has also grown correspondingly. On the other hand, evidence of racial disparity and discrimination still remain. Although disparities can have causes other than discrimination, economic indices show consistent diVerences in status based on race. For instance, the median family income for blacks is less than two-thirds that of whites, a diVerential that has widened over the past two decades (Blank, 2001). Also, on several basic measures of health and well-being, the racial gap has been maintained or, in some cases (e.g., infant mortality), has widened substantially over the past 50 years (Jenkins, 2001). Furthermore, recent studies suggest that over the life span black and white patients receive unequal treatment from medical practitioners resulting in less favorable health-related outcomes for blacks (see Smedley, Stith, & Nelson, 2003; Whaley, 1998). Steady trends toward residential integration that were observed from the 1950 to 1970 have slowed in the South and stagnated in the North (Massey, 2001). Massey (2001) observed, ‘‘Either in absolute terms or in comparison to other groups, blacks remain a very residentially segregated and spatially isolated people’’ (p. 403). Evidence suggests that discrimination is a key factor in many of these disparities. In terms of career dynamics, whites have an advantage over blacks in initial wage level and opportunities for training (Rosenfeld, 1998). In addition, blacks are more likely to be discriminated against relative to whites when economic conditions require layoVs (Elvira & Zatzick, 2002, see also Murphy-Berman, Berman, & Campbell, 1998). In addition, diVerences in health care, which have been attributed to racism by health providers (Smedley et al., 2003), occur over and above access to health insurance. Clearly, discrimination and perceptions of discrimination continue to be dominant forces in the lives of minorities in the United States. For example,

AVERSIVE RACISM

3

within the government workforce, 55% of blacks and 28% of Hispanics reported that discrimination hinders their career advancement (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1997). In the general public, nearly half of black Americans (47%) reported that they were treated unfairly during the previous month in their own community in at least one of five common situations: while shopping, at work, in restaurants or other entertainment places, in dealing with the police, and using public transportation (Gallup, 2002). Moreover, white and black Americans have very diVerent perceptions of the racial discrimination that blacks face today. More than three fourths (79%) of whites reported that blacks ‘‘have as good a chance as whites’’ to ‘‘get any kind of job,’’ but fewer than half (46%) of blacks shared that view. Whereas the vast majority (69%) of whites perceived that blacks were treated ‘‘the same as whites,’’ the majority of blacks (59%) reported that blacks were treated worse than whites. Over the past 35 years, we have explored the nature of whites’ racial attitudes to understand this duality between the generally expressed nonprejudicial views of whites in contemporary U.S. society and the persistence of significant racial disparity and discrimination. Our work built on the conceptual framework of Kovel (1970), who distinguished between dominative and aversive racism. Dominative racism is the ‘‘old-fashioned,’’ blatant form. According to Kovel, the dominative racist is the ‘‘type who acts out bigoted beliefs—he represents the open flame of racial hatred’’ ( p. 54). Aversive racists, in comparison, sympathize with victims of past injustice, support the principle of racial equality, and regard themselves as nonprejudiced, but, at the same time, possess negative feelings and beliefs about blacks, which may be unconscious. Aversive racism is hypothesized to be qualitatively diVerent than blatant, ‘‘old-fashioned,’’ racism, is more indirect and subtle, and is presumed to characterize the racial attitudes of most welleducated and liberal whites in the United States. Nevertheless, the consequences of aversive racism (e.g., the restriction of economic opportunity) are as significant and pernicious as those of the traditional, overt form (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1998; Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). This chapter reviews this program of research, highlighting basic assumptions, key findings, and major developments. Although our research has focused on race relations in the United States, the processes of aversive racism are not limited by national or geographic boundaries and could reflect attitudes toward a number of diVerent groups when overt forms of discrimination are recognized as inappropriate (see Esses, Dovidio, Jackson, & Armstrong, 2001; Kleinpenning & Hagendoorn, 1993; Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). We begin by reviewing the nature of aversive racism, including the contributing psychological factors and the potential conflict between whites’ conscious endorsement of egalitarian principles and unconscious negative

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feelings and beliefs about blacks. We next consider basic evidence about how aversive racism operates and its moderating factors. Then we consider our research examining separately the conscious and unconscious components of aversive racism. In the last two sections we explore ways of combating the eVects of aversive racism and consider conclusions and implications.

I. The Nature of Aversive Racism A critical aspect of the aversive racism framework is the conflict between whites’ denial of personal prejudice and underlying unconscious negative feelings toward and beliefs about blacks. Because of current cultural values, most whites have strong convictions concerning fairness, justice, and racial equality. However, because of a range of normal cognitive, motivational, and sociocultural processes that promote intergroup biases, most whites also develop some negative feelings toward or beliefs about blacks, of which they are unaware or which they try to dissociate from their nonprejudiced self-images. These negative feelings that aversive racists have toward blacks do not reflect open hostility or hatred. Instead, aversive racists’ reactions may involve discomfort, uneasiness, disgust, and sometimes fear. That is, they find blacks ‘‘aversive,’’ while at the same time find any suggestion that they might be prejudiced ‘‘aversive’’ as well. Thus, aversive racism may involve more positive reactions to whites than to blacks, reflecting a pro– in-group rather than an anti–out-group orientation, thereby avoiding the stigma of overt bigotry and protecting a nonprejudiced self-image. The existence of these nearly unavoidable racial biases and the simultaneous desire to be nonprejudiced represents a basic duality of attitudes and beliefs for aversive racists that can produce racial ambivalence (see also Katz & Hass, 1988; Katz, Wackenhut, & Hass, 1986). We recognize that all racists are not aversive or subtle, that old-fashioned racism still exists, that there are individual diVerences in aversive racism, and that some whites may not be racist at all. Nevertheless, we propose that aversive racism generally characterizes the racial attitudes of a large proportion of whites who express apparently nonprejudiced views. Some of the sources of this negative aVect and beliefs are reviewed in the next section. A. NEGATIVE ATTITUDES AND RACIAL AMBIVALENCE In contrast to traditional approaches that emphasize the psychopathology of prejudice (e.g., Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; see Duckitt, 1992), the negative feelings and beliefs that underlie

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5

aversive racism are hypothesized to be rooted in normal, often adaptive, psychological processes. These processes fundamentally involve the consequences of social categorization. People inherently categorize others into groups, typically in ways that delineate one’s own group from other groups (Hamilton & Trolier, 1986). The mere categorization of people into in-groups and out-groups, even on the basis of arbitrary assignment, is suYcient to initiate (often spontaneously; Otten & Moskowitz, 2000) an overall evaluative bias in which people categorized as members of one’s own group are evaluated more favorably than are those perceived as members of another group (Brewer, 1979; Tajfel, 1970). Social categorization also fundamentally influences how people process information about others. Perceptually, when people or objects are categorized into groups, actual diVerences between members of the same category tend to be minimized (Tajfel, 1969) and often ignored in making decisions or forming impressions, whereas between-group diVerences tend to become exaggerated (Abrams, 1985; Turner, 1985). Cognitively, people retain more information in a more detailed fashion for ingroup members than for outgroup members (Park & Rothbart, 1982), have better memory for information about ways in which ingroup members are similar to and outgroup members are dissimilar to the self (Wilder, 1981), and remember less positive information about outgroup members (Howard & Rothbart, 1980). In addition, they evaluate the products of ingroup members more favorably than those of outgroup members (Ferguson & Kelley, 1964) and they work harder for groups identified as ingroups (Worchel, Rothgerber, Day, Hart, & Butemeyer, 1998). The process of social categorization also influences aVective reactions. As Insko et al. (2001) have demonstrated, categorization in terms of group membership rather than individual identity evokes greater feelings of fear and lower levels of trust in interactions with others. In the United States, because of its historical and central importance, social categorization by race is virtually automatic. Without eVort or control, whites spontaneously diVerentiate people by race, with the activation of racial categories being triggered by the actual or symbolic presence of a black person. Because of sociocultural influences, these racial categories are associated with traditional negative stereotypes of blacks (Devine, 1989; Dovidio, Evans, & Tyler, 1986), as well as negative attitudes (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Beach, 2001). Motivational factors, such as needs for power, status, and control (Operario & Fiske, 1998), also contribute to whites’ biased feelings and beliefs. Although these needs may be personal, they are also often group related. In Social Identity Theory, Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that a

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person’s need for positive identity may be satisfied by membership in prestigious social groups. This need also motivates social comparisons that favorably diVerentiate ingroup from outgroup members. Discrimination is one way of creating ‘‘positive distinctiveness’’ for one’s group, which, in turn, can boost one’s self-esteem and promote feelings of control and superiority (Fein & Spencer, 1997; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Competition and perceived competition between groups further exacerbate intergroup biases (Campbell, 1965; Esses et al., 2001; Sherif, 1966). These biases are functional. Tangibly, discrimination oVers economic advantages to members of the majority group and maintains that group’s political, social, and corporate power (Blumer, 1958; Bobo, 1999). Because blacks have traditionally been perceived to threaten whites’ basic values and well-being, powerful cognitive and motivational forces that are a function of social categorization and perceived threat form the basis for the negative racial feelings of aversive racists. Because of current cultural values, however, most whites also have convictions concerning fairness, justice, and racial equality (Bobo, 2001). At the same time, however, psychological and social forces contribute to whites’ egalitarian orientation. Principles of fairness, justice, and equity are universal, and they profoundly shape human functioning and social life (Kelman, 2001). Equality and justice are not only fundamental principles in the United States, but they are steadily endorsed more strongly and broadly over time and by succeeding generations (Schuman et al., 1997). The vast majority of white Americans today believe that prejudice and discrimination are wrong, and they indicate strong support for social and political equality (Bobo, 2001). Thus, it is the existence of both almost unavoidable racial biases and conscious adherence to nondiscriminatory principles that forms the basis of the ambivalence that aversive racists experience. We note that other forms of contemporary racial biases, such as modern racism (McConahay, 1986) and symbolic racism (Sears, Henry, & Kosterman, 2000) also hypothesize a conflict between the denial of personal prejudice and underlying unconscious negative feelings and beliefs. What distinguishes aversive racism from modern and symbolic racism is the nature of the conscious beliefs that permit discrimination to be expressed. Symbolic Racism Theory emphasizes that beliefs about individualism and meritocracy that become racialized motivate opposition to policies designed to benefit racial and ethnic minorities. For instance, a measure of individual diVerences in symbolic racism predicted support for Proposition 209, which was designed to dismantle aYrmative action in California in 1996 (Sawires & Peacock, 2000). Modern Racism Theory similarly proposes that beliefs associated with conservative ideologies can justify discriminatory behaviors, but this theory places more emphasis on the moderating eVects

AVERSIVE RACISM

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of contexts that provide a justification for negative responses to minorities (e.g., a previous negative decision about a comparable white job candidate; McConahay, 1983). Whereas modern and symbolic racism characterize the attitudes of political conservatives, the aversive racism framework focuses on biases among people who are politically liberal and who openly endorse nonprejudiced beliefs, but whose unconscious negative feelings get expressed in subtle, indirect, and rationalizable ways (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). For example, research by Nail, Harton, and Decker (2003, Studies 1 and 2) revealed that in a context in which race was very salient, politically liberal participants responded more positively toward a black than toward a white person, a pattern that could be expected among aversive racists, whereas politically conservative respondents responded more favorably toward the white person. In further support of the aversive racism framework, Nail et al. (Study 3) found that only liberals displayed greater physiological arousal to the touch of a black versus a white person, which Nail et al. argued reflected the intrapsychic conflict associated with aversive racism.

II. The Operation of Aversive Racism The aversive racism framework also helps to identify when discrimination against blacks and other minority groups will or will not occur. Whereas oldfashioned racists exhibit a direct and overt pattern of discrimination, aversive racists’ actions may appear more variable and inconsistent. Sometimes they discriminate (manifesting their negative feelings), and sometimes they do not (reflecting their egalitarian beliefs). Our research has provided a framework for understanding this pattern of discrimination. Because aversive racists consciously recognize and endorse egalitarian values and because they truly aspire to be nonprejudiced, they will not discriminate in situations with strong social norms when discrimination would be obvious to others and to themselves. Specifically, we propose that when people are presented with a situation in which the normatively appropriate response is clear, in which right and wrong is clearly defined, aversive racists will not discriminate against blacks. In these contexts, aversive racists will be especially motivated to avoid feelings, beliefs, and behaviors that could be associated with racist intent. To avoid the attribution of racist intent, aversive racists either will treat blacks and whites equally, or they will respond even more favorably to blacks than to whites. Wrongdoing, which would directly threaten their nonprejudiced self-image, would be too costly. However, because aversive racists still possess feelings of uneasiness,

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these feelings will eventually be expressed, but they will be expressed in subtle, indirect, and rationalizable ways. For instance, discrimination will occur in situations in which normative structure is weak, when the guidelines for appropriate behavior are vague or when the basis for social judgment is ambiguous. In addition, discrimination will occur when an aversive racist can justify or rationalize a negative response on the basis of some factor other than race. Under these circumstances, aversive racists may engage in behaviors that ultimately harm blacks but in ways that allow whites to maintain their self-image as nonprejudiced and that insulate them from recognizing that their behavior is not color blind. Generally, then, aversive racists may be identified by a constellation of characteristic responses to racial issues and interracial situations. First, aversive racists, in contrast to old-fashioned racists, endorse fair and just treatment of all groups. Second, despite their conscious good intentions, aversive racists unconsciously harbor feelings of uneasiness toward blacks and thus try to avoid interracial interaction. Third, when interracial interaction is unavoidable, aversive racists experience anxiety and discomfort, and consequently they try to disengage from the interaction as quickly as possible. Fourth, because part of the discomfort that aversive racists experience is due to a concern about acting inappropriately and appearing prejudiced, aversive racists strictly adhere to established rules and codes of behavior in interracial situations that they cannot avoid. Finally, their feelings will be expressed, but in subtle, unintentional, rationalizable ways that disadvantage minorities or unfairly benefit the majority group. Nevertheless, in terms of conscious intent, aversive racists intend not to discriminate against people of color—and they behave accordingly when it is possible for them to monitor the appropriateness of their behavior. The aversive racism framework thus considers the situation as a critical factor influencing the expression of racial bias by whites toward blacks. Although social influences can directly aVect the level of bias that is expressed (Pettigrew, 1959), we emphasize the moderating role of situational factors on whether the unconscious negative aspects of aversive racists’ attitudes are manifested in terms of racial discrimination. That is, whether the situation is one in which a negative act toward a black person would be attributed to racial intent, by others or by the aversive racist himself or herself, determines whether bias will be expressed. We have found consistent support for the aversive racism framework across a broad range of situations (see Dovidio & Gaertner, 1998; Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). Much of the research reported in this chapter focuses on the responses of white college students—well-educated and typically liberal people—who are presumed to represent a prime population for aversive racism. Nevertheless, we note that many of the findings and principles we

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discuss extend to biases exhibited by liberal noncollege populations (e.g., Gaertner, 1973). In the next sections, we describe examples of a series of diVerent studies to illustrate the operation of aversive racism. The evidence presented in this section is derived from a variety of diVerent paradigms, such as ones involving interventions to help people in need and employment or admission selection decisions.

A. SERENDIPITY AND AVERSIVE RACISM We began our research on racism naively with a simple assumption: based on diVerences in their expressed racial attitudes (see Adorno et al., 1950), conservative whites would behave in a more racially discriminatory way than would liberal whites. However, we discovered, somewhat serendipitously, that racial discrimination was complex, and it occurs in subtle as well as overt ways. In an initial study of contemporary racism and interracial helping (Gaertner, 1973), white participants residing in Brooklyn, New York, were selected for a field experiment on helping on the basis of their liberal or conservative orientations, as indicated by their political party aYliations (i.e., liberal or conservative parties in New York State) that were a matter of public record. Both the liberal and the conservative households received ostensibly wrong-number telephone calls that quickly developed into requests for assistance. The callers, who were clearly identifiable from their dialects as being black or white, explained that their car was disabled and that they were attempting to reach a service garage from a public telephone along the parkway. The callers further claimed that they had no more change to make another call and asked the participant to help by calling the garage. If the participant agreed to help and called the number, ostensibly of the garage, a ‘‘helping’’ response was scored. If the participant refused to help or hung up after the caller explained that he or she had no more change, a ‘‘not helping’’ response was recorded. If the participant hung up before learning that the motorist had no more change, the response was recorded as a ‘‘premature hang-up.’’ The first finding from this study was direct and predicted. Conservatives showed a higher ‘‘helping’’ response to whites than to blacks (92% vs. 65%), whereas liberals helped whites somewhat, but not significantly, more than blacks (85% vs. 75%). By this measure, conservatives were more biased against blacks than were liberals. Additional inspection of the data, however, revealed an unanticipated finding. Liberals ‘‘hung up prematurely’’ much more often on blacks than they did on whites (19% vs. 3%) and especially often on a black male motorist (28%). Conservatives did not discriminate in

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JOHN F. DOVIDIO AND SAMUEL L. GAERTNER

this way (8% vs. 5%). From the perspective of black callers, the consequence of a direct ‘‘not helping’’ response and of a ‘‘premature hang-up’’ was the same: they would be left without assistance. From the perspective of the participants, however, the consequences were diVerent. Whereas a ‘‘not helping’’ response was a direct, intentional form of discrimination because it should have been clear to participants that their help was needed, a ‘‘premature hang-up’’ was a more indirect form because participants disengaged from the situation before they learned of the other person’s dependence on them, and thus participants never overtly refused assistance. Indeed, to refuse help that is perceived to be needed clearly violates the social responsibility norm, whereas the appropriateness of hanging up prematurely is unclear. Therefore, both conservative and liberal whites discriminated against blacks but in diVerent ways.

III. Emergency Intervention Another of our early experiments (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1977) demonstrates how aversive racism can operate in fairly dramatic ways. The scenario for the experiment was inspired by an incident in the mid-1960s in which 38 people witnessed the stabbing of a woman, Kitty Genovese, without a single bystander intervening to help. What accounted for this behavior? Feelings of responsibility play a key role (see Darley & Latane´, 1968). If a person witnesses an emergency knowing that he or she is the only bystander, that person bears all of the responsibility for helping and, consequently, the likelihood of helping is high. In contrast, if a person witnesses an emergency but believes that there are several other witnesses who might help, then the responsibility for helping is shared. Moreover, if the person believes that someone else will help or has already helped, the likelihood of that bystander taking action is significantly reduced. We created a situation in the laboratory in which white participants witnessed a staged emergency involving a black or white victim. We led some of our participants to believe that they would be the only witness to this emergency, whereas we led others to believe that there would be other white people who also witnessed the emergency. We predicted that, because aversive racists do not act in overtly bigoted ways, whites would not discriminate when they were the only witness and the responsibility for helping was clearly focused on them. However, we anticipated that whites would be much less helpful to black than to white victims when they had a justifiable excuse not to get involved, such as the belief that one of the other witnesses would take responsibility for helping.

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11

The results clearly reflected these predictions. When white participants believed that they were the only witness, they helped both white and black victims very frequently (more than 85% of the time) and equivalently. There was no evidence of blatant racism. In contrast, when they thought there were other witnesses and they could rationalize a decision not to help on the basis of some factor other than race, they helped black victims only half as often as white victims (37.5% vs. 75%). Thus, these results illustrate the operation of subtle biases in relatively dramatic, spontaneous, and life-threatening circumstances involving a failure to help, rather than an action intentionally aimed at doing harm. Therefore, this research shows that although the bias may be subtle and the people involved may be well intentioned, its consequences may be severe. Across a range of other studies using a number of helping paradigms, we found evidence that discrimination by whites against blacks occurs primarily when norms for appropriate behavior are weak or ambiguous (Frey & Gaertner, 1986) and tend to be more pronounced when the interaction involves potential threats to the traditionally superior status of whites relative to blacks (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1981, 1983a). Another series of studies provides evidence of the potential influence of aversive racism on another type of helping (Turner & Pratkanis, 1994), support for public policies designed to benefit blacks.

A. POLICY SUPPORT AYrmative action has been one of the most hotly debated policies in American politics over the past three decades, virtually since the inception of the program (Skrentny, 1996). As the recent Grutter v. Bollinger et al. Supreme Court decision demonstrates (Supreme Court of the United States, 539 U.S., 2003), the issues remain contentious today. One popular criticism of aYrmative action centers on negative reactions based on the perceived unfairness of these policies. The protest by many whites expressed around the Regents of the University of California v Bakke (1978) case was that the medical school admissions procedures were a form of ‘‘reverse discrimination’’ that violated their fundamental beliefs about procedural justice and fairness. That is, the commonly articulated reason for challenging the admissions procedure was that the policy was discriminatory and negated individual selection, evaluation, and advancement based on merit. Considerable theoretical and empirical support exists for the idea that procedural fairness is a critical factor in determining people’s response to decision-making procedures (Lind, Kurtz, Musante, Walker, & Thibaut, 1980). With respect to aYrmative action, the more weight given to

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category-based criteria, such as race or sex, the less fair the procedure is perceived to be and the more negative the reactions to the policy and the persons involved. In addition, consistent with this reasoning, people who are more committed to principles of merit tend to be more opposed to aYrmative action when they believe that discrimination is no longer a problem but tend to be more supportive of aYrmative action when they recognize the persistent eVects of discrimination (Son Hing, Bobocel, & Zanna, 2002). In two studies, we therefore examined the importance of how aYrmative action is framed on whites’ reactions to aYrmative action. Whereas many people may initially feel that aYrmative action policies are unfair when characteristics such as race or sex are weighed in the decision at the micro level, they may come to perceive the procedure as fair if, at a macro level, they recognize the value of diversity—‘‘that individuals bring with them into the organization not merely diVerent amounts of the same things, but also diVerent kinds of things that make them valuable to an organization’’ (Clayton & Tangri, 1989, p. 180). Similarly, although preferential action may be seen as unfair in a specific case, the same action may be perceived as more fair if it is presented as a compensatory response to address historical inequities. Racism may also be a factor in attitudes toward aYrmative action. In general, people higher in self-reported racial prejudice are more opposed to aYrmative action (Frederico & Sidanius, 2002; Kravitz, 1995). We have proposed that aversive racism also plays a significant role in opposition to aYrmative action policies, particularly those designed to support blacks. In one of our studies that addressed the influence of aversive racism on opposition to aYrmative action (Murrell, Dietz-Uhler, Dovidio, Gaertner, & Drout, 1994), white respondents were questioned about their perceptions of fairness and support for four common ways of presenting aYrmative action policies. Two of these policies focused on micro-level actions varying in the degree to which the action places emphasis on nonmerit factors to address disparities (preferential treatment and reverse discrimination). The other two policies provided macro-level justifications in terms of achieving diversity or remedying historical injustices. We predicted that respondents would show less resistance to policy statements with explicit macro-level justifications than to policy statements that focus on the micro-level of implementation. In addition, to evaluate the possibility that resistance to aYrmative action may be an expression of racial bias, we assessed participants’ reactions to aYrmative action policies involving three target groups: blacks, elderly persons, and handicapped persons. To the extent that racial bias is a key factor in reactions to aYrmative action, white participants would be expected to exhibit more negative responses to policies targeted at blacks than at other groups. Moreover, based on the hypothesis that aversive racism motivates opposition to aYrmative action, we predicted that

AVERSIVE RACISM

13

attitudes toward aYrmative action would be particularly negative when blacks were the salient beneficiaries and white respondents could justify their opposition on the basis of some factor other than race, such as violations of procedural fairness. Our results underscore the importance of the manner in which a policy is framed in shaping public opinion. Programs that were framed in terms of macro-justice by remedying historical injustice (past discrimination) or increasing cultural diversity were more acceptable to respondents than were those that focused on specific implementation (i.e., preferential treatment and reverse discrimination). In addition, consistent with the hypothesis that racism contributes to resisting aYrmative action, policies directed at benefiting blacks yielded generally more negative responses than policies for persons with physical disabilities or elderly persons. Moreover, supportive of the specific predictions of the aversive racism framework, whites’ responses to aYrmative action were particularly negative when the group described as benefiting was blacks (vs. disabled or elderly persons) and the goal of the policy was presented as involving preferential treatment or reverse discrimination (vs. achieving diversity or compensating for past discrimination). A second experiment (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1996) further examined the eVects of framing and explicitly examined the mediating role of perceived fairness in responses to aYrmative action benefiting diVerent groups. In this experiment, aYrmative action was framed at a macro level (i.e., to correct for past injustice) or at a micro level (i.e., positive action for the individual). We also manipulated the salience of the group associated with the policy: blacks, handicapped persons, or Native Americans. Native Americans were included because pretesting indicated that they represented a minority group that did not evoke significant negative reactions among potential participants. Consistent with the results of Murrell et al. (1994), we found, in general, that attitudes toward the policy were more negative when it was not framed in terms of macro-justice than when it was, and that attitudes were more negative when the group benefiting was blacks rather than Native Americans or handicapped people. Furthermore, as expected, the condition in which the policy was not framed in terms of correcting for past discrimination and it was described as benefiting blacks produced a uniquely high level of resistance. In addition, these eVects were mediated by perceptions of perceived fairness. Thus, it was perceptions of unfairness of a policy that benefited blacks that provided the rationale for opposing aYrmative action. These types of biases also extend to other formal forms of decision making, such as juridic decisions and personnel selection. Decision making about legal issues is considered in the next section.

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B. LEGAL DECISIONS Traditionally blacks and whites have not been treated equally under the law (Sidanius, Levin, & Pratto, 1998). Across time and locations in the United States, blacks have been more likely to be perceived by jurors as guilty (Fairchild & Cowan, 1997), more likely to be convicted of crimes, and, if convicted, sentenced to longer terms for similar crimes, particularly if the victim is white (see Robinson & Darley, 1995). Although some evidence indicates that disparities in judicial outcomes are declining over time (Sommers & Ellsworth, 2001), aversive racism appears to have a continuing, subtle influence. For example, Johnson, Whitestone, Jackson, and Gatto (1995) explored how the introduction of an apparently non–race-related factor suggesting guilt can diVerentially aVect juridic decisions in ways that discriminate against black defendants. In particular, in a laboratory simulation study, Johnson et al. (1995) examined the impact of the introduction of inadmissible evidence, which was damaging to a defendant’s case, on whites’ judgments of a black or white defendant’s guilt. No diVerences in judgments of guilt occurred as a function of defendant race when all the evidence presented was admissible. However, consistent with the aversive racism framework, the presentation of inadmissible evidence increased judgment of guilt when the defendant was black but not when the defendant was white. Furthermore, suggesting the unconscious or unintentional nature of the bias, participants’ self-reports indicated that they believed that the inadmissible evidence had less eVect on their decisions when the defendant was black than when the defendant was white. Johnson et al. (1995) conclude that these results ‘‘are clearly consistent with the modern racism perspective, which suggests that discriminatory behavior will occur only when it can be justified on nonracial grounds’’ ( p. 896). Several other studies of legal decision making have yielded evidence consistent with the proposition that whites’ biases against blacks will be more pronounced when they have an apparently non–race-related justification for judging a black defendant guilty or sentencing them more severely (Knight, Guiliano, & Sanchez-Ross, 2001). However, also consistent with the aversive racism framework, when testimony is included that suggests that racial bias may be involved in the allegations against a black defendant, whites no longer racially discriminate (Sommers & Ellsworth, 2000). We similarly found that providing white jurors with other types of justifications could also lead to discriminatory outcomes in capital sentencing (Dovidio, Smith, Donnella, & Gaertner, 1997). In particular, although aversive racists did not generally discriminate on the basis of race in their recommendations for the death penalty in a capital case, when they were

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15

asked their judgments independently, they did recommend the death penalty for a black defendant significantly more strongly than for a white defendant when they learned that a black juror (but not a white juror) would vote for the death penalty. When a black juror also advocates the death penalty, it is easier for aversive racists to rationalize their vote for capital sentencing as not reflecting racial bias. Another study of simulated juridic decisions by Faranda and Gaertner (1979) demonstrated how traditional and aversive forms of racism can combine to shape perceptions of a defendant’s guilt. Specifically, this study investigated the hypothesis that, whereas the racial biases of those who are likely to have traditionally racist attitudes (high authoritarians) would reflect primarily anti-black biases, the racial biases of those who are likely to exhibit aversive racism (low authoritarianism) would mainly represent pro-white biases. Thus, complementing the work of Johnson et al. (1995), this experiment examined the extent to which high- and low-authoritarian–scoring white college students playing the role of jurors would follow a judge’s instruction to ignore inadmissible prosecution testimony that was damaging to a black or white defendant. As predicted, both high- and low-authoritarian participants displayed racial biases in their reactions to the inadmissible evidence, but they did so in diVerent ways. In their ratings of certainty of guilt, high authoritarians did not ignore the inadmissible testimony when the victim was black. They were more certain of the black defendant’s guilt when they were exposed to the inadmissible evidence than when they were not presented with this testimony. For the white defendant, however, high authoritarians followed the judge’s instructions appropriately. Low-authoritarian participants, in contrast, followed the judge’s instructions about ignoring the inadmissible testimony when the defendant was black. However, they were biased in favor of the white defendant when the inadmissible evidence was presented. That is, low authoritarians were less certain of the white defendant’s guilt when the inadmissible evidence was presented than when it was omitted. Thus, lowauthoritarian participants demonstrated a pro–in-group bias. Importantly, the anti–out-group bias of high authoritarians and the pro–ingroup bias of low authoritarians both disadvantage blacks relative to whites but in fundamentally diVerent ways.

C. SELECTION DECISIONS As noted at the beginning of this chapter, labor statistics continue to demonstrate fundamental disparities in the economic status of blacks relative to whites—a gap that has not only persisted but also, in some important

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aspects such as family income, has widened in recent years (see Blank, 2001). Aversive racism may be one factor that contributes to disparities in the workplace by influencing both the access of blacks to the workplace and their performance in it. At the time of hiring, aversive racism can aVect how qualifications are perceived and weighed in a manner that systematically disadvantages black relative to white applicants. In particular, the aversive racism framework suggests that bias will not be expressed when a person is clearly qualified or unqualified for a position, because the appropriate decision is obvious. However, bias is expected when the appropriate decision is unclear, for example, when it is not clear whether the candidate’s qualifications meet the criteria for selection or when the candidate’s file has conflicting evidence (e.g., some strong and some weak aspects). In one study of hiring decisions (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000), we presented college students with excerpts from an interview and asked them to evaluate candidates for a position in an ostensibly new program for peer counseling at their university. Specifically, white participants evaluated a black or white candidate who had credentials that were systematically manipulated to represent very strong, moderate, or very weak qualifications for the position. These findings were supportive of the aversive racism framework. When the candidates’ credentials clearly qualified them for the position (strong qualifications) or the credentials clearly were not appropriate (weak qualifications), there was no discrimination against the black candidate. However, when candidates’ qualifications for the position were less obvious and the appropriate decision was more ambiguous (moderate qualifications), white participants recommended the black candidate significantly less often than the white candidate with exactly the same credentials. Moreover, when we compared the responses of participants in 1989 and 1999, whereas overt expressions of prejudice (measured by items on a self-report prejudice scale) declined over this 10-year period, the pattern of subtle discrimination in selection decisions remained essentially unchanged (see Table I). In subsequent research (Hodson, Dovidio, & Gaertner, 2002), participants were asked to help make admissions decisions for the university. Given the social climate on college campuses today, it is possible that even higher prejudice-scoring students may be concerned about viewing themselves as prejudiced. Consequently, as we have observed among lower prejudiced participants in the past, these individuals may currently express their negative attitudes in subtle, indirect, and rationalizable ways—and, relative to the general population, these higher prejudice-scoring college students may actually be low to moderate in prejudice and not view themselves as racially prejudiced. Indeed, among a comparable sample of higher

17

AVERSIVE RACISM

TABLE I Recommendations and Attributions of Personal Characteristics and Interpersonal Orientation as a Function of Candidate Qualifications and Race Strength of recommendation* Condition Strong qualifications White candidate Black candidate

1988–1989 1998–1999

Both

Percent recommended 1988–1989 1998–1999 Both

6.74 (1.41) 7.32 (1.67)

6.21 (2.09) 6.52 (1.72) 7.00 (1.60) 7.18 (1.62)

89% 95%

79% 87%

85% 91%

Moderate qualifications White candidate 6.05 (1.73) Black candidate 5.06 (1.39)

5.69 (1.60) 5.91 (1.67) 4.53 (1.64) 4.82 (1.51)

75% 50%

77% 40%

76% 45%

Weak qualifications White candidate Black candidate

2.42 (1.68) 2.81 (1.66) 3.77 (1.69) 3.50 (1.68)

5% 12%

8% 15%

6% 13%

3.05 (1.65) 3.29 (1.69)

*Values are expressed as from Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000. Means with standard deviation presented in parentheses.

prejudice-scoring participants, only 15% regarded themselves as ‘‘prejudiced against blacks.’’ We found no anti-black bias among our higher and lower prejudicescoring college participants when applicants had uniformly strong or uniformly weak college board scores and records of high school achievement. However, when applicants were strong on one dimension (e.g., on college board scores) and weak on the other (e.g., high school grades), black applicants tended to be recommended less strongly than were white applicants among higher prejudice scoring-participants. Moreover, these participants systematically changed how they weighed the criteria to justify their decisions as a function of race. For black applicants, higher prejudicescoring college participants gave the weaker dimension (college board scores or grades) greater weight in their decisions, whereas for white applicants they assigned the stronger of the qualifications more weight. Analogously, Brief, Dietz, Cohen, Pugh, and Vaslow (2000) found that white interviewers who scored high on the Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, 1986) were particularly likely to discriminate against black relative to white applicants in hiring when a business-related justification for not hiring the candidate was available. Taken together, these findings suggest that when given latitude for interpretation, higher prejudice white college participants (whom, relative to the general population may be regarded as generally

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moderate to low prejudiced, see Schuman et al., 1997), give white candidates the ‘‘benefit of the doubt,’’ a benefit they do not extend to blacks.

D. SUBTLE BIAS: A SUMMARY In summary, the behavior of aversive racists is characterized by two types of inconsistencies. First, aversive racists exhibit an apparent contradiction between their expressed egalitarian attitudes and their biased (albeit subtle) behaviors. Second, sometimes (in clear situations) they act in an unbiased fashion, whereas at other times (in ambiguous situations) they are biased unintentionally against blacks. Overall, we have oVered evidence across time, populations, and paradigms that illustrates how aversive racism—racism among people who are good and well intentioned—can produce disparate outcomes between blacks and whites. As noted earlier, although the bias of aversive racists may be subtle and unintentional, its consequences may ultimately be just as severe as oldfashioned racism—threats to the well-being of blacks and the restriction of opportunities. Furthermore, the racial biases of aversive racists are often manifested in terms of a pro–in-group rather than an anti–out-group bias (Gaertner et al., 1997). A pro–in-group bias is often less readily recognized, and when it is this type of bias is often less threatening to one’s nonprejudiced self-image than is overt bias against a black person. For instance, we found that white college students did not overtly associate negative characteristics more strongly with blacks than with whites, responses that might be interpreted as reflecting anti-black attitudes, but they did associate positive characteristics more strongly with whites than with blacks (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1991; Gaertner & McLaughlin, 1983). This is not the old-fashioned, overt type of bias associated with the belief about black inferiority but instead is a modern, subtle form of bias that reflects a belief about white superiority. In addition, pro–in-group bias is typically not encompassed in legal definitions of discrimination (Krieger, 1998). However, the distinction between anti-black and pro-white responses can have important implications. First, it may provide a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of contemporary racism. The conclusions drawn from considering only the anti–out-group portion of these attitudes in isolation of pro–in-group attitudes might misrepresent the overall phenomenon. For example, Crocker and Schwartz (1985) found that when looking at only out-group attitudes, people with low self-esteem appeared more prejudiced than those with high self-esteem. However, when both in-group and out-group attitudes were considered, people with high

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self-esteem were more biased (i.e., evaluated the out-group more negatively than the in-group) than those with low self-esteem. Second, pro-white attitudes may be one example of the broader class of phenomena, which we considered earlier in our discussion of social categorization, in which people generally favor in-group members over out-group members. Conceiving of black–white relations within a more general context of intergroup relations (while still recognizing the unique cultural and historical characteristics of the conflict that have shaped sterotypes and status relations) has theoretical and practical advantages for identifying factors that perpetuate such biases and the factors that may increase intergroup harmony. In general, then, we have obtained substantial evidence indicating the existence of aversive racism and demonstrating how it aVects interracial behavior. However, because aversive racists are guarded about appearing prejudiced, to others and to one’s self, they may consciously or unconsciously alter their responses to appear nonprejudiced, particularly in contexts in which race or racial attitudes are salient. As a consequence, aversive racists often appear nonprejudiced, in an absolute sense, on self-report measures of prejudice. Recent advances in attitude measurement, particularly in terms of the assessment of attitudes and beliefs that are out of conscious awareness (e.g., implicit attitudes) have permitted a closer examination of how the conscious and unconscious forces hypothesized within the aversive racism framework operate. We consider these developments in the next section.

IV. Dissociated Attitudes Beginning with our earliest work on the aversive racism framework, we hypothesized that a dissociation commonly exists between whites’ conscious and unconscious racial attitudes and beliefs. Recent research in social cognition has yielded new techniques for assessing unconscious, as well as conscious, attitudes and stereotypes. These techniques thus provide direct evidence about the influence of factors previously only assumed to be involved in aversive racism. A. IMPLICIT PROCESSES Borrowing from work in cognition more generally, researchers have made a fundamental distinction between explicit and implicit processes (Devine, 1989; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Explicit attitudes and stereotyping operate in a conscious mode and are exemplified by traditional, self-report measures of these constructs. In contrast, implicit attitudes and stereotypes are

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evaluations and beliefs that are automatically activated by the mere presence (actual or symbolic) of the attitude object. They commonly function in an unconscious and unintentional fashion. Implicit attitudes and stereotypes are typically assessed using response latency procedures, memory tasks, physiological measures (e.g., galvanic skin response), and indirect self-report measures (see Blair, 2001; Dovidio et al., 2001). We, along with other researchers using response-time measures based on the assumption that racial attitudes operate like other stimuli to facilitate responses and decision making about related concepts (e.g., doctor–nurse), have found consistent evidence of whites’ generally negative implicit (unconscious) attitudes toward blacks (e.g., Dovidio et al., 1986; Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Gaertner & McLaughlin, 1983; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 1997). A study from Dovidio, Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson, and Howard (1997) illustrates a paradigm we have used to assess unconscious attitudes. In this technique, we do not mention race, which might prepare our participants to censor negative feelings. Instead, we presented black and white primes (schematic faces) subliminally. On each of the key experimental trials, we first presented a sketch of a black or white person very rapidly on a computer screen, and then we covered up (‘‘masked’’) the sketch with the large letter ‘‘P’’ within an oval (to indicate a trial on which participants would make decisions about people) or ‘‘H’’ (to indicate a trial on which participants would make decisions, in control trials, about houses) in the same area of the computer screen so that participants are unaware that the sketch even appeared. Thus participants were not cognizant of the fact that we were assessing their racial beliefs and feelings. On the trials in which the letter ‘‘P’’ was clearly visible to participants, they were asked to make a decision about whether the next word that appears could ever describe a person (i.e., P for person). Next, we displayed a characteristic, for example ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘bad,’’ and recorded how long participants took to make the decision. Faster response times are assumed to reflect greater association. We then examined whether the subliminal sketch of a black or white person would aVect their decision-making times. Using this subliminal procedure we found that our white participants had more positive associations with whites than with blacks and more negative associations with blacks than with whites, even though they were not aware of the schematic faces or that the study tested their racial attitudes. These findings converge with a substantial number of studies (see Blair, 2001; Dovidio et al., 2001) using a broad range of techniques (such as the Implicit Association Test; Greenwald et al., 1998) that reveal that the vast majority of white Americans harbor unconscious negative associations about blacks.

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Moreover, supportive of the aversive racism framework, whites’ unconscious attitudes are largely dissociated from their conscious, self-reported attitudes but somewhat less so when the motivation to respond in socially desirable ways on self-reported measures of racial attitudes is reduced (Nier, 2003). The correlation between these diVerent types of attitudes is, on average, 0.24 (Dovidio et al., 2001). Nevertheless, the development of these new techniques thus allows us to examine the independent influence of conscious and unconscious attitudes to whites’ behaviors toward blacks, as well as their joint influence. We hypothesize that this disassociation between the conscious (explicit) and unconscious (implicit) attitudes of aversive racists can subtly shape the ways that whites and blacks interact and further contribute to the diVerent perceptions that whites and blacks develop about their situations. If whites are unaware of their negative implicit attitudes, they may also be unaware of how their behaviors in interracial interactions may be influenced by these racial biases. In contrast, blacks, who can observe the negative behaviors of whites with whom they are interacting, may form very diVerent impressions about whether racial bias is operating and the degree to which it is intentionally determined. Blacks (and other minority groups) may be vigilant to signs of bias and readily attribute these actions to intentional racism (Shelton, 2000; Vorauer & Kumhyr, 2001). We examine the implications of this aspect of our framework in the next section.

B. CONFLICTING ATTITUDES, MIXED MESSAGES We propose that the dissociation between the positive conscious attitudes and the negative unconscious attitudes of aversive racists fundamentally relates to the ways they interact with blacks. In particular, conscious and unconscious attitudes influence behavior in diVerent ways and under diVerent conditions (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002; Dovidio, Kawakami, et al., 1997; Fazio & Olson, 2003; Fazio et al., 1995; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). Conscious attitudes shape deliberative, wellconsidered responses for which people have the motivation and opportunity to weigh the costs and benefits of various courses of action. Unconscious attitudes influence responses that are more diYcult to monitor and control (e.g., some nonverbal behaviors; see Chen & Bargh, 1997; McConnell & Leibold, 2001) or responses that people do not view as an indication of their attitude and thus do not try to control. For instance, we have found that whites’ unconscious negative attitudes predict nonverbal cues of discomfort (increased rate of blinking) and aversion (decreased eye contact) toward blacks (see also Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974), whereas whites self-reported, conscious

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attitudes predict overt evaluations and indications of liking toward blacks (Dovidio, Kawakami et al., 1997). Thus, aversive racists, who have positive conscious attitudes and who want to be supportive of blacks but who also harbor unconscious negative attitudes or associations (see Karpinski & Hilton, 2000), are likely to convey mixed messages in interracial interactions. Given these conflicting signals, it is not surprising that blacks are likely to approach interracial interactions with anxiety, guardedness, and underlying mistrust (Hyers & Swim, 1998; Shelton, 2000).

C. INTERRACIAL INTERACTION AND IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT ATTITUDES These potential communication obstacles and interaction problems are exacerbated by the fact that whites and blacks have fundamentally diVerent perspectives on the attitudes implied and the actions demonstrated by whites during these interactions. Whites have full access to their conscious attitudes and are able to monitor and control their more overt and deliberative behaviors. They do not have access to their unconscious attitudes or to their less monitorable behaviors. As a consequence, whites’ beliefs about how they are behaving or how blacks perceive them would be expected to be based primarily on their conscious attitudes and their more overt behaviors, such as the verbal content of their interaction with blacks, and not on their unconscious attitudes or less deliberative (i.e., nonverbal) behaviors. In contrast to the perspective of whites, the perspective of black partners in these interracial interactions allows them to attend to both the spontaneous (e.g., nonverbal) and the deliberative (e.g., verbal) behaviors of whites. To the extent that the black partners attend to whites’ nonverbal behaviors, which may signal more negativity than their verbal behaviors, blacks are likely to form more negative impressions of the encounter and be less satisfied with the interaction than are whites (Shelton, 2000). To investigate this possibility, we conducted another experiment (Dovidio et al., 2002). We assessed perceptions of interracial interactions by whites and blacks, and we related those perceptions to white participants’ conscious attitudes, measured on a self-report prejudice scale, and unconscious attitudes, assessed with a response-latency technique. Then we arranged interracial conversations with a black and a white dyad partner around a race-neutral topic. We videotaped the interactions and subsequently had one set of coders rate the nonverbal and verbal behaviors of white participants and another set of observers rate their global impressions of participants from a videotape recorded from their partners’ perspective.

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Fig. 1. The relationships (correlations) between measures of prejudice and participant behavior and impressions. From Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002.

As we hypothesized (see Fig. 1), white participants’ self-reported racial attitudes predicted their deliberative behaviors such as their verbal friendliness toward black relative to white partners, which in turn predicted white participants’ impressions of how friendly they behaved in interactions with the black relative to the white partner. Thus, whites participants’ conscious attitudes, controllable behaviors, and self-impressions were all consonant. Unconscious racial attitudes, measured with response latencies, did not predict these verbal behaviors or white participants’ impressions of how they behaved. However, as we also anticipated, we found that white participants’ unconscious racial attitudes reflected by their response latencies predicted biases in their nonverbal behaviors (as scored by our observers), which then predicted how they were perceived by their partners (see Fig. 1). Because white participants and their partners based their impressions on diVerent aspects of the participants’ attitudes, the conscious and unconscious attitudes were dissociated and their impressions of the interaction were generally uncorrelated (r ¼ 0.11). White participants typically reported that they found the interaction satisfying, and they expressed contentment with their contributions. Their black partners, however, reported being relatively dissatisfied with the exchange and were uneasy about their partners’ behaviors. Despite white participants’ good intentions, the impressions they made were not as good as they thought. Moreover, both dyad members assumed that their partner shared the impression of the interaction as they did. Taken together, our findings on the eVects of conscious and unconscious attitudes in interracial interaction suggest that the nature of contemporary biases can shape the everyday perceptions of white and black Americans in ways that interfere with the communication and trust that are critical to

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developing long-term positive intergroup relations. These diVerent perspectives and experiences of whites and blacks in interracial interaction, which happen inadvertently and occur daily, can have summative eVects over time (Feagin & Sikes, 1994) and help to contribute to the climate of misperception and distrust that characterizes contemporary race relations in the United States. The majority of blacks in America today have a profound distrust for the police and legal system, and about a third are overtly distrustful of whites in general (Anderson, 1996). In addition, blacks commonly believe that conspiracies inhibit the progress of blacks (Crocker, Luhtanen, Broadnax, & Blaine, 1999). The mixed messages that aversive racists often convey can create fundamental miscommunication in interracial interaction and produce divergent impressions among interactants that can undermine their ability to interact eYciently in task-oriented situations as well as eVectively in social situations.

D. INTERRACIAL PERFORMANCE The diVerent and potentially divergent impressions formed by blacks and whites during interracial interactions can have significant impact on their eVectiveness in task-oriented situations. Cannon-Bowers and Salas (1999) have argued that eVective teamwork requires two types of skills, those associated with the technical aspects of the job and those associated with being a member of the team. For this latter factor, team competencies include the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to work eVectively with others. In addition to manifesting itself in terms of diVerent impressions and perceptions, contemporary bias can influence personal relations and group processes in ways that unintentionally but adversely aVect outcomes for blacks. We examined these processes in interracial dyads in which a black participant was paired with a white student who was identified as a traditionally high-prejudiced person (who expressed their bias openly), an aversive racist (who expressed egalitarian views but who showed evidence of unconscious bias), or a low-prejudiced white (who held egalitarian views and showed little evidence of unconscious bias) (Dovidio, Gaertner, Kawakami, & Hodson, 2002). These participants engaged in a problem-solving task about challenges to college students. For example, in one task they were asked to identify the five most important things that incoming students need to bring to campus. Because there were no objective measures of the quality of their team solution, we focused on the quality of their interaction (as reflected in their perceptions of friendliness and trustworthiness and feelings of satisfaction) and on their eYciency (as indexed by their time to complete the task).

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In general, whites’ impressions of their behavior were related primarily to their self-reported expressed attitudes, whereas blacks’ impressions of whites were related mainly to whites’ unconscious attitudes. Specifically, whites who expressed egalitarian ideals (i.e., low-prejudiced whites and aversive racists) reported that they behaved in more friendly ways than did those who expressed their bias openly (i.e., high-prejudiced whites). Black partners perceived only whites who showed no evidence of unconscious bias (i.e., lowprejudiced whites) to be more friendly than those who had unconscious biases (aversive racists and high-prejudiced whites). Of all three groups, blacks were least trustful of aversive racists. Our results further revealed that whites’ racial attitudes could be systematically related to the eYciency of the interracial teams. Teams with low-prejudiced whites solved the problem most quickly. Interracial teams involving high-prejudiced whites were next most eYcient. Teams with aversive racists were the least eYcient. Presumably, the conflicting messages displayed by aversive racists and the divergent impressions of the team members’ interaction interfered with the team’s eVectiveness. To the extent that blacks are in the minority in an organization and are dependent on high-prejudiced whites or aversive racists, their performance is likely to be objectively poorer than the performance of whites who predominantly interact with other whites. Thus, even when whites harbor unconscious and unintentional biases toward blacks, their actions can have eVects sometimes even more detrimental than those of overt racists on interracial processes and outcomes. Overall, we have oVered a range of evidence across time, populations, and paradigms that illustrates how aversive racism—racism among people who are good and well intentioned—can influence the nature of interracial interactions and directly or indirectly produce disparate outcomes between blacks and whites. As noted earlier, although the bias of aversive racists may be subtle and unintentional, its consequences may ultimately be just as debilitating, for example, by creating barriers to their advancement in employment settings, to blacks as old-fashioned racism. In the next section we examine strategies for combating this insidious type of bias.

V. Combating Aversive Racism When we describe our findings formally, in papers and presentations, and informally, a question often arises, ‘‘What can we do about subtle biases, particularly when we do not know for sure whether we have them?’’ Like a

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mutating virus, racism may have evolved into diVerent forms that are more diYcult not only to recognize but also to combat. Traditional prejudice-reduction techniques have been concerned with changing conscious attitudes—old-fashioned racism—and obvious expressions of bias. Attempts to reduce this direct, traditional form of racial prejudice have typically involved educational strategies to enhance knowledge and appreciation of other groups (e.g., multicultural education programs), emphasize norms that prejudice is wrong, and involve direct (e.g., mass media appeals) or indirect (dissonance reduction) attitude change techniques (Stephan & Stephan, 2001). However, because of its pervasiveness, subtlety, and complexity, the traditional techniques for eliminating bias that emphasized the immorality of prejudice and illegality of discrimination are not eVective for combating aversive racism. Aversive racists recognize that prejudice is bad, but they do not recognize that they are prejudiced. We believe, however, that aversive racism can be addressed with techniques aimed at its roots at both individual and collective levels. At the individual level, strategies to combat aversive racism need to be directed at unconscious attitudes. Aversive racists’ conscious attitudes are already favorable, and may, in fact, be instrumental in motivating change. At the intergroup level, interventions may be targeted at processes that support aversive racism, such as ingroup favoritism (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000).

A. ADDRESSING UNCONSCIOUS ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS Aversive racism is characterized by conscious (explicit) egalitarian attitudes and negative unconscious (implicit) attitudes and beliefs. Wilson et al. (2000) argue that systems of dual attitudes, such as those involved in aversive racism, typically arise developmentally. The person’s original attitudes, through repeated occurrence, practice, and ultimately overlearning, become unconscious and automatically activated (Wyer & Hamilton, 1998). Given the historic socialization of whites and the repeated exposure to negative images of blacks in the mass media, most whites develop negative attitudes and stereotypical belief about blacks that become internalized and habitualized relatively early in life (Devine, 1989). Aversive racists, however, also subsequently develop a strong conscious commitment to equality and to being nonprejudiced. Nevertheless, according to Wilson et al.’s (2000) model, the original attitude is not replaced. It is stored in memory and is implicit and unconscious, while the newer attitude is explicit and conscious. In general, explicit attitudes can change and evolve relatively easily, whereas implicit attitudes, because they are based in overlearning and habitual reactions, are much more diYcult to alter.

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Just because they are unconscious and automatically activated does not mean that aversive racists’ unconscious negative attitudes are immutable and inevitable. If unconscious attitudes and stereotypes can be learned, we propose that they can also be unlearned or inhibited by equally well-learned countervailing influences. Devine and Monteith (1993) observed, ‘‘Although it is not easy and clearly requires eVort, time, and practice, prejudice appears to be a habit that can be broken’’ ( p. 336). We have found that with extensive practice, either imposed externally or self-motivated, it is possible to change implicit beliefs.

1. Imposed Practice With extensive practice, individuals can develop ‘‘auto-motive’’ control of their actions through frequent and persistent pursuit of a goal, such as to not be biased or not to stereotype (Bargh, 1990). As Monteith, Sherman, and Devine (1998) note, ‘‘Practice makes perfect. Like any other mental process, thought suppression processes may be proceduralized and become relatively automatic’’ ( p. 71). Consistent with this line of reasoning, we found in a series of studies (Kawakami, Dovidio, Moll, Hermsen, & Russin, 2000) that automatic stereotype activation can be reduced and eliminated with training to not stereotype members of a group. In particular, participants in this research practiced extensively to respond in ways either consistent with prevailing racial stereotypes (by indicating ‘‘yes’’ to stereotype-consistent pairings of black and white photographs and traits and responding ‘‘no’’ to stereotypeinconsistent pairings) or to negate racial stereotypes (by responding ‘‘no’’ to stereotype-consistent pairings and ‘‘yes’’ to stereotype-inconsistent pairings). At the end of the session, participants performed a response-latency task to assess their unconscious, automatically activated racial stereotypes. Whereas those participants who were in the condition in which they responded aYrmatively to conventional stereotypic associations showed equivalent evidence of unconscious racial stereotypes before and after the training exercise, those who practiced negating stereotypes demonstrated a significant decrease in unconscious stereotyping after training. These eVects of practice in negating stereotypes were also still evident for 24 hours after the training. Although such direct strategies appear to be promising, these kinds of intensive and time-consuming approaches may be limited in their general applicability. Alternative promising strategies, however, take advantage of aversive racists’ genuine interest in being nonprejudiced to motivate significant and enduring change.

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2. Motivation and Self-Regulation Because aversive racists consciously endorse egalitarian values and truly want to be nonprejudiced, it may be possible to capitalize on their good intentions and induce self-motivated eVorts to reduce unconscious biases on becoming aware of them. Work by Monteith, Devine, and their colleagues (e.g., Devine & Monteith, 1993; Monteith & Voils, 1998) has revealed that when low-prejudiced people recognize discrepancies between their potential behaviour toward minorities (i.e., what they would do) and their personal standards (i.e., what they should do), they feel guilt and compunction, which produces motivations to respond without prejudice in the future. In their process model of prejudice reduction, Devine and Monteith (1993) further suggest that individuals who are committed to maintaining egalitarian standards learn to reject old, biased ways of responding and to adopt new, nonprejudiced ways. Over time and with practice, these people learn to reduce prejudicial responses and to respond in ways that are consistent with their nonprejudiced personal standards. Thus, this process of self-regulation, which is initiated by making people aware of their potential for racial bias, may produce changes in even unconscious negative responses when extended over time. We directly investigated this possibility (see Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2000). White participants, who were categorized as low or high in prejudice on the basis of their self-reported prejudice, completed a task making them aware of discrepancies between what they would do and what they should do (i.e., their personal standards) in interracial situations (Devine & Monteith, 1993). We assessed emotional reactions and, using a response-latency task, initial unconscious racial stereotyping. Three weeks later participants returned to the laboratory and completed the unconscious stereotyping tasks and another measure of the ‘‘would–should’’ discrepancy. We hypothesized that initial discrepancies between one’s actions (what one would do) and personal standards (what one should do) would generate stronger feelings of guilt and compunction and produce more self-initiated eVorts at change among low-prejudiced than among high-prejudiced participants. The eVects of this self-regulatory process were expected to be reflected in decreased discrepancies and unconscious stereotyping. As anticipated, greater discrepancies between what one would do and should do produced higher levels of guilt in the first session, and this relationship occurred primarily for low-prejudiced participants. These findings indicate the potential initiation of self-regulatory processes for low- but not high-prejudiced participants. When participants returned 3 weeks later, we found an overall greater alignment (i.e., smaller discrepancy) between what one would and should do—an indication that both high- and

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low-prejudiced participants showed a decrease in overt expressions of bias. However, as hypothesized, low- and high-prejudiced whites diVered in terms of the extent to which they internalized these changes. Low-prejudiced whites who had larger initial discrepancies showed greater reductions in unconscious stereotyping (r ¼ 0.56); in contrast, for high-prejudiced whites the relationship was weaker ( 0.07) and nonsignificant. These findings demonstrate that the good intentions of aversive racists can be harnessed to produce self-initiated change in even unconscious biases with appropriate awareness, eVort, and practice over time. Recently Son Hing, Li, and Zanna (2002) have extended work along these lines by examining responses to being made aware of hypocrisy on participants’ subsequent interracial responses. This study was conducted in Canada with Asians as the target group. Participants were classified on the basis of the combination of their responses to an explicit, self-report measure of prejudice toward Asians and a measure of implicit associations (spontaneous completion of words as Asian stereotypes). Participants who were low in explicit prejudice but who showed implicit biases were identified as aversive racists; those low in both explicit and implicit bias were considered truly low prejudiced. Participants next wrote an essay, reinforcing their overt egalitarian orientation, about the importance of treating Asians fairly. Participants in the hypocrisy condition, which was designed to sensitize people to violations of their egalitarian principles, were asked to write briefly about two situations in which they reacted negatively or unfairly to an Asian person. Participants in a control condition were not asked to write about these situations. Participants then completed a mood questionnaire and, ostensibly after the study was completed, were asked to complete a survey for the university’s student government on how funding cuts should be allocated to various campus groups. They were informed that a 20% cut in funding was needed for the budget of 10 campus groups. The main dependent measure was the amount of funding recommended for the Asian Students’ Association. In general, the results supported the prediction that making people aware of violations of their egalitarian principles would primarily arouse guilt among aversive racists who actually harbor negative feelings toward Asians, and thus produce compensatory behavior in recommended funding among aversive racists but not among nonprejudiced participants. Aversive racists in the hypocrisy condition experienced uniquely high levels of guilt and displayed the most generous funding recommendations for the Asian Students’ Association. The funding recommendations of truly low-prejudiced participants were not aVected by the hypocrisy manipulation. Son Hing et al. (2002) concluded that making people aware of their biases is particularly eVective at reducing bias among people who explicitly endorse egalitarian

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principles while also possessing implicit biases—the factors that characterize aversive racists. Strategies that emphasize intergroup processes, such as intergroup contact and social categorization, represent alternative, complementary approaches to these individual-level approaches. We examine one such approach in the next section.

B. REDIRECTING IN-GROUP BIAS One basic argument we have made in our research on aversive racism is that the negative feelings that develop toward other groups may be rooted, in part, in fundamental, normal psychological processes. One such process, identified in the classic work of Tajfel, Allport, and others, is the categorization of people into in-groups and out-groups, ‘‘we’s’’ and ‘‘they’s.’’ As we noted earlier, social categorization, particularly in terms of in-groups (‘‘we’s) and out-groups (‘‘they’s’’), is a fundamental process that contributes to aversive racism (Gaertner et al., 1997). In general, the mere categorization of people into ingroups and outgroups has a profound influence on social perception, aVect, cognition, and behavior. Because race is a fundamental type of social categorization in the United States, race is associated with strong ingroup biases. If bias is linked to fundamental, normal psychological processes, then attempts to ameliorate bias should be directed not at eliminating the process but rather at redirecting the forces to produce more harmonious intergroup relations. The process of social categorization is not completely unalterable. By shifting the basis of categorization from race to an alternative dimension we can potentially alter who is a we and who is a they, undermining a contributing force to aversive racism. Categories are hierarchically organized, with higher-level categories (e.g., nations) being more inclusive of lower-level ones (e.g., cities or towns). By modifying a perceiver’s goals, motives, perceptions of past experiences, expectations, as well as factors within the perceptual field and the situational context more broadly, there is opportunity to alter the level of category inclusiveness that will be most influential in a given situation. This malleability of the level at which impressions are formed is important because of its implications for altering the way people think about members of ingroups and outgroups, and consequently about the ways whites in general, and aversive racists in particular, respond to blacks. Because categorization is a basic process that is fundamental to intergroup bias, we have targeted this process as way of addressing the eVects of aversive racism. The next section explores how the forces of categorization

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can be harnessed and redirected toward the reduction, if not the elimination, of racial bias. This approach is represented by the Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, & Rust, 1993). 1. The Common In-Group Identity Model The Common In-Group Identity Model is rooted in the social categorization perspective of intergroup behavior and recognizes the central role of social categorization in both reducing and creating intergroup bias (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Specifically, if members of diVerent groups are induced to conceive of themselves more as a single, superordinate group rather than as two separate groups, attitudes toward former out-group members will become more positive through processes involving pro–in-group bias. Thus, changing the basis of categorization from race to an alternative dimension can alter who we is and who they are, undermining a contributing force to contemporary forms of racism, such as aversive racism. Formation of a common identity, however, does not necessarily require groups to forsake their ethnic or other subgroup identities. It is possible for members to conceive of themselves as holding a ‘‘dual identity’’ in which both subgroup and superordinate groups are salient simultaneously. Substantial evidence across a variety of settings in support of the Common Ingroup Identity Model has been found (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000). In one test of the model, which investigated the causal role of common group identity in reducing bias (Gaertner, Mann, Murrell & Dovidio, 1989), members of two separate laboratory-formed groups were induced through various structural interventions (e.g., seating arrangement) either to maintain their original group identities (i.e., conceive of themselves as diVerent groups) or to recategorize themselves as one superordinate group. As predicted, the manipulation to encourage recategorization of former out-group members within a common group identity produced more inclusive representations that ultimately mediated lower levels of intergroup bias, primarily by increasing the attractiveness of the former out-group members. Additional research also shows that interventions that have been demonstrated to reduce prejudice, such as cooperative interaction and appropriately structured intergroup contact, reduce bias, at least in part, by altering the intergroup cognitive representations. With respect to cooperative interaction, we brought two three-person laboratory groups, which had worked separately on a problem-solving task, together under conditions designed to vary independently the members’ representations of the six-person aggregate as one group or two groups and the presence or absence of intergroup cooperative interaction (Gaertner, Mann, Dovidio, Murrell, & Pomare, 1990).

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Fig. 2. The eVect of cooperative interaction on improving attitudes toward an out-group occurs primarily by creating more inclusive, one-group representations Thick arrows indicate statistically significant paths (P < 0.05). From Gaertner et al., 1990.

As in our earlier experiment (Gaertner et al., 1989), our manipulation designed to influence representations of the aggregate as one group did produce stronger one-group representations, which in turn mediated lower degrees of intergroup bias in evaluations of original in-group and out-group members. Also, consistent with our hypothesis, when separate group identities were initially salient, cooperative interaction (see Fig. 2) decreased the extent to which the aggregate felt like two groups and increased the extent it felt like one. The inclusive, one-group representation then led to more favorable evaluations of out-group members, which contributed to reduced intergroup bias. Using survey techniques under more naturalistic circumstances, we also found converging support for the proposition that the features specified by the Contact Hypothesis (Allport, 1954; Williams, 1947) reduce intergroup bias, in part, because they transform members’ representations of the memberships from separate groups to a single, more inclusive group. Participants in these studies included students attending a multiethnic high school (Gaertner, Rust, Dovidio, Bachman & Anastasio, 1996), banking executives who had experienced a corporate merger involving a wide variety of banks across the United States (Bachman, 1993), and college students from blended families whose households are composed of two formerly separate families trying to unite into one (Banker & Gaertner, 1998). Consistent with the role of an inclusive group representation that is hypothesized in the Common In-group Identity Model, across all three

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studies (1) conditions of intergroup contact that were perceived as more favorable predicted lower levels of intergroup bias, (2) more favorable conditions of contact predicted more inclusive (one group) and less exclusive (diVerent groups) representations, and (3) more inclusive representations mediated lower levels of intergroup bias and conflict (see Gaertner, Dovidio, Nier, Ward, & Banker, 1999). Recently a longitudinal study of stepfamilies found evidence supportive of the direction of causality between the constructs proposed by our model across time (Banker, 2002). Thus, across a variety of intergroup settings and methodological approaches we have found basically strong and consistent support for the Common Ingroup Identity Model. 2. Reducing Racial Biases: Experimental Evidence We have applied the general principles of the Common In-Group Identity to reducing racial biases in laboratory and field settings. Two studies reported by Nier, Gaertner, Dovidio, Banker, and Ward (2001) illustrate the eVectiveness of this approach for addressing whites’ biases toward blacks specifically. Another study (Houlette et al., 2004) explored a range of biases, including racial bias, among elementary school children. In a laboratory experiment (Nier et al., Study 1), white college students participated in a session with a black or white confederate. These students were induced to perceive of themselves as separate individuals participating in the study at the same time or as members of the same laboratory team. The participants evaluated their black partners significantly more favorably when they were teammates than when they were just individuals without common group connections. In contrast, the evaluations of the white partner were virtually equivalent in the team and individual conditions. Thus, inducing a common in-group identity was particularly eVective at producing positive responses toward blacks. The second study (Nier et al., Study 2) was a field experiment conducted at the University of Delaware football stadium before a game between the University of Delaware and Westchester State University. Black and white students approached fans from both universities just before the fans entered the stadium. These fans were asked if they would be willing to be interviewed about their food preferences. Our student interviewers wore either a University of Delaware or Westchester State University hat. By selecting white fans wearing clothing that identified their university aYliation, we systematically varied whether fans and our interviewers had a common or diVerent university identities in a context in which we expected university identities to be particularly salient. We predicted that making a common identity salient would increase compliance with the interviewer’s request, particularly when the interviewer was black.

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Supportive of predictions from the Common In-Group Identity Model, white fans were significantly more cooperative with a black interviewer when they shared a superordinate university identity than when they did not (60% vs. 38%). For white interviewers, with whom they already shared racial group membership, the eVect was much less pronounced (43% vs. 40%). Thus, in field and laboratory settings, racial out-group members were accorded especially positive reactions when they shared common in-group identity with white participants relative to when the context did not emphasize their common group membership. These studies suggest the value of combating aversive racism at its roots, by strategically controlling the forces of ingroup favoritism that can produce subtle racial biases associated with aversive racism. In a recent study (Houlette et al., 2004), we attempted to evaluate these principles further in the context of the Green Circle intervention program, which is designed to combat a range of biases (based on weight and sex, as well as race and ethnicity) with young children. The guiding assumption of the Green Circle Program, which is practically and theoretically compatible with the Common In-Group Identity Model, is that helping children bring people from diVerent groups conceptually into their own circle of caring and sharing fosters appreciation of their common humanity, as well as respect for their diVerences. In particular, facilitators engage children in a variety of exercises designed to expand the circle. The facilitator points out that, ‘‘All of us belong to one family—the human family.’’ Paralleling the Common InGroup Identity Model, Green Circle assumes that an appreciation of common humanity will increase children’s positive attitudes toward people who would otherwise remain outside their circle of inclusion. First- and secondgraders either participated in the Green Circle Program or were in a control group of classes that did not yet have the program. In terms of outcomes, the Green Circle intervention motivated the children to be more inclusive with their most preferred playmate. Specifically, compared to children in the control condition who did not participate in Green Circle activities, those who were part of Green Circle showed significantly greater change in willingness to select other children who were diVerent than themselves in race and in sex as a child that they ‘‘would most want to play with.’’ These changes in the most preferred playmate involve a child’s greater willingness to cross group boundaries in making friends—a factor that is one of the most potent influences in producing more positive attitudes toward the out-group as a whole (Pettigrew, 1998). In addition, these intergroup friendships can have cascading eVects by reducing bias among peers. Making people aware that their friends have friends from another group also reduces prejudice toward the group as a whole (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe & Ropp, 1997).

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In summary, the experiments reviewed in this section show that creating a common group identity can combat a range of overt expressions of racial bias. In addition, other research has demonstrated that emphasizing common group membership can address other types of biases that are associated with aversive racism, such as orientations toward policies designed to benefit blacks and other traditionally disadvantaged groups. In a survey study of white adults, Smith and Tyler (1996, Study 1) measured the strength of respondents’ superordinate identity as ‘‘American’’ and also the strength of their identification as ‘‘white.’’ Regardless of whether they strongly identified with being white, those respondents with a strong American identity were more likely to base their support of aYrmative action policies that would benefit blacks and other minorities on concerns about fairness for diVerent groups rather than on self-interest or white group-interest. However, for those who identified themselves more strongly with being white than with being American, their position on aYrmative action was determined more strongly by concerns regarding the personal impact of these policies. This pattern of findings suggests that a strong superordinate identity (such as being American) allows individuals to support policies that would benefit members of other racial subgroups without giving primary consideration to their own instrumental needs (see also Huo, Smith, Tyler, & Lind, 1996). The next section considers how creating a common in-group identity can influence the basic motivational orientations and cognitive processes that form the basis for racial biases. 3. A Common In-Group Identity and the Motivational Orientations Within the aversive racism framework, we propose that the negative feelings, beliefs, and behaviors often are expressed subtly and indirectly— in ways that are not readily attributable (by others or themselves) to racial bias and thus do not threaten an aversive racist’s nonprejudiced self-image. From this perspective, a major motive of whites in interracial situations is to avoid wrongdoing. As we have demonstrated across a range of experiments, whites appear to monitor their interracial behaviors closely to avoid discriminating against blacks when norms for appropriate behaviors are clearly defined. Moreover, these attempts by aversive racists to avoid wrongdoing appear to involve significant conscious eVort. Richeson and Shelton (2003) found that whites high in implicit prejudice toward blacks performed more poorly on a cognitively demanding task after interacting with a black person than did whites low in implicit prejudice. Richeson and Shelton proposed that the cognitive eVort required by high implicitly prejudiced whites to monitor their interracial behavior depleted their cognitive resources, resulting in a

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decrement in performance on the subsequent task. Thus, whites can, at least under some circumstances and with some eVort, successfully suppress negative beliefs, feelings, and behavior toward blacks when it is obvious that such expressions reflect racial bias. Although motivations to avoid thinking, feeling, or behaving in a prejudicial way can have positive interracial consequences, such as limiting social conflict, it can also have unintended negative consequences. Besides depleting aversive racists’ cognitive resources, eVorts to avoid wrongdoing and suppress prejudicial thoughts have two important potential costs for interracial interactions. First, a concern about avoiding wrongdoing increases anxiety that can motivate avoidance or premature withdrawal from the interaction (as evidenced by Liberal Party members hanging up prematurely more frequently on black than on white callers, as described earlier; see Gaertner, 1973). This avoidant reaction precludes the opportunity for meaningful, self-revealing exchanges between in-group and out-group members (Hyers & Swim, 1998). Second, in view of recent work on stereotype suppression and rebound (e.g., Bodenhausen & Macrae, 1996), it is possible that once this self-imposed suppression is relaxed, negative beliefs, feelings, and behaviors would be even more likely to occur than if they were not suppressed initially. In the search for strategies that could eliminate the indirect, rationalizable ways that aversive racists discriminate we have also considered the importance of establishing positive interpersonal and intergroup motivations rather than simply suppressing negative motivations. The Common In-group Identity Model, because it focuses on redirecting the forces of in-group favoritism, oVers such promise. Specifically, the recognition of a common ingroup identity potentially changes the motivational orientation or intentions of aversive racists from trying to avoid wrongdoing to trying to do what is right. Although this shift in orientation is subtle, it can have fundamental benefits. For instance, it may relieve intergroup anxiety (see Stephan & Stephan, 1985) and reduce the likelihood of negative consequences of eVortful attempts to avoid wrongdoing, such as the increased accessibility of negative thoughts, feelings, and behavior that occur when suppression is relaxed (Monteith et al., 1998; Wegner, 1994). Some preliminary evidence from our laboratory suggests the potential promise of a common in-group identity to alter motivation in just such a positive way (Dovidio, Gaertner, & Kawakami, 1998; Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000). In this experiment, white participants who were about to interact with a white or a black confederate were either asked to try to avoid wrongdoing, instructed to try to behave correctly toward the other person, informed that they were part of the same team with their partner and competing against a

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team at a rival institution, or were given no instructions. The dependent measure of interest was the relative accessibility of negative thoughts, as assessed by changes in responses on a Stroop color-naming task after the interaction relative to responses on a baseline Stroop task administered before the interaction (see Lane & Wegner, 1995). A rebound eVect would be reflected in greater accessibility (operationalized in terms of longer colornaming latencies) of negative relative to positive words on the posttest Stroop task. We hypothesized that, because the primary motivation of aversive racists in interracial interaction is to avoid wrongdoing and thus to suppress negative thoughts and feelings, participants explicitly instructed to avoid wrongdoing and those given no instructions would show relatively strong accessibility of negative thoughts after interacting with a black confederate. In contrast, we expected participants instructed to behave correctly and those in the ‘‘same team’’ condition (who were hypothesized to adopt a positive orientation on their own) would escape such a rebound eVect. The results, while preliminary, are very encouraging. When the confederate was white, the experimental conditions did not diVer significantly in the accessibility of negative thoughts from one another or from baseline. When the confederate was black, however, the increased accessibility of negative relative to positive characteristics (from the pretest to the posttest) in the avoid wrongdoing and no instructions conditions was significantly greater than in the do right and same team conditions, in which there was an increase in the accessibility of positive relative to negative thoughts. The pattern of these findings suggests that the development of a common in-group identity can alter motivation in interracial situations from one of suppressing negative thoughts, feelings, and actions to one that is positive, more appetitive, and prosocial—and in a way that does not ironically result in further increases in negative thoughts. These findings are particularly encouraging to us because they illustrate the eVectiveness of the Common In-group Identity Model for addressing individual-level biases and particularly the underlying dynamics of aversive racism.

VI. Summary and Conclusions This chapter has described the concept of aversive racism, considered the factors contributing to aversive racism, demonstrated empirically how it aVects outcomes for blacks and shapes interracial interactions, and explored how it can be combated. Despite apparent consistent improvements in expressed racial attitudes over time, aversive racism continues to exert a

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subtle but pervasive influence on the lives of black Americans. This bias is expressed in indirect and rationalizable ways that restrict opportunities for blacks while insulating aversive racists from ever having to confront their prejudices. Most of the work reviewed in this chapter has focused on the influence of contemporary racial biases of whites toward blacks because of the central role that racial politics has played in the history of the United States. Within the United States, this dynamic also relates to varying degrees to orientations toward women (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1983b; Rudman & Kilianski, 2000) and more recently to homosexuals (Hebl, Foster, Mannix, & Dovidio, 2002). Moreover, we propose that many of the principles of aversive racism also apply more generally to the responses of the majority group to minority groups in contexts in which egalitarian ideals are valued and discrimination is censured (Dovidio, Gaertner, Anastasio, & Sanitioso, 1992). For instance, Pettigrew and Meertens (1995) have found that whereas blatant prejudice in Europe is related to the unconditional exclusion or severe limitation of immigrants, subtle prejudice is associated with constraints in immigration, such as prerequisite educational levels, that can be justified on the basis of factors ostensibly unrelated to race or ethnicity. However, paralleling the scenario that we described for race relations, when conditions change and people feel threatened—such as after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States—subtle biases may become more open and result not only in incidents of overt violence but also directly in attitudes and political actions against immigrants and immigration (Esses, Dovidio, & Hodson, 2002). Bias associated with aversive racism is an elusive phenomenon, and the situation plays a critical moderating role. When an interracial situation is one in which an action could be readily attributed to racial bias, aversive racists carefully monitor their interracial behaviors and do not discriminate. In fact, they may respond even more favorably to blacks than to whites as a way of aYrming their nonprejudiced self-images. But when the situation is ambiguous, norms for appropriate behavior are not clear, the circumstances permit a justification for negative behavior on the basis of some factor other than race, or aversive racists are not conscious of their actions, their bias is expressed. The challenge for addressing aversive racism thus resides in its elusiveness. Because aversive racists are unaware of their unconscious negative attitudes and their eVects, and truly embrace their egalitarian self-image, they are motivated to deny the existence of these feelings and not to recognize or take responsibility for the adverse impact of their behavior on blacks. The subtle processes underlying discrimination motivated by aversive racism can be identified and isolated under the controlled conditions of the laboratory;

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however, at the societal and organizational levels, at which the controlled conditions of an experiment are rarely possible and multiple factors may shape decision making simultaneously, this process presents a substantial challenge to the equitable treatment of members of disadvantaged groups. Krieger (1995), in the Stanford Law Review, observed: ‘‘Herein lies the practical problem. . . . Validating subjective decisionmaking systems is neither empirically nor economically feasible, especially for jobs where intangible qualities, such as interpersonal skills, creativity, and ability to make sound judgments under conditions of uncertainty are critical’’ ( p. 1232). Thus the operation of aversive racism may go largely unnoticed and unaddressed in naturalistic settings. In addition, to the extent that discrimination reflects in-group favoritism (see also Gaertner et al., 1997), it is particularly diYcult to address legally. Krieger (1998) adds, ‘‘Title VII is poorly equipped to control prejudice resulting from in-group favoritism. . . . In-group favoritism manifests itself gradually in subtle ways. It is unlikely to trigger mobilization of civil rights remedies because instances of this form of discrimination tend to go unnoticed. If they are noticed, they will frequently seem genuinely trivial or be economically unfeasible to pursue. . . . For this reason as for others, we cannot expect existing equal opportunity tools adequately to prevent, identify, or redress this more modern form of discrimination’’ (pp. 1325–1326). It is apparent that new techniques are needed to address this and other contemporary forms of racism. Developing individual, intergroup, and societal-level interventions that not only control the expressions of aversive racism but also address the negative components of aversive racism has critical social implications. Aversive racism represents a latent form of bias whose expression is strongly moderated by social circumstances and norms. A change in conditions or norms can allow this bias to operate more directly and openly (see Rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1981). For instance, research on interracial aggression has demonstrated that under normal circumstances whites are not more aggressive and harmful toward blacks than toward whites. Overt and unprovoked aggression toward blacks would readily be perceived as racist. However, when whites are first antagonized by another person’s aggressiveness, when they feel freed from prevailing norms through conditions that make them feel anonymous and deindividuated, or when norms change from censuring to supporting aggression, whites exhibit more aggressiveness toward blacks than toward whites (Donnerstein & Donnerstein, 1973; Donnerstein, Donnerstein, Simon, & Ditrichs, 1972; Kawakami, Spears, & Dovidio, 2002; Rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1981). Latent racism also has important organizational implications. In corporate settings, racial discrimination in personnel selection decisions emerges

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when norms, which typically sanction discrimination, change and an organizational authority condones discrimination (Brief, Buttram, Elliott, Reizenstein, & McCline, 1995). Thus, besides its subtle contemporary influence, if left unaddressed, aversive racism provides the seed for bias to emerge when conditions allow or encourage a more open expression of discrimination. Future research on aversive racism has several productive avenues to pursue. One direction involves further exploration of ways to identify aversive racists. Although there is debate about the meaning and validity of implicit associations, we believe that these techniques can provide valuable insights into the dynamics of aversive racism. Karpinski and Hilton (2000) have argued that the types of responses measured by implicit techniques, such as the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998), reflect environmental associations rather than personal endorsement of evaluations and stereotypes. In our earlier formulation of the aversive racism framework (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986), we hypothesized that a broad range of cognitive, aVective, and motivational influences contributed to the unconscious forces involved in aversive racism. One of these was that exposure to sociocultural influences relating to institutional and cultural racism (Jones, 1997), the cultural transmission of stereotypes (Schaller, Conway, & Tanchuk, 2002), and the portrayal of blacks in the mass media (Devine, 1989) would create and support unconscious negative associations with blacks and influence behavior toward blacks in consequential ways. The facts that (1) these associations come to mind often automatically and without intentional control for many whites, as implicit techniques have demonstrated, and (2) that these associations predict subtle behavioral manifestations of bias (Dovidio et al., 2002; Son Hing et al., 2002), particularly in the absence of conscious personal endorsement, are consistent with our aversive racism framework. In addition, although many of the techniques used to measure implicit evaluation and stereotypes focus on processes reflective of ‘‘cold’’ cognition, with little involvement of aVective process, implicit racial evaluations are also related to fundamental aVective and motivational reactions. Phelps et al. (2000) demonstrated that responses on the Implicit Association Test, but not responses on a self-report measure of prejudice, predicted activation of the amygdala, a subcortical structure of the brain that plays a role in emotional learning and evaluation and is responsive to threats. Thus, although we still contend that unconscious aVective and cognitive processes contribute to aversive racism in ways beyond the eVects of implicit negative associations (Nail et al., 2003), we acknowledge that implicit associations are a key component and that the techniques developed to measure implicit evaluations and stereotypes are important tools for studying aversive racism and for distinguishing aversive racists from truly nonprejudiced people.

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Before the development of such measures, we generally assumed that, given the pervasive psychological and social forces promoting bias, most white Americans who said they were not prejudiced were actually aversive racists. However, evidence of the prevalence of implicit negative racial attitudes and stereotypes (Blair, 2001), the dissociation between explicit attitudes and implicit associations (Dovidio et al., 2001), and the diVerent types of influences on behavior of implicit and explicit attitudes (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002; Fazio et al., 1995) suggest that the distinction between aversive racists and truly nonprejudiced people is a critical one that can now be examined directly. Indeed, work on implicit attitudes has already produced evidence that people who are high on implicit prejudice exhibit particularly strong motivations to suppress negative interracial behavior (Richeson & Shelton, 2003) and are particularly sensitive to threats to their egalitarian images (Son Hing et al., 2002). Recently Son Hing, Chung-Yan, Grunfeld, Robichaud, and Zanna (2004) also demonstrated that among people who report on explicit measures that they are low in prejudice, those who have negative implicit attitudes show the subtle pattern of discrimination that characterizes aversive racism, whereas those low on implicit as well as explicit prejudice behave in a consistent egalitarian manner. In addition, understanding the developmental factors that are associated with low levels of implicit biases (TowlesSchwen & Fazio, 2001) and the types of interventions that can successfully combat implicit biases (Kawakami et al., 2000) can help to address a crucial factor in aversive racism, unconscious negative attitudes and associations. A second potential direction for future research on aversive racism is to explore the potential evolution of social biases from overt and blatant forms to aversive forms. Norms against the expression of prejudice associated with certain types of stigmas vary considerably (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003). In general, the extent to which a person’s membership in a negatively viewed out-group (i.e., a stigmatized group) is perceived to be controllable is one of the strongest determinants of whether individuals will openly express negative feelings and beliefs and discrimination (Weiner, 1995). For instance, people who possess stigmas that are perceived to be more controllable (e.g., homosexuality, obesity, alcoholism) are regarded much more negatively and are more likely to be the targets of open discrimination. However, over time some of these group memberships become more socially acceptable and sanctions against the expression of prejudice become stronger. For instance, attitudes toward homosexuals have become more favorable in recent years, and increasingly local laws and organizational policies prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians. Thus, studying attitudes and discrimination against homosexuals may provide a case study of how prejudices evolve from blatant to aversive types. Recent research (Hebl et al., 2002) has

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already demonstrated that, at least in some circumstances, although discrimination against people perceived to be gay did not occur in open, formal ways, people did discriminate in more subtle, interpersonal ways (e.g., nonverbally). Similarly, studying how subtle biases (e.g., toward people of Middle Eastern descent) become more blatant in response to current events (e.g., terrorist attacks, wars) can provide further insight into the etiology of aversive racism. A third direction for future research involves the development of strategies and interventions to combat aversive racism more broadly, and to design strategies that will have sustained impact. As we have illustrated in this chapter, strategies that emphasize a common group identity may be eVective at decreasing discrimination and changing motivations from avoiding wrongdoing, which can have inadvertent negative consequences, to motivations to do what is right. Strengthening these types of positive motivations so that they become automatically activated (Kawakami et al., 2000; Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel, & Schaal, 1999) can counteract the eVect of the influence of implicit prejudice. However, in a society in which race has a special significance historically and socially, and racism has roots in both institutions and culture (Jones, 1997), it may be diYcult to sustain this common group identity and positive motivation. Hewstone (1996) has argued that, at a practical level, interventions designed to create a common, inclusive identity may not be suYciently potent to ‘‘overcome powerful ethnic and racial categorizations on more than a temporary basis’’ (p. 351). Nevertheless, creating perceptions of common group identity may form the foundation allowing other processes to operate with complementary eVects (Pettigrew, 1998). For instance, creating a common ingroup identity can reduce intergroup threat and anxiety, which can increase the likelihood of intergroup contact and lead to more personalized interactions. Personalized self-disclosing interactions, in turn, further reduce intergroup bias (Brewer & Miller, 1984; Miller, 2002) and can create the kinds of experiences that are associated with low levels of implicit prejudice (Towles-Schwen & Fazio, 2001). Thus, interventions to combat aversive racism may need to involve a ‘‘cocktail’’ of strategies that reciprocally address the intergroup, personal, and social-cognitive roots of racial biases. In conclusion, over the past 35 years we have argued that aversive racism is a fundamental and insidious form of racial bias that significantly aVects the lives of blacks in the United States. In this chapter, we have documented the eVect, examined the social and psychological processes that contribute to aversive racism, and have explored techniques to combat it. Aversive racism produces significant adverse outcomes for blacks (e.g., through bias in selection decisions, as our employment selection and college admissions studies show) and it subtly influences the nature of interracial interactions

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in ways that contribute to the miscommunication and mistrust that have historically characterized race relations in the United States. Aversive racists display their biases subtly (e.g., in terms of nonverbal behaviors) and inconsistently (e.g., mainly in situations in which a negative response can be justified on the basis of a nonracial factor). As a consequence, blacks often receive conflicting messages in their interactions with aversive racists, and they perceive whites’ behaviors as unpredictable and thus their positive responses as insincere and untrustworthy (Crocker & Major, 1994). Moreover, because people tend to overattribute intentionality to another person’s actions (Jones & Harris, 1967), particularly for actions that are negative, blacks who feel discriminated against will likely assume that the white person’s behaviors were motivated by conscious, ‘‘old-fashioned’’ racism. Because an aversive racist does not discriminate with conscious intention and is not aware that he or she is discriminating on the basis of race, an aversive racist will be quick to deny evidence of personal prejudice. An aversive racist’s denial of intentional discrimination, although genuine, may then intensify racial conflict and distrust. Thus, it is important that people, including both whites and blacks, become aware of the existence and impact of aversive racism to understand the diVerent perspectives of members of diVerent racial groups, to facilitate more eVective communication and, ultimately, to take appropriate personal, social, and legal action to create a truly egalitarian society. Because aversive racists genuinely endorse egalitarian principles, once aware of their biases, they can help contribute to the solution rather than to the problem of racial tension, conflict, and inequality.

Acknowledgments Supported by NIMH Grant MH 48721. We are grateful to Adam Pearson for his helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper.

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Gaertner, S. L. (1973). Helping behavior and racial discrimination among liberals and conservatives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, 335–341. Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (1977). The subtlety of white racism, arousal, and helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 691–707. Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (1986). The aversive form of racism. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination, and racism (pp. 61–89). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (2000). Reducing intergroup bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model. Philadelphia, PA: The Psychology Press. Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Anastasio, P. A., Bachman, B. A., & Rust, M. C. (1993). The common ingroup identity model: Recategorization and the reduction of intergroup bias. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 1–26). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Banker, B., Rust, M., Nier, J., Mottola, G., & Ward, C. (1997). Does racism necessarily mean anti-blackness? Aversive racism and pro-whiteness In M. Fine, L. Powell, L. Weis, & M. Wong (Eds.), Off white (pp. 167–178). London: Routledge. Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Nier, J., Ward, C., & Banker, B. (1999). Across cultural divides: The value of a superordinate identity. In D. Prentice & D. Miller (Eds.), Cultural divides: Understanding and overcoming group conflict (pp. 173–212). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Gaertner, S. L., Mann, J. A., Dovidio, J. F., Murrell, A. J., & Pomare, M. (1990). How does cooperation reduce intergroup bias? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 692–704. Gaertner, S. L., Mann, J., Murrell, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (1989). Reducing intergroup bias: The benefits of recategorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 239–249. Gaertner, S. L., & McLaughlin, J. P. (1983). Racial stereotypes: Associations and ascriptions of positive and negative characteristics. Social Psychology Quarterly, 46, 23–30. Gaertner, S. L., Rust, M. C., Dovidio, J. F., Bachman, B. A., & Anastasio, P. A. (1996). The Contact Hypothesis: The role of a common ingroup identity on reducing intergroup bias among majority and minority group members. In J. L. Nye & A. M. Brower (Eds.), What’s social about social cognition? (pp. 230–360). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gallup (2002). Poll topics & trends: Race relations. Washington, DC: The Gallup Organization. http://www.gallup.com/poll/topics/race.asp. Greenwald, A., & Banaji, M. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102, 4–27. Greenwald, A., McGhee, D., & Schwartz, J. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480. Hamilton, D. L., & Trolier, T. K. (1986). Stereotypes and stereotyping: An overview of the cognitive approach. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination, and racism (pp. 127–163). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Hebl, M. R., Foster, J. B., Mannix, L. M., & Dovidio, J. F. (2002). Formal and interpersonal discrimination. A field study of bias toward homosexual applicants. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 815–825. Hewstone, M. (1996). Contact and categorization: Social psychological interventions to change intergroup relations. In C. N. Macrae, M. Hewstone, & C. Stangor (Eds.), Foundations of stereotypes and stereotyping (pp. 323–368). New York: Guilford.

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SOCIALLY SITUATED COGNITION: COGNITION IN ITS SOCIAL CONTEXT

Eliot R. Smith Gu¨n R. Semin

We propose a new integration of social psychology and situated cognition, which we term socially situated cognition (SSC). This new approach rests directly on recent developments in psychology and cognitive science captured by the label situated cognition, but it also has roots going back to William James and Frederick Bartlett. The approach involves a shift in the guiding metaphor regarding cognition and action, from computation to biology, and highlights four core assumptions that are common to social psychology and the situated cognition perspective. (1) Cognition is for the adaptive regulation of action, and mental representations are action oriented. (2) Cognition is embodied, drawing on our sensorimotor abilities and environments as well as our brains. (3) Cognition and action are the emergent outcome of dynamic processes of interaction between an agent and an environment. (4) Cognition is distributed across brains and the environment (e.g., through the use of tools) and across social agents (e.g., when information is discussed and evaluated in groups). With regard to each of these themes, we review and integrate relevant social psychological research and suggest ways in which the theme can be advanced by rethinking current assumptions. Our overall goals are to make social psychology part of the interdisciplinary integration emerging around the concept of situated cognition, and to advance these four themes as high-level conceptual principles that can organize seemingly disparate areas of research and theory within social psychology itself. For more than a century, social psychology has developed as the scientific discipline devoted to the study of social cognition and social behavior: of attitudes, social influence processes, person perception, group stereotypes 53 ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 36

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and prejudice, interaction in groups, and personal relationships, among other topics. Particularly since the 1960s, social psychology has been dominated by experimental methods and by theoretical approaches emphasizing cognitive processes (Devine, Hamilton, & Ostrom, 1994; Jones, 1985). In parallel with the rise of the cognitive perspective throughout psychology, social psychologists focused on analyses of mental representation and process as pathways to understanding social psychological phenomena. The cognitive approach led to the development of robust, sophisticated, and cumulative bodies of theory concerning such issues as the nature of mental representations, the impact of accessible representations on judgments, and the factors aVecting people’s use of simple heuristic cues versus more systematic information processing. In more recent years, social psychologists have broadened their focus beyond cognitive processes by directing increased attention to issues of motivation and aVect, personal relationships, group memberships, and cultural diVerences as they have worked toward a more complete understanding of social behavior. The emphasis is now on motivational constraints and situational eVects on cognition—with motives and situations taken not just as additional information to be processed, but as fundamental regulators of cognition. Paralleling these developments within social psychology, a powerful new intellectual movement has arisen across many areas of psychology and cognitive science, which has been termed situated cognition (e.g., Agre, 1997; Barsalou, 1999b; Brooks, 1999; Chapman, 1991; Clark, 1997; Greeno, 1998; Hendriks-Jansen, 1996; Norman, 1993; Steels & Brooks, 1995; Yeh & Barsalou, 2000). A convergent but nonoverlapping school of thought that emphasizes the significance of situated action and cognition is found in sociocultural psychology (e.g., Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1998). While the sociocultural school traces its intellectual roots to Vygotski’s work (e.g., 1962/ 1986), the fundamental ideas of the situated cognition movement go back in various forms to Dewey, Mead, and particularly William James and Frederick Bartlett. It is no accident that these same individuals are also frequently named as important forebears of social psychology, for the central thesis of this chapter is that the fundamental assumptions of situated cognition are quite compatible with those of social psychology—so much so that the term socially situated cognition (SSC) seems quite appropriate. Despite this fundamental conceptual similarity, for which we will argue in detail, situated cognition and social psychology have had little or no contact, although neighboring subdisciplines (such as developmental, cognitive, and educational psychology) have been deeply aVected by the situated cognition perspective. We believe that vigorous attempts at integration and mutual recognition—from both sides of this conceptual divide—will pay rich dividends in future theoretical and empirical progress.

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Situated cognition theorists view cognition as an adaptive process that emerges from the interaction between an agent and the world, both physical and social. This is an idea that can be found in Mead’s (1934) focus on ‘‘symbolic social processes’’ and is fundamental to the symbolic interactionist viewpoint, which makes ‘‘joint action’’ (Blumer, 1969) a central focus. Today the idea is continued in sociocultural psychology, an intellectual tradition strongly influenced by Vygotsky (e.g., 1978) that emphasizes the situated action level of analysis to account for the generation of meaningful activity in social contexts (Cole, 1966; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wertsch, 1998). The same idea of cognition as a situated interactive process is also found in other recent thinking in cognitive and developmental psychology and cognitive science, disciplines that are conceptually closer to mainstream experimental social psychology than is the sociocultural school (e.g., Barsalou, 1999b; Clancey, 1995, 1997a; Clark, 1997, 1999b; Greeno, 1998; Kirshner & Whitson, 1997; Norman, 1993; Yeh & Barsalou, 2000). An early appearance of the new perspective was in the area of robotics within artificial intelligence (AI), where researchers seeking to build robots that interact with the world ran into the limitations of the traditional mentalist approach to cognition and sought a workable alternative (Agre & Chapman, 1990; Brooks, 1991). The movement then spread: ‘‘What originally seemed nothing more than a cute idea turned out to have profound ramifications and changed the entire research disciplines of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. It is currently beginning to exert its influence on psychology, neurobiology, and ethology as well as engineering’’ (Pfeifer & Scheier, 1999, p. xii). Although that influence has not yet touched the mainstream of social psychology, we believe that the central assumptions of situated cognition are largely compatible with those of social psychology. Our discussion of these central assumptions serves the two major goals of this chapter. First, there has been a relative mutual neglect and ignorance between workers in social psychology and situated cognition over the past decade or so. We will attempt to show that social psychology deals directly with the most central themes of situated cognition, and therefore belongs in the emerging interdisciplinary integration around those ideas—in many ways, at its very heart. Second, we will argue that the key themes of situated cognition are at the same time the most fundamental themes of social psychology as well. The themes can therefore conceptually bring together and interrelate seemingly disparate and unrelated bodies of research and topic areas within social psychology, as well as pointing toward new directions for conceptual and empirical exploration. Thus, the emerging interdisciplinary integration carries the potential for theoretical growth and development within social psychology. The first and most central postulate of situated cognition is that the function of cognition is the control of adaptive action. The insight that

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cognition is for action dates back to William James (1890) but has often been overlooked in more recent years, especially in the heyday of the cognitive or information-processing approach (see Fiske, 1992). However, its truth is unquestionable (Barsalou, 1999b; Dewey, 1929/1958; Mead, 1934). The second theme is that cognition depends on our bodily properties and environments, as well as our brains. Therefore cognition must be regarded as embodied, dependent on and intertwined with (not apart from) sensorimotor processes. Third, adaptive action must be closely tuned to the immediate environment, and therefore cognition must be situated, interactive, and flexible. Cognition emerges from moment-by-moment interaction with the environment rather than proceeding in an autonomous, invariant, contextfree fashion. And crucially, the relevant environment is always social, as well as being defined by human artifacts, physical spaces, and tasks. Fourth, cognition is distributed—not encapsulated within our brains, but extended and empowered by tools (both physical and conceptual, crucially including language) and by social resources such as other people and groups. These four themes represent the organizing framework of this chapter. With regard to each of them, we will first show that social psychologists have produced bodies of relevant research and theory—our field’s potential exports, if we may be so bold, to others interested in situated cognition. At the same time, for each theme we will argue that in some respects social psychology has not yet fully appreciated all the insights of situated cognition. In many cases, these point to new areas for theoretical and empirical exploration or suggest modifications of some typical social psychological assumptions. Despite its conceptual kinship to social psychology, the situated cognition approach calls for rethinking several assumptions that have been prevalent within social psychology. Most basic is a shift in the guiding metaphor for the analysis of cognition and action, from computation to biology. The computational or information-processing framework analyzes cognition in terms of representational structures and algorithmic processes, drawing on the fundamental concepts and principles of computer science (Marr, 1982; Newell & Simon, 1972; Vera & Simon, 1993). This framework is evident in most prominent theoretical models within social psychology, as they postulate the construction of schemas or associatively linked structures to represent stimulus information, which are then stored in memory and reactivated to aVect judgments and social behavior (e.g., Wyer & Srull, 1989). In contrast, the starting point for the biological metaphor is that all cognition and action constitute an adaptive regulatory process that ultimately serves survival needs. The biological metaphor also invites us to consider cognition and action as embodied—constrained and directed by the nature of our bodies. Because of the importance of adaptation to specific and

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varying situations, cognition and action are considered as the emergent outcome of dynamic processes of interaction between an agent and an environment. Finally, SSC emphasizes that cognition is not purely an inner process within an individual brain but is distributed across the environment (e.g., through the use of tools and artifacts) and across social agents (e.g., when information is shared and evaluated in groups; Caporael, 1997). This new approach does not require a complete rejection of computational ideas such as representations, but appears likely to fundamentally transform our understanding of their nature and their role in the overall adaptive process (Clark, 1997). The biological metaphor is not meant to direct social psychologists toward neuroscience as a substitute for psychological theory nor toward the types of analysis characteristic of some strands of current-day evolutionary psychology (e.g., analyses of mate choice or of sex diVerences in social behavior). Both neuroscience and evolutionary psychology are valuable levels of analysis, but our focus is on the psychological level. Within that level the biological metaphor calls attention to the relation of all cognition and action to fundamental self-regulatory processes and to the demands of adaptive action. This is an evolutionary approach in a broad sense, the type of ‘‘evolutionary view of human cognition inextricably embedded in the social structural context in which it occurs’’ that Caporael (1997, p. 277) has advocated. A fuller understanding of both cognition and action will result when we integrate the implications of the biological approach and the inherently situated nature of social action, with the strengths of the sophisticated, process-oriented cognitive social psychological research tradition of the last couple of decades.

I. Cognition is for Action Cognitive scientist Stan Franklin concluded from his analysis of biological and artificial minds: ‘‘The overriding task of Mind is to produce the next action (minds are the control structures of autonomous agents)’’ (1995, p. xx). The first and primary principle of the socially situated cognition perspective is that cognition evolved for the control of adaptive action, not for its own sake. The fundamental evolutionary demands on cognition are the organism’s survival and reproduction, which (for humans) always take place in a social context (Caporael, 1997; Fiske, 1992; Simpson & Kenrick, 1997). In the situated cognition approach, intelligence is not identified with detached thought but with adaptively successful interaction with other agents and with the world. Mind is viewed in action-oriented terms, as

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containing ‘‘inner structures that act as operators upon the world via their role in determining actions’’ (Clark, 1997, p. 47). Theorists in this perspective vary in the extent to which they reject traditional conceptions from the computation approach, such as mental representations (Agre, 1997; Beer, 1995). Some follow Gibson (1966) in at least rhetorically denying that representations exist or are useful concepts for analyzing cognition (e.g., Brooks, 1986; Thelen & Smith, 1994). Others acknowledge the existence of representations but see them as diVering fundamentally from the text-like abstractions portrayed by classic cognitive science (e.g., Clark, 1997). In contrast, the information-processing perspective emphasizes cognition for its own sake, often losing sight of its links to action and its dynamic and adaptive functions. The prevailing implicit model is of cognition as reception: the person is treated as a passive observer of ongoing stimuli, much like a couch potato watching television. (This is certainly the mode in which participants are placed in most social cognition studies within social psychology.) Cognition becomes the construction and manipulation of inner representations, rather than real interaction with the world, conversation, and so forth. As an illustration of the close links between cognition and adaptive action, consider one of the early classic studies of neuroscience. In the 1950s, Warren McCulloch and his colleagues analyzed the information transmitted along the optic nerve from the frog’s eye to the brain (in McCulloch, 1988). What they found was not, as might have been expected, a topologically organized map of visual space, with diVerent nerve fibers responding to light impinging on diVerent retinal areas. Instead, certain neurons responded optimally to local convexities—to the light patterns produced by small objects on an underlying surface. Other neurons responded to a sudden overall dimming of the illumination. The researchers termed these types of fibers bug detectors and hawk detectors, respectively, labels that underline their action-oriented properties. Thus, very early in the visual system (in the retina itself ) the frog computes not just a maplike image of the surroundings that is neutral with respect to action, but specific aVordances for adaptive action—for extending the tongue to eat a bug or for jumping to escape a predator looming overhead.

A. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEME In many respects, social psychology has long accepted and built on the idea that cognition is for action in a social world. As a result, the field has developed several bodies of theory and research that illustrate the manner in

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which cognition is intrinsically shaped by demands for action (Fiske, 1992). We briefly describe this work under several headings: relations of motivation and cognition, the methods by which the demands of action shape cognition and perception, as well as mental representation, and findings illustrating the intimate connections between cognition and overt behavior. 1. Relations of Motivation and Emotion to Cognition If cognition is for action, then cognition, emotion, and motivation all are parts of an overall self-regulatory process. Despite the conventional opposition of ‘‘heart versus mind,’’ which can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy, an emotionless cognitive agent would be not smart and rational, but totally nonfunctional (Clark, 1997; Picard, 1997; Sloman, 1997). For example, patients with brain damage aVecting their emotional systems are drastically impaired in rational decision making (Damasio, 1994) despite verbal abilities and tested ‘‘intelligence’’ that remain relatively unimpaired. The social psychological literature contains many additional examples of the ways that motivation and aVect regulate cognition, including eVects of mood on memory and cognitive processing (Singer & Salovey, 1988). Emotion, cognition, and motivation are all equally functionally indispensable and inseparable parts of a self-regulatory system, subserving adaptive action. Specifically, there have been numerous empirical demonstrations of pervasive eVects of motivation on cognitive processes. The very definitions of traits, the basic concepts that make up our impressions of people and groups, are altered in self-serving ways by our own perceived standing on those traits (Dunning & Cohen, 1992). Impressions we form of close relationship partners are aVected by motives to perceive our relationships in a positive light (Murray et al., 2000). Stereotype activation or suppression may be governed by our wish to view a member of a stereotyped group in a positive or negative light (for example, because they have praised or criticized us; Sinclair & Kunda, 1999). Several other examples could equally well be cited (Brewer, 1991; Brewer & Harasty, 1996; Gollwitzer & Bargh, 1996; Higgins & Sorrentino, 1990; Sorrentino & Higgins, 1986). Summarizing all of this evidence into a set of coherent theoretical principles is still a work in progress. However, Kruglanski (1996) has argued that cognition and motivation are in large measure two aspects of the same thing, viewed through diVerent lenses and described in diVerent languages. Kruglanski outlines how motivational constructs are useful for understanding the initiation and termination of processing. For example, a person may rest content with a quick heuristic response that is self-enhancing or

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otherwise motivationally congenial, but continue with more extensive processing if the initial response appears less desirable. In other words, virtually all cognitive activity is performed (or not performed) for motivational reasons—little ‘‘motivation-free’’ cognition may exist. Within the course of processing, Kruglanski (1996) argues that motivational eVects operate at every stage, including information encoding, memory retrieval, information integration, and judgment formation. But conversely, not only does motivation aVect cognition; goals and motives themselves are mentally represented as knowledge structures and operate according to the basic principles of cognition (e.g., spread of activation, construct accessibility eVects from recent use). Thus, not only does cognition intrinsically have a motivational aspect, but motivation necessarily has a cognitive aspect (Kruglanski, 1996; Sorrentino & Higgins, 1986). 2. Pragmatic Concerns Involving Action Shape Perception and Cognition a. Social Perceivers are ‘‘Good enough’’. A prominent research tradition in the 1970s and 1980s emphasized the susceptibility of social perceivers to ‘‘errors and biases’’ (e.g., Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Current thinking is much diVerent, as Fiske (1992) has noted. We now consider social perceivers as strongly driven by pragmatic concerns, and as striving for and generally attaining suYcient accuracy to suit their everyday needs for adaptive action. For example, accuracy in perceiving others is generally found to be surprisingly high (Kenny & Albright, 1987), even when based on just a few minutes of data (Ambady et al., 2000; Krauss, Freyberg, & Morsella, 2002). Other researchers have noted that accuracy in perceiving others may not even be the most important goal in social interaction, compared to goals such as making the interaction proceed smoothly and predictably (e.g., Snyder & Cantor, 1998). Other aspects of social perception that were initially viewed as ‘‘biases,’’ such as greater sensitivity to negative information than to positive, are now also conceptualized as adaptive and pragmatically useful (Peeters, 1991; Skowronski & Carlston, 1989; Wentura et al., 2000). Even perceivers’ use of cognitive shortcuts and heuristics, once derided as lazy and errorprone, is now more often viewed as adaptive (e.g., Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989). In many ways, then, social perceivers can be viewed as functionally attuned to pragmatic concerns—to the demands of action—in the ways that they seek and process information. b. Time Pressures and Cognitive Processes. One of the main adaptive constraints on cognition is that we often must generate behavior under conditions of time pressure, when leisurely consideration is impossible. Carrying on a dyadic conversation, playing basketball, or participating in a group discussion are examples of social cognition under time pressure.

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Social psychologists have developed dual-process theories in many domains that assume that people possess a repertoire of simple processing short-cuts (‘‘heuristics’’) on which they can rely when the time or inclination for extensive processing is absent (see Smith & DeCoster, 2000 for a review). Theorists assume that in many real-life situations a good strategy is to trade oV some increased accuracy, which might be attained by extensive information gathering and eVortful consideration, for the sake of increased speed and eYciency (e.g., Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989). As attitude researchers have observed, if we stopped to carefully consider our attitude toward every product in a supermarket, a simple shopping trip would take days; this is a circumstance in which readily activated attitudes toward a limited number of products dramatically ease our task. These dual-process theories also emphasize another point: cognition is not always time pressured. Sometimes we can devote extensive consideration over hours, days, or weeks to developing a plan, elaborating an abstract idea, or making a decision. In fact, the ability to perform such detached or ‘‘oV-line’’ cognition may be one of the fundamental traits that sets human beings apart from other animals, whose cognition is probably much more tightly linked to current situations and tasks (Wilson, 2002). c. Action Relevance and Cognitive Style. Researchers, including Gollwitzer (1990, 1996), have found that the demands of a decision fundamentally aVect methods of processing information. For example, Gollwitzer (1990) has studied how people consider and weigh information about a decision they will make in the near future versus a decision made in the recent past. Prior to a decision, people adopt a ‘‘deliberative’’ mindset in which information is considered in a relatively open and unbiased fashion. Information seeking is a key goal. Once the decision is made, however, people switch to an ‘‘implemental’’ mindset in which information is processed with more biases (e.g., with an optimistic focus on the probability of the action’s success) and information seeking is considerably narrowed. Action relevance once again is found to aVect cognitive processes. d. Action Relevance and Person Perception. Consider a perceiver who receives information about another person or a social group in a context detached from action (because the others are fictitious, far away, long-dead historical characters, etc.). Now consider the perceiver receiving the same information about a person or group with whom he or she is about to meet and interact. What diVerences might this type of action relevance make in person perception processes? Neuberg and Fiske (1987) found that perceivers rely less on stereotypes and devote more eVort to forming individuated impressions when they expect to meet the target person. Similarly, Newtson and Enquist (1976) find that action relevance changes the way perceivers perceptually segment a videotaped behavioral sequence. And Carlston

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(1994), based on his AST model of person impressions, advanced hypotheses about the types of diVerences that action relevance (which he terms behavioral involvement) may create in impressions of others—producing relatively less emphasis on visual appearance and abstract trait information and more on aVective responses and concrete behaviors. Thus, in general, action relevance has a variety of eVects on person perception processes, all of which serve as reminders that, if perceiving is for doing, studies that put participants in a passive receptive or ‘‘TV-viewing’’ mode may not capture a full picture of social cognitive processes. e. Action Relevance and Memory. Even memory is profoundly aVected by action relevance. Two older but highly influential studies emphasize this point. Pichert and Anderson (1977) had people read a brief story about a walk through a house, from the perspective of either a prospective homebuyer or a prospective burglar. Some details in the story (e.g., a leaky roof ) were relevant to the homebuyer but not the burglar, and others (e.g., an expensive television) were relevant only to the burglar. When the participants recalled the story later, they were more likely to recall details that were relevant from their assigned perspective, in the sense of having some implications for future action. Zeigarnik (1927), in the early days of social psychology, conducted studies based on her observation that servers in a restaurant could often remember each diner’s order flawlessly until the party finished the meal and paid, but thereafter could not recall the slightest amount. Marsh, Hicks, and Bink (1998) have recently verified this finding with controlled experimental methods. The message of this work is that once information no longer has action relevance, it tends not to be remembered. f. Action Relevance and Communication. The SSC perspective holds that communication is action oriented, intended to accomplish something in the social world. This point is obvious considering many types of speech acts, such as requests, commands, persuasive attempts, or questions: the speaker is overtly trying to change the recipient’s beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. Although the goal is not always so overtly clear, other types of speech also have implications for social action. Conversations often involve the exchange of information that will facilitate adaptive action in future situations. Even idle gossip involves the sharing and reinforcing of group norms, and often functions to strengthen the social bond within an in-group or dyad that is sharing the gossip. Research shows that speech acts are geared toward the attainment of situated goals in cooperative or competitive relationships (Semin, de Montes, & Valencia, 2003). Findings regarding ‘‘audience design’’ (Krauss & Fussel, 1996) or message modulation (Semin et al., 2003) support the conception of communication as socially situated action. In this conception, pragmatics (rather than syntactic structure) becomes the central focus of

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concern with regard to language use. In contrast, the traditional perspective regards communication essentially as the neutral, unbiased translation or output of inner representations. The situated aspect of communication and its sensitivity to motivations, relationships, and other contextual influences are lost or deemphasized. (These issues will be reviewed more fully in the later section on cognition as distributed.) 3. Pragmatic Concerns and the Demands of Action Shape Mental Representation Because cognition is for the control of action, an agent must represent objects in the world in terms of their relations to the agent and their aVordances for action, not necessarily their ‘‘objective’’ qualities (Barsalou, 1999a; Gibson, 1966; Glenberg, 1997). Abstract, action-neutral representations simply describe a situation, leaving the implications for action implicit (‘‘Button A is connected to the switch that applies current to the motor;’’ a city map from the conventional overhead perspective). In contrast, actionoriented representations are exemplified by instructions or directions (‘‘Press button A to start the motor;’’ ‘‘go straight ahead three blocks then turn left.’’). As another example, a driver might construct and use a representation of ‘‘the car I am currently passing,’’ an example of the action-oriented or ‘‘deictic’’ representations that have been investigated by Clancey (1997a) and Agre and Chapman (1990). Deictic representations emphasize the object’s role in the agent’s current activity, and its features that are relevant to that activity, such as its relative position, speed, and so on, while neglecting specific individuating features (color, license plate number, etc.). Therefore deictic representations aVord a type of generalization or abstraction: ‘‘The car I am currently passing’’ will identify a diVerent car from one minute to the next. Deictic representations are not solely ‘‘in the head’’ but are patterns of interactive activity, including the agent and the external object. Perception of the object’s action-relevant qualities goes hand in hand with tuning the agent’s actual behavior to accomplish the current goal. Deictic representations are useful not for modeling the world but for letting the agent participate in the world (Chapman, 1991, p. 31). Connectionist networks are particularly well suited for learning and using deictic representations of this type (Chapman, 1991; Clark, 1997). Instead of constructing abstract inner representations of objects in the world, connectionist networks allow signals to flow through them, linking perception directly to adaptive action (Ballard et al., 1997). Action-oriented deictic representations contrast with traditional assumptions that representations are action neutral and identify specific individuated objects (that car is a blue Honda, license number 123ABC). The traditional perspective assumes that representations are abstract, static, and objective.

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The implicit model is textual representations (propositions) or equivalent symbolic structures (schemas, etc.). These descriptions are relatively ‘‘objective:’’ independent of the person’s viewpoint, current situation, and goals. Of course, people do seem to construct and use objective or action-neutral representations, at least at times. That is, one might be able to recall that the last car one passed was a blue Honda, despite the action-irrelevance of that information. The notion that cognition is for action does not require the extreme prediction that no action-irrelevant information is ever considered or represented (after all, it might become action-relevant in some unpredicted way in the future), only to the prediction that immediately action-relevant information is the most likely to be processed under normal circumstances. a. Attitudes. Attitudes have been considered perhaps the most characteristically social psychological concept (Allport, 1954). They have been conceptualized, however, perhaps too narrowly as purely mental representations. In reality attitudes are deictic representations. They capture relationships between the agent and the attitude object, which have implications for the way the agent perceives the object and acts toward it, as well as for the way the person thinks about it. Research shows, for example, that attitudes can be automatically activated to color perceptions and influence judgments and behaviors toward the objects (Fazio et al., 1986). Attitudes are a preeminent example of action-oriented representations, because they specify not just the nature of the object but how to behave toward it (e.g., whether to approach or avoid it). b. Person Impressions. Person impressions as well as attitudes are actionoriented representations, according to Carlston’s (1994) AST model. This model proposes that impressions of other people include several diVerent types of information that reflect contributions from four underlying representational systems: visual, verbal, aVective, and action. For example, an impression may include images of the person’s appearance (visual system) and traits believed to characterize the person (verbal system). Importantly, the impression also includes representations of the emotions felt toward the person (aVective system), and the perceiver’s own behaviors toward the person (action system), such as giving the person hugs or teasing him. Evidence of several types (reviewed in Carlston, 1994) supports the general postulates of the AST model, as well as the specific proposition that impressions contain aVective and behavioral responses. Thus, impressions are action-oriented representations. Impressions of others are also regulated by the type of relationships we have with them. We form impressions based not only on a target person’s characteristics, but also on the type of relationship we have with the person. Research supporting this point (e.g., Baldwin, 1992; Fiske et al., 1991; Holmes, 2000) suggests that relational interdependence and its action implications are integral to the way we represent people. For example, studies

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demonstrate that other people with whom one has the same type of relationship (as categorized by Fiske’s model, 1991) tend to be confused with each other. This pattern of confusions holds independent of the targets’ personal characteristics, such as age, race, or personality traits (Fiske & Haslam, 1996). The confusion data suggest, then, that we mentally represent others in terms of the types of relationships that we have with those people and therefore the types of actions that we perform toward them, such as communal sharing, market-oriented bargaining, and so forth. 4. Close Connections Between Cognition and Action Perceiving another person performing a behavior or having the concept of a behavior activated through priming methods leads to the actual performance of the behavior (Bargh et al., 1996; Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). In other words, representations of behaviors are action oriented in the sense that activating those representations—even in the course of perceiving another person or for similar extraneous reasons—tends to lead to the production of the behavior (Prinz, 1990). We use our bodies in the process of perceiving behaviors. Another aspect of the connection between cognition and action has been explored by researchers working with one of the most characteristic and important theories of social psychology, cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957). The insight from this theory is that the connection between cognition and behavior is bidirectional. For example, disliking a particular toy is likely to lead a child to decline to play with that toy. Dissonance researchers have shown, conversely, that when the child does not play with an available toy for other reasons, it tends to lead to dislike for the toy. Similarly, having a particular position on an issue is likely to incline people to write an essay advocating that viewpoint. Dissonance researchers find that when people write an essay advocating a position they do not favor, under the correct circumstances it leads them to adopt the corresponding attitude (see Cooper & Fazio, 1984 for a review). All these findings illustrate the same fundamental principle, that cognition and behavior are so closely tied that it is diYcult to change one without changing the other.

B. TAKING THE THEME FURTHER As illustrated by the areas of research just reviewed, social psychologists generally accept the core idea that cognition is for action. Yet they may not have thought through and accepted all the implications of that idea. Here are some areas where the SSC perspective suggests we might be more

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radical in rethinking basic assumptions, or more creative in exploring their implications. 1. Language Comprehension Social psychologists generally recognize that person perception or attitude formation is ultimately driven by action relevance. But what of seemingly more objective, neutral, and passive activities such as text comprehension? Barsalou (1999a) has argued that even text comprehension is best understood as a tool for adaptive situated action. He makes an evolutionary argument, that types of social organization that stress passive ‘‘archival storage’’ of texts (such as formal education) are extremely recent developments—in contrast to the use of language to coordinate various cooperative forms of social action. Thus, in evolutionarily relevant contexts, situated action is much more important than archival storage of verbal information (Barsalou, 1999a, p. 65). The claim that language comprehension is for situated action does not mean that language always describes situations that are immediately present. Using a hypothetical group of hunters as an example, Barsalou (1999a) describes several types of relationship between language and concrete situations. Language can describe an immediate situation (as when a group of hunters discuss a herd of antelope while viewing them), or an absent situation that had been perceived earlier. Language can describe a situation that is similar (although not identical) to one that the listener has experienced (as when a hunter who has seen other antelope herds is told about the herd sighted today), or a situation that has not been experienced as a whole but is made up of familiar components. Language can also refer to future events (e.g., a discussion of plans for tomorrow’s hunt among individuals who have previously experienced similar hunts or components from other types of hunts). The basic point is that even when language does not refer to an immediately present situation, its use may still be in the service of preparation for situated action. Note that, as Caporael (1997) has argued in her ‘‘core configurations’’ model, this type of language use presupposes not only the small face-to-face groups currently engaged in talking about specific action, but also larger groups or ‘‘macrodemes’’ (size of at least several hundred—for example, the population of a small village) that are suYciently large to stabilize and standardize language (Caporael, 1997, p. 286). Does this argument hold true only for hypothetical prehistoric hunting bands? Barsalou admits that no rigorous research exists to answer the question, but notes: ‘‘Over the course of writing this commentary . . . I have been informally observing the conversations around me. So, for example, I have recently heard discussions of good places to shop for fresh produce, good restaurants with short waits, where best to park on campus, how best

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to treat children with sinus infections, the best route for getting to work, neighborhoods where houses are still aVordable, how best to ensure that house remodelers finish on time, sports to watch during the NBA strike, and so on’’ (1999a, p. 68). Such conversations are generally for the support of situated action either in the immediate situation or a later one. One potential objection to this claim centers on the role of abstract concepts. When people discuss or think about truth, justice, or morality, are they still essentially geared toward eVective situated action? Although the point seems less clear than with concrete concepts that are more closely linked to immediate situations, the answer may still be ‘‘yes’’ (Barsalou, 1999b). Abstract concepts are equally important for situated action as are concrete concepts, even though they refer to diVerent aspects of situations. For example, the abstract property of ‘‘ownership’’ has major implications for what one can do with an object. LakoV and Johnson (1999) and Goldstone and Barsalou (1998) take this analysis further, showing how the most important abstract concepts are underlain by implicit metaphors based on perceptual-motor processes, the body, and situated action. Thus, it is at least arguable that everyday language comprehension can best be viewed as preparation for situated action, rather than for action-neutral ‘‘archival storage’’ (Barsalou, 1999a, but see Wilson, 2002). In line with this emphasis, Glenberg (1997; Glenberg & Robertson, 1999) has noted that much of the background knowledge on which text comprehension relies is experiential and perceptual, rather than itself being verbal and abstract. For social psychologists, one major implication of this line of thinking is methodological. When we give research participants textual materials, photographs, or other materials, we have to be aware of what types of action they anticipate as they process the information—we cannot assume that they simply strive to form representations that are as precise and accurate as possible given cognitive limitations. For example, participants will no doubt represent material diVerently if they think they will soon meet the people or groups described in the materials than if they do not anticipate a meeting, and will represent it diVerently if they expect a cooperative interaction with those persons than if they anticipate competition. Aspects of these predictions have been explored (e.g., Neuberg & Fiske, 1987), but the potential implications are far more general.

II. Cognition is Embodied The second major theme of socially situated cognition is that cognition is embodied, drawing on our physical bodies and particularly our sensorimotor capabilities as well as our brains. Our experiences of the world originate

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from bodily interactions. Thus, the evolved architectures of our body and brain constitute sources of regularity and constraint for cognition, aVect, motivation, and behavior. Embodied cognition is one of the central and converging issues of current interest in philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, robotics, and neuroscience (Almassy, Edelman, & Sporns, 1998; Ballard, Hayhoe, Pook, & Rao, 1997; Brooks, 1991; Clark, 1997, 1999b; Damasio, 1994; Glenberg, 1997; Goldstone & Barsalou, 1998; LakoV, 1987; LakoV & Johnson, 1999; Smith, Thelen, Titzer, & McLin, 1999; Varela, Thomson, & Rosch, 1991; Wilson, 2002). One aspect of embodiment is suggested by studies of how we perform natural tasks. Findings suggest that people routinely use bodily (sensorimotor) capabilities to support and enable cognition. For example, mental imagery draws on our sensory capabilities (Kosslyn, 1994), and is an important tool in many kinds of problem solving and text comprehension (Glenberg & Robertson, 1999; Johnson-Laird, 1983). Ballard et al. (1997) argue on the basis of their research that ‘‘at time scales of approximately one-third of a second, the momentary disposition of the body plays an essential role in the brain’s symbolic computations. The body’s movements at this time scale provide an essential link between processes underlying elemental perceptual events and those involved in symbol manipulation and the organization of complex behaviors’’ (p. 723). For example, eye movements can act as ‘‘pointers’’ in the computational sense, directing cognitive processes to analyze or act on specific objects and ignore others. This is not the classic type of ‘‘pointer’’ (an inner data structure), but a bodily action that simultaneously aVects perceptual processes. In this approach, cognition is treated as distributed across neural, bodily, and environmental features. Bodily movements, such as hand gestures, also play a role in cognitive processes including memory retrieval. For example, when people’s hand gestures are restricted, they are less able to retrieve words based on semantic cues or to recall earlier-presented words (Frick-Horbury, 2002; Frick-Horbury & Guttentag, 1998). Gestures appear to be used as a code that is represented with items in memory and can facilitate their retrieval. Another example of the embodiment principle comes from work on categorization—one of the fundamental enabling mechanisms of cognition. Recent work by Barsalou and colleagues (Barsalou, 1999b; Goldstone & Barsalou, 1998) has provided convincing evidence that categorization is grounded in perception, rather than being based on conceptual features that are abstracted from the concrete and perceptual. For example, perceptually driven impressions of similarity are key in many types of categorization, and perceptual features aVect performance even on many cognitive tasks that have no explicit perceptual components. In a diVerent way, Edelman’s (1987) work also underlines the importance of embodiment in the process

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of category learning. He argues that forming discrete object categories based on real sensory inputs (as opposed to abstract feature vectors used in models or simulations) is extraordinarily diYcult. Sensory inputs are continually changing due to distance, orientation, lighting conditions, the agent’s own movements, etc. Instead of the near-impossible task of mapping these sensory inputs to inner representations, categorization can best be considered as a problem of sensorimotor coordination (Edelman, 1987; Pfeifer & Scheier, 1997). The agent’s movements, instead of adding additional variation to sensory inputs, actually allow the formation of cross-modal associations (e.g., between an object’s visual appearance and its tactile qualities), which are at the heart of concept formation (Pfeifer & Scheier, 1997; Thelen & Smith, 1994). Thus, categorization depends on the embodiment of cognition (i.e., on sensorimotor capabilities). Damasio’s work (1994) makes a similar although perhaps broader point: that our cognitive abilities depend on bodily processes of emotion. Damasio (1994; see also Clancey, 1999) argues that emotions not only serve a directive function or ‘‘point us in the proper direction.’’ Instead, emotions actually organize the perception and categorization of objects. Emotion is ‘‘not just a response to objects, but an organizer playing a causal role in categorization of objects’’ (Clancey, 1999, p. 218). The emotional feelings that help us categorize objects and the concepts of those objects form and develop side by side, rather than concepts forming first and emotions being mere passive reactions. In contrast to the new picture of cognition as embodied, the traditional perspective identifies cognition with abstract, disembodied information processing. Perceptual and motor systems are seen as mere ‘‘transducers’’ converting between abstract, amodal inner symbols (the stuV of real ‘‘cognition’’) and the external world. The mind/body separation is taken to an extreme, as the role of bodily constraints and needs in shaping cognitive abilities and processes is essentially ignored.

A. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEME 1. Embodiment of Cognitive Processes a. Attitudes. Consistent with the embodiment assumption, recent work in social psychology (Neumann & Strack, 2000) underlines the close connections of attitudes to sensorimotor systems and therefore to our bodies. For instance, motor movements (isometric flexion and extension of the upper arm) have been shown to influence evaluative judgments

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(e.g., Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993). Similarly, horizontal or vertical head movements influence evaluations (Wells & Petty, 1980) and recognition performance (Fo¨rster & Strack, 1996). In all these cases, bodily movements associated with approach or approval (arm movements pulling something toward the person or nodding the head vertically) cause evaluations to be more positive, or facilitate recognition of evaluatively positive material. Conversely, movements associated with avoidance or disapproval (pushing something away from one or shaking the head horizontally) cause evaluations to be more negative, or facilitate recognition of negative material. Other studies (Neumann & Strack, 2000) present words on a computer screen overlaid on a background of a rotating spiral pattern. Rotation in one direction gives an appearance that one is moving toward the screen, while rotation in the other direction generates the appearance of moving away. When the screen appears to be moving toward one, positive words can be more quickly classified, and when the screen appears to be moving away, negative words are given faster responses. All of these findings suggest that evaluations are not just ‘‘in the head’’ but involve the perceiver’s whole body, being linked to movement toward or away from objects in a real physical sense. b. Stereotypes. Stereotypes of social groups are also, like attitudes, aVected by bodily states and processes. In an early study of this issue, Bodenhausen (1990) provided information about an Anglo or Hispanic individual who was accused of an assault to participants who were either ‘‘morning people’’ or ‘‘night people.’’ When tested at their nonoptimal time of day (e.g., in the morning for night people), the participants relied more on their ethnic stereotypes, judging that the Hispanic was more likely to have committed the crime. As we will describe later, other types of bodily states such as emotions and moods also influence stereotyping. c. Creative Thought. Friedman and Foerster (2000, 2002) show that approach and avoidance motor movements aVect the creativity of responses that people generate, indicating once again close connections between bodily movements and mental processes. 2. The Perception-Behavior Link Interest in the ‘‘ideomotor’’ or perception-behavior link has a long history in psychology, dating back to William James (1890). Some research (reviewed earlier) by Bargh et al. (1996) and Chartrand and Bargh (1999) shows that subtly activating a concept such as ‘‘polite’’ can actually influence people’s behavior in the direction of being more polite. The same conclusion is supported by studies of the so-called mirror neurons found in the motor cortex in monkeys (Rizzolatti & Arbib, 1998). These neurons are found to be

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active both when the monkey performs some specific action (e.g., scratching its head) and also when the monkey observes another performing the same action. This finding suggests that perception of others’ actions involves a motoric code, including at least some of the same components as actually performing the action. Perhaps the ‘‘ideomotor’’ eVects described by Chartrand and Bargh (1999) and others involve similar internal mechanisms, with embodied action being intertwined with perception from the very beginning. 3. AVect-Cognition Interfaces Social psychological researchers have identified a number of ways in which aVect (either general mood or specific emotions) influences cognition. Early work (as summarized, for example, by Isen, 1987) focused on mood and specifically on a positive/negative mood dichotomy. A number of simple bivariate relationships were identified, such as positive mood increasing creativity or negative mood increasing scrutiny of information. Later researchers, inevitably, identified moderators and boundary conditions for many of these eVects. We now know, for example, that mood can not only influence the amount of processing (e.g., through alterations in motivation or cognitive capacity) but also regulates processing in very fundamental ways. Considerable evidence supports the mood-as-information model of Schwarz and Clore (1996) and related proposals by Bless and others (Bless, 2000; Bless & Schwarz, 1999). In these models, positive mood is a signal that the situation is safe and that processing can rely on general rules based on repeated past experiences. In contrast, negative mood signals that a situation is problematic, implying a need for eVortful or vigilant processing of information (as conceptualized in the various dual-process models; see Smith & DeCoster, 2000). In these models, then, mood takes its place as an integral component of an overall regulatory system that governs many aspects of cognitive processing. Research interest in the eVects of specific emotions on cognition is more recent. Lerner and Keltner (2000), working from the perspective of appraisal/ emotion theory, find that when people experience a given emotion, they make judgments in line with the appraisals that are linked to that emotion. For example, an appraisal of uncertainty is part of the emotion of fear (compared to other negative emotions such as disappointment or anger) and so when people are experiencing fear, they judge events as more uncertain than when they are experiencing disappointment (Tiedens & Linton, 2001). This line of research and theory even suggests a reinterpretation of some of the work on mood and cognition, in that moods have often been induced through specific emotions (e.g., by having participants read stories, watch films, or recall

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autobiographical episodes that are either happy or sad). The specific appraisals associated with the happy or sad emotions, rather than the valence (positive or negative) of the resulting mood state, might thus be responsible for some or all of the cognitive processing changes identified by research (Tiedens & Linton, 2001). An additional and more general eVect of emotion on cognition has been identified by Niedenthal and her associates (1999). When people are in an emotional state, they categorize objects diVerently than they do in a neutral state. Specifically, the researchers present participants with three objects, such that one word (e.g., joke) is semantically related to a second (speech) and is related by emotional connotation to the third (sunbeam). Participants are asked to pick which of the latter two words is most similar to the first. In a neutral state people generally choose the semantically related word, but in an emotional state (whether sadness, happiness, or some other emotion) people see the emotionally related words as most similar. All of these types of research support the notion that emotion and aVect are closely and fundamentally interrelated with our cognitive processes, rather than constituting separable systems. This is what would be expected from a viewpoint that emphasizes cognition as an adaptive control mechanism for behavior (with emotions being part of the overall process) rather than one that views cognition as computation, disembodied and abstracted from the organism’s requirements for adaptive living. 4. Evolved Psychological Mechanisms The constraints of embodiment impact psychological processes in another way, which has been explored by evolutionary psychology theorists. The demands of social living pose certain recurrent problems (e.g., mate choice, child rearing, alliance formation). This fact sets the conditions for psychological mechanisms specific to these problems to evolve over time (Caporael, 1997; Simpson & Kenrick, 1997). Thus, evolutionary psychologists believe that specific aspects of our psychological makeup can be understood in terms of their adaptiveness in an evolutionary timeframe. For example, preferences for mating partners with smooth skin and symmetrical facial features are thought to have evolved because these are cues to relatively good genes and freedom from parasites and infections. Males’ preferences for younger females are believed to have evolved because youth is correlated with fertility. On a diVerent front, the fact that people have relative diYculty with certain logical problems (such as the Wason selection task) unless they are framed in terms of violations of social norms is argued to show that we have evolved psychological mechanisms specifically for detecting ‘‘cheaters’’ such as norm violators (Cosmides, 1989). Many of these claims are controversial, and

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critics note that the evolutionary explanations are not the only plausible accounts for the observations (Wood & Eagly, 2002). Still, the evolutionary story points out another very broad potential eVect of embodiment on psychology—through the evolution of specific psychological mechanisms that have over the millennia contributed to survival and reproduction. B. TAKING THE THEME FURTHER As just reviewed, social psychologists have devoted extensive research attention to two central issues of the embodiment of cognition: (1) the role of perceptual/motor systems (broadly related to approach and avoidance) in evaluations and (2) the interrelations of emotion and cognition. Although many issues remain to be explored within those domains, in this section we briefly mention other research directions related to embodiment that have scarcely been explored by social psychologists to date. 1. Role of Perceptual Attributes in Stereotyping Recent research by Livingston and Brewer (2002) and Blair et al. (2002) shows that stereotyping is aVected by continuously varying perceptual attributes (such as skin tone and facial features) as well as by a target’s category membership. Such findings falsify a model in which perceptual features are used only to access a social category (e.g., African-American or female), which in turn triggers the attribution of category-stereotypic characteristics. Instead, perceptually based processes aVect stereotyping beyond the eVects of category membership per se. Further investigation of this phenomenon might usefully apply the model developed by Barsalou and his associates (Barsalou, 1999b; Goldstone & Barsalou, 1998) regarding the important role of perception in all kinds of conceptual processing. 2. Role of Motor Movements in Perception and Cognition Two research reports from areas outside social psychology illustrate further directions for exploration of the role of motor processes in perception and cognition, even aside from the approach/avoidance dimension. Boroditsky and Ranscar (2002) noted that the abstract concept of time can be conceptualized with two diVerent embodied metaphors. A person can be thought of as moving forward through time, or as staying still while time moves toward the person. The investigators noted that a statement like ‘‘the meeting was moved forward one day’’ is ambiguous, with its interpretation depending on the current metaphor (is a planned Tuesday meeting that was ‘‘moved forward a day’’ now on Monday or on Wednesday?). In a series of

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studies, they demonstrate that people’s current bodily experience of space and movement (e.g., position in a cafeteria line, imminent departure on a journey) systematically aVects their conceptualization of time and hence their interpretation of the ambiguous statement. In a study by Bekkering and Neggers (2002), participants either pointed at or reached out to grasp target items defined by a conjunction of color and position among an array of distractor items. Because the grasping movement itself depends on position (whereas position is irrelevant to pointing), they predicted that participants would show more sensitivity to this attribute, indicated by fewer position errors in the grasping condition. Their predictions were confirmed. Color errors were equivalent between the conditions, as predicted, because color is relevant to neither pointing nor grasping. Thus, the type of action that is required for a target systematically tunes perceptual attention. Motor planning is intertwined with perception from the very beginning. These studies simply illustrate some of the ways in which bodily experiences and behaviors influence our perception and conceptualization— beyond the issues of evaluation (and related approach/avoidance actions) and emotion-cognition interactions that social psychologists have studied to date. It would not be surprising if the embodied nature of cognition showed itself in eVects of bodily movements and experiences on most or all of the types of behavior in which social psychologists are most centrally interested: in the ways we perceive other people, think about them, categorize them, feel attracted to them, form relationships with them, accept or resist influence from them, and so forth.

III. Cognition is Situated: Emergent from Interaction of Agent and Task and Social Environment Since the passing of behaviorism, psychology and the cognitive sciences generally have been dominated by mentalist assumptions (Agre, 1997; Clancey, 1997a). Researchers focus on understanding ‘‘high-level’’ processes such as memory, thought, and decision making rather than ‘‘peripheral’’ processes such as perception and motor action. Cognition is considered a form of symbolic computation, with inner processes operating on stored mental representations of knowledge about the self and the world. Mainstream approaches within social psychology have often shared these presuppositions. Thus, people’s thoughts and actions have been investigated as a function of their mental representations—their attitudes, impressions of other people and stereotypes of social groups, scripts and schemas, and so

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on. The processes that operate on these inner representations are also assumed to be inside the head—systematic or heuristic processing of persuasive messages, activation or suppression of stereotypes, attributional inferences, and so forth. Social psychology is centrally concerned with the eVects of the social environment on individual representations and processes, of course, but the environment has been conceptualized essentially as providing ‘‘inputs’’ to what remains very much an inner processing story. As Philip Agre has written, Mentalism provides a simple formula that gives plausible answers to all questions of psychological research: put it in the head. If agents need to think about the world, put analogs of the world in the head. If agents need to figure out what might happen, put simulations of the world in the head. The tacit policy of mentalism, in short, is to reproduce the entire world inside the head. The sophisticated structures and processes [assumed by the mentalist approach] are not geared to living in the world; they are geared to replacing it (1997, p. 51, italics in original).

As part of a rethinking of these standard mentalist assumptions, the SSC approach assumes that social cognition and social action take place within a socially meaningful environment. The defining features or aVordances (Gibson, 1966, 1979) of that environment are resources for, and constraints on, cognition. One implication of this point is that fine-grained interaction or coupling between the agent and the environment often obviates the need for detailed inner representations. The mentalist assumption is that we navigate through our social environment by drawing on inner representations such as scripts. We might be assumed to have scripts for eating in a restaurant or playing a baseball game, which specify what actions to perform in what sequence. Despite the familiarity and seemingly obvious intuitive validity of that claim (Schank & Abelson, 1977), a moment’s thought should make it clear that a script cannot possibly suYce to guide meaningful social behaviors. A meal cannot be successfully ordered without monitoring the waiter’s nonverbal signals (such as eye contact) that indicate appropriate conversational turns. Catching a fly ball cannot be done by following a generic ‘‘fielder’’ script, but only by monitoring the path of the ball as one runs to the spot where it can be caught. In other words, we certainly have conceptual knowledge about restaurant meals and baseball games, which we can draw on to comprehend simple story-like texts (which was actually the goal of Schank and Abelson’s [1977] original development of the script concept). But because of the inherently variable nature of the real social world, scripts or other inner representations can never suYce to direct appropriate and adaptive behavior. Behavior emerges from continual sensori-motor interaction with the world.

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Summarizing this point, William Clancey holds that Human behavior is situated because all processes of behaving, including speech, problem-solving, and physical skills, are generated on the spot, not by mechanical application of scripts or rules previously stored in the brain. Knowledge can be represented, but it cannot be exhaustively inventoried by statements of belief or scripts for behaving. Knowledge is a capacity to behave adaptively within an environment; it cannot be reduced to (replaced by) representations of behavior or the environment (1995, p. 229).

The socially situated cognition perspective requires a shift in theoretical focus: explanations of behavior cannot be based solely on the individual’s internal representations, but on the interaction of the individual with the social and physical situation. The idea that behavior flows from the inner states of the individual is deeply embedded in Western culture—not only in current theories of psychology. The image of the autonomous individual, who chooses action based on reasoning about his or her own preferences, attitudes, beliefs, and values, is very diYcult to discard for a number of reasons (Clark, 1999a, pp. 16–19; LakoV & Johnson, 1999, pp. 553–557). However, we must understand that ultimately this is a meta-theoretical assumption, not a scientific theory. If it is considered as the starting point for psychological theory, it has serious limitations. Simple examples suYce to illustrate what is meant by behavior arising from interaction. Mataric’s (1991) robot, Toto, provides an early and important example in the situated robotics movement (Brooks, 1991). Toto is a small mobile robot with a compass, sonar-based distance sensors, and wheels. Simple logic circuitry creates connections between the sonar sensors and wheel motors. As Toto moves, if the sensed distance to the nearest wall becomes too small, the motor speed changes so Toto veers farther away. Conversely, if too far from the wall the motor speed changes make Toto approach it. The resultant behavior is following the wall around the room, one or two feet away from it. Note that this behavior does not reflect only Toto’s internal mechanisms but also the typical properties of walls (vertically oriented, tall enough, good reflectors of sonar, etc.). Note also that Toto has no explicit inner representation of what a wall is, let alone an explicitly represented goal to follow walls. Rather, the behavior emerges from the interaction between Toto’s specific hard-wired proclivities and the physical properties of walls. No conceptual analysis of the behavior can reasonably give a more central role to the agent’s wiring than to the environmental properties (Agre & Chapman, 1990). In the situated cognition approach, the environment is a recipient of action as well as a supplier of inputs. In fact, a central insight of situated

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cognition is that actions change inputs. As Toto moves, the sensed distance to the wall changes. In a social interaction, a person’s conversational comments shape what the partner says next. The environment is not a passive source of ‘‘inputs’’ but is interactive and responsive to the agent’s actions, in a process of ‘‘continuous reciprocal causation’’ (Clark, 1997). As Maturana and Varela (1987, p. 169) note, if the nature of the organism-environment interaction diVers for diVerent activities, there is no fixed set of ‘‘inputs’’ and ‘‘outputs’’ that furnishes a useful description across the board. Thus, the theoretical focus must be on the interaction of agent and environment, rather than spotlighting the agent and especially his or her internal representations. This focus denies our natural tendency as observers to attribute behavior, especially goal-directed, adaptive behavior, to inner characteristics (plans, scripts, etc.) of the agent (Heider, 1958). These attributions are common even when the behavior actually emerges from interaction of the agent and the environment. Braitenberg (1984) has furnished compelling illustrations of this fact, by asking readers to imagine simple vehicles constructed of sensors and motors. For example, a vehicle with a light sensor controlling the speed of a motor will move quickly in the vicinity of bright light and slow down or stop in dark areas. Although the vehicle has no goals, emotions, or plans, observers are inclined to say that it ‘‘hates’’ light, ‘‘prefers’’ darkness, and ‘‘looks for’’ dark areas in which to ‘‘hide.’’ In fact, as far back as the 1940s, Heider and Simmel (1944) noted people’s tendencies to attribute goals and desires to even simple geometric shapes shown moving and interacting with each other. A. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEME 1. Communication as Socially Situated Action Currently in social psychology, and consistent with the situated cognition perspective, communication is conceptualized as social action and not as the mere transmission of information from a source to a recipient, like a fax machine. There is a long-standing research tradition in social psychology that has shown the adaptive responsiveness of communicative, cognitive, and evaluative processes to the situated properties of communication contexts (Higgins & Semin, 2001). As summarized below, this research supports four conclusions. First, communicators systematically take into account their audiences and formulate their messages by shaping them to the characteristics of their audience and their situation. The addressee is a full participant in how a message is shaped by the communicator (e.g., Krauss & Fussel, 1996; Zajonc, 1960) and

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how the message is delivered (i.e., speech accommodation theory, see Giles and Coupland, 1991). Second, audiences treat communication as social action and do not simply decode the information transmitted in a message. They take the communicator and his or her characteristics into account in deciding why and how a message is formulated. They assume that the communicator shaped the message for the purposes of the audience and adjust their judgments to what they assume the communicator’s true beliefs may be (see Higgins, 1992; Krauss and Fussell, 1996). A third line of research shows how communicators flexibly and strategically use language to influence an audience (e.g., Maass, 1999; Semin et al., 2003; Wigboldus, et al., 2000). The fourth line of research shows that audience responses can influence a communicator himself or herself. Throughout these diverse research lines, the adaptation of communicative acts to the characteristics of the audience, the communicator, and their respective goals is the main theme, attesting to the socially situated nature of human communication. a. Audience EVects on Communication. When people communicate they do not simply encode some information and then transmit it to a destination. Speakers take into account the social context of their communication when they are modulating a message (Semin, 2000b). The classic study demonstrating this was reported by Zajonc (1960) in what he termed the process of cognitive tuning in communication. This study showed that the communicative role (transmitter vs. recipient) and the purpose of the communication influenced both the perceiver’s cognitive representation and the nature of the communication, showing that both impression formation and message qualities were shaped by the communicative characteristics of the situation (see also Zajonc & Adelman, 1987). This theme is also found in the classic research on ‘‘saying is believing’’ initiated by Higgins and Rholes (1978). In these studies, speakers’ relationships were experimentally shaped to promote positive self-presentation or intimacy to a listener. Interdependence between communicator and recipient influenced not only the message people wrote, but also the communicator’s own beliefs. These and other studies (Higgins & McCann, 1984; Higgins, McCann & Fondacaro, 1982; McCann, Higgins, & Fondacaro, 1991) show that participants distort their messages in a way that is consistent with an audience’s attitudes. Thus, when another person is the topic of their message, speakers encode the same information about that target person diVerently depending on whether they think the audience likes or dislikes that person. Moreover, their impressions as measured at a later time are evaluatively consistent with the content of their message. Similarly, information that a speaker knows is shared with the audience influences what they include and exclude in their message. b. Contextual EVects on Message Interpretation. The subtlest of cues, if they provide information about a potential audience, can influence supposedly

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fundamental and automatic attribution processes, as Norenzayan and Schwarz (1999) have shown. They demonstrated the context sensitivity of the fundamental attribution error by using the subtlest of cues, namely a research letterhead that read either ‘‘Institute for Social Research’’ or ‘‘Institute of Personality Research.’’ Participants gave causal explanations for a mass murder based on a newspaper report. They used more situational explanations and fewer dispositional ones in the former case, whereas the ‘‘Personality’’ context resulted in more dispositional causes: a stronger fundamental attribution error. Norenzayan and Schwarz (1999) suggest that the subtle letterhead manipulation of the communicative context influenced participants’ perceptions of what is epistemically relevant to the researchers. Again, this study shows that processes considered to be as stable, fundamental, and context-free as the fundamental attribution error can be incredibly responsive to subtle aspects of social situations. c. Communicative Relevance Shapes Messages. Another set of studies show that the communicative relevance of a message contributes to the shape of what people say and think. An early example is a study by Carlsmith, Collins, and Helmreich (1966), which replicated and extended the classic Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) dissonance experiment. In the original experiment participants were paid $1 or $20 to inform a naive subject that a dull task that the participant had just performed was interesting and exciting. As is well known, when these participants are later asked to report how much they liked the dull tasks, participants who were paid $1 reported that they liked it more than those who were paid $20. Carlsmith et al. (1966) replicated this experiment, but asked half of the participants to write an anonymous essay (instead of informing a naive subject) describing the dull tasks as interesting. Only the experimenter would see this essay. While the original dissonance findings were replicated for participants asked to inform a naive subject, the anonymous essay condition yielded liking proportional to the financial incentive. ‘‘The response alternatives of the task-liking questions are associated with diVerentially evaluated situated identity attributions and subjects choose the most favorable one in each condition’’ (Alexander & Knight, 1971, p. 68). The situated responses when the audience is a naive subject versus an experimenter introduce diVerent communicative relevancies and consequently diVerent cognitive processes and responses to the ‘‘liking’’ variable. Research by Semin et al. (2003) contrasted the influence on a message of the communicative context with that of psychological processes (expectations). Earlier research (see Maass, 1999) on the Linguistic Intergroup Bias has shown that in intergroup contexts, the linguistic properties of messages vary systematically as a function of cognitive (expectations) or motivational processes (e.g., threat to ingroup identity). The research by Semin et al.

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(2003) showed that such systematic variations in the linguistic properties of messages only occur if participants expect that the message has a function (the addressee will actually read it). However, when the message has no communicative function, because participants are told nobody will read it, the message does not show any systematic variation in its linguistic properties. These results suggest that the bias is not due to context-free, automatic inner processes related to invariant linguistic expressions of diVerent types of knowledge. Instead, cognitive and motivational processes are strategic and responsive to social (i.e., communicative) contexts. d. Speaker Accommodation to Audiences. Several studies have shown that speakers adapt many verbal and nonverbal behaviors (e.g., linguistic, prosodic, nonvocal features including speech rate, pausal phenomena, phonological variants, smiling, gazing) to audience characteristics. For instance, Levin and Lin (1988) have shown how Watergate figure John Dean, when testifying before a U.S. Senate committee, adapted his median word frequency (a sign of formality) by converging to the median word frequency of the respective senators interviewing him. Similarly, Coupland (1984) showed how a travel agent converged phonologically to her individual clients, thus adapting to each client’s communicative behaviors. These types of convergence increase perceived attractiveness, perceived supportiveness, and interpersonal involvement (Giles et al., 1987). For instance, Buller and Anne (1988) showed that when slow and fastspeaking participants were addressed at their own rates, they judged such interviewers to be closer and more intimate. Similarly, Putnam and Street (1984) showed that speakers who converge toward their interviewers in terms of speech rate and response latency are reacted to favorably in terms of perceived social attractiveness. More recently, similar behavioral convergences have been observed under the new label of the ‘‘Chameleon eVect’’ (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999, see section above). The communication research has also found that in situations of intergroup conflict, speakers may adopt divergence strategies, accentuating diVerences in communicative behaviors between self (ingroup) and others (outgroup). These can take very diverse forms (see Coupland & Giles, 1991). For instance, Bourhis et al. (1979), in experimentally controlled neutral and ethnically threatening encounters, have shown that when an outgroup speaker was demeaning toward the ingroup and used a strong outgroup accent, it led to polarization of ratings of ethnic in- and outgroup identity (see also Bourhis & Giles, 1977). 2. Contextual Influences on the Self Social situations (including psychological experiments) are events in which people (participants and experimenters alike) convey a particular identity by their choice of actions (GoVman, 1959, 1961; Strauss, 1959). Such situated

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actions are determined by the demands of a social context, which confers a specific meaning to actions and constrains the way actions express the individual’s identity. Any social situation entails a range of possible identities. The functional role in which participants find themselves in an experimental (or other) context therefore shapes processes of socially situated cognition. ‘‘The social context of the situation establishes the relative salience of attribution dimensions for impression formation. This implies that the basic contours of a social situation can be described in terms of the configuration of situated identity dimensions that are important for shaping an actor’s image’’ (Alexander & Knight, 1971, p. 76). In line with these assumptions, McGuire, McGuire, and Cheever (1986, McGuire & McGuire, 1986) studied self-conceptualizations in contrasting social contexts (school and home) by examining the types of verbs that were used in the spontaneous (oral or written) self-descriptions provided by 7 to 17 year olds. Their analyses of the diVerent narratives led to the conclusion that ‘‘even so individualistic and intimate an aspect of social cognition as the phenomenal sense of self takes diVerent forms depending on whether it is evoked in the context of the family or of school, two major social worlds of childhood’’ (p. 260). For example, the findings showed that the sense of self is more passive in the family context and more dynamic or active in the school context. Furthermore, McGuire’s work shows that self-characteristics that are salient to a person are a function of the distinctiveness of this characteristic in a social context. Basically, this research shows that the types of categories (e.g., those relating to gender, ethnicity) that people deploy in spontaneous self-descriptions depend on the degree to which it is peculiar in one’s situated reference group. Thus, people are significantly more likely to mention their weight, their birthplace, their gender, or ethnic membership if they are heavier than the rest of your reference group, born in an exotic town, or are in a minority in their reference group regarding gender or ethnicity (e.g., McGuire & McGuire, 1980, 1981; McGuire, McGuire, Child, & Fujioka, 1978; McGuire & Padawer-Singer, 1976). Crocker et al. (1991, Experiment 2) showed the contextual sensitivity of self-esteem by creating a context in which participants who are generally known to be targets of prejudice (black students) received positive or negative feedback from an evaluator on essays they had written. They were much more likely to attribute the feedback (positive or negative) to prejudice when the evaluator could see them (thus identify that the source of the essay was a black person) but not when they could not see them. This pattern did not emerge for white participants, irrespective of whether the evaluator could or could not see them. The theme of the situated impact of feedback on self-esteem is also demonstrated in studies on the self-esteem of overweight women (e.g., Quinn & Crocker, 1999). They are shown to be highly

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susceptible to contextually activated (salient) ideologies. In other words, this research line by Crocker and colleagues suggests that the self-esteem of stigmatized individuals is a situated construction rather than an enduring individual facet (Crocker, 1999). Some social contexts are externally given (e.g., school vs. home contexts, situations entailing communication or no communication, subtle cues such as the letterhead on a questionnaire). Other social contexts are those we create by our own actions as we publicly structure situations. Thus, another way of looking at social context is by considering the impact that our own public behaviors, as self-generated social contexts, have on our evaluations of our selves. There is a substantial research literature showing that externally induced behaviors influence the self concept, suggesting an ‘‘internalization’’ of the overt behavior (e.g., Fazio, EVrein, & Falender, 1981; Jones, Rhodewalt, Berglas, & Skelton, 1981; Markus & Kunda, 1986; Rhodewalt & Agustsdottir, 1986). The prominent explanations for this eVect have invoked automatic, context-free cognitive processes, for instance that the self-concept changes ‘‘resulted from a change in the accessibility of particular self-conceptions’’ (Markus & Kunda, 1986, p. 865) that were activated by the self-presentation. Similarly, it has been argued that biased scanning, increasing the cognitive salience of specific traits, is responsible. However, in a series of studies, Tice (1992) showed that identical behaviors are much more likely to impact the self-concept when they are performed in an interpersonal context than when they are performed privately. Thus, when participants were asked to portray behaviors regardless of whether they possessed the trait, they internalized these traits when the self-presentations were highly identifiable but not when in relatively private conditions. This eVect was shown not only on self-report measures, but also behavioral ones. These and other studies (e.g., Schlenker, Dlugolecki, & Doherty, 1994) show how the eVect of behavior on self-evaluations depends on specific social contexts. The eVect cannot be attributed to context-free, automatic inner processes such as an increase in accessibility of traits related to the self-presentation. 3. Contextual Influences on Responses to Others Social contexts aVect not only the self-concept and self-esteem, but also responses to other people and social groups. In particular, social contexts that lead people to think of themselves as members of a particular social group (an in-group)—such as the presence of out-group members or a situation of intergroup conflict—have pervasive eVects (Turner et al., 1987). Fellow in-group members are liked, at an automatic or implicit level as well as on explicit self-report ratings (Mullen, Brown, & Smith, 1992;

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Perdue, Dovidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990), and as a consequence are treated favorably. In contrast, however, out-group members come to be seen as homogeneous (Linville et al., 1989) and are disliked and behaviorally discriminated against (Billig & Tajfel, 1963; Opotow, 1990). Thus, as shifting social circumstances—changing alliances, newly emerging intergroup conflicts—alter the salient lines of social categorization, entire configurations of judgments and behaviors toward other people will be likely to shift accordingly. Importantly, as a recent review by Blair (2002) has demonstrated, eVects of social contexts on responses to other people (including attitudes and stereotypes) extend to implicit measures (response times, priming tasks, IAT measures) as well as explicit (self-report) measures. Social contexts alter our perceptions and reactions to others even at automatic, nonconscious levels, not only in terms of the overt reports that we make. In addition to shared group memberships or group identification, other types of social contexts aVect people’s responses to others. Social power influences many types of processes, including communication (Giles & Wiemann, 1987) and stereotyping (Fiske, 1993); people in positions of power stereotype their subordinates to a greater extent than the reverse. In addition, interdependence, as in close relationships, aVects the ways people think about and evaluate their interdependent partners (Murray, Holmes, & GriYn, 1996; Murray et al., 2000). In all these ways, social psychologists have explored how the social ties and connections that link people aVect their thoughts, feelings, and evaluations. 4. Situations as Cues for Behaviors A powerful illustration of the role of the environment in driving action is provided by Gollwitzer (1999). These studies compare participants who form intentions to perform a specific action, either under instructions to think in particular about when and where the action will be done or without such instructions. For example, I might decide that on Election Day I will vote at the local fire station at 5 pm on my way home after work. Participants who form such specific situated intentions actually perform the planned behavior at remarkably higher levels than do participants who form the equivalent intention, but without reference to particular places or times. The diVerence is that the time and place—situational cues—can assist our memory and turn the behavior into more directly situated action, rather than leaving it to be driven only by relatively abstract inner plan representations. Clancey (1997a, pp. 97–100) analyzes computer interface designs in these terms, discussing the way that items on a screen (e.g., windows) can act as external reminders, or cues to intentions, facilitating the use of the computer system.

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5. Self-Attributions of Agency As sense-making and narrative-constructing creatures, we construct rationales and explanations for many things that we observe—especially those such as our own behaviors that is fundamentally important to us. When people introspect or reflect on their own behavior, they are often led to conclude that their inner representations and characteristics—their beliefs, goals, personality traits, values, and so on—are what cause them to behave in the ways that they do. These beliefs about the sources of our own behaviors are powerful and subjectively compelling. Yet, as we have just argued, the causes of behavior more frequently actually reside in the situation rather than within the person. How can we solve this puzzle? Social psychological research dating back to Festinger (1957) and Bem (1967) has demonstrated that our subjective experiences of our inner characteristics are often post-hoc rationalizations for our actions. That is, action comes first, and then through self-perception or dissonance processes, we infer corresponding inner characteristics such as traits, goals, or attitudes. Thus, the intuitive picture of a match between our internal states and our overt behaviors, which naturally seems like the strongest evidence that our behaviors were generated by those states, actually may not demand that conclusion at all (see Wegner & Wheatley, 1999). The observer-inferred (or self-inferred) traits, attitudes, or goals may seem to justify keeping the analytic focus on the individual. But the SSC perspective directs us to consider both the actual causation of the behavior, which may have been induced by specific though subtle environmental stimuli (e.g., Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), and the way the behavior leads to the post-hoc inference of corresponding traits.

6. What Aspects of Situations Matter? As stated previously, cognition and behavior are, from the SSC perspective, caused by social situations in interaction with properties of the person. But the term situation is infinitely extensible—what particular aspects of situations are crucial for human social behavior? Social psychologists have much to contribute to answering this question. First, social psychologists have identified a small number of basic social goals and motives (e.g., Stevens & Fiske, 1995) that structure adaptive behaviors in social situations. For example, people seek to maintain self-esteem, to build close bonds of connectedness with others, to predict and control their environment, and so on. Hence, aspects of situations that cue these goals or signal that one or more of the goals are relevant are expected to be particularly influential over thought and behavior. Second, social psychological

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research on personal relationships and group processes tells us about additional crucial situational factors. Personal relationships involve processes of commitment and interdependence (e.g., Agnew et al., 1998) and depend in important ways on the partners’ perceptions of each other (e.g., Murray et al., 2000). Group interaction depends on processes of conformity and norm formation (e.g., Sherif, 1936) and on social comparisons with relevant outgroups (e.g., Tajfel et al., 1971). Thus, these bodies of social psychological research translate rather directly into specific predictions about what aspects of situations will matter for social behavior. Cues about the relative status of an out-group, for example, can be expected to aVect people’s behaviors when in groups, whereas other aspects of a situation, such as the color of the walls, should not matter in general. In summary, the general thrust of many diverse studies is to show that environmental contexts—and particularly features of the communication context, including the relationship of the individual to partners, communicators, audiences, or fellow group members—are among the most important regulators of cognition and action. Human beings are capable of detached (‘‘oV-line,’’ nonsituated) cognition, contemplating situations that occurred long ago, imagining fictional or artistically constructed worlds, or planning for distant future events (Wilson, 2002). When we exercise these abilities, immediate social environments have less of a hold on our thinking (although we would not expect their eVects to totally vanish). In most everyday situations, socially situated action emerges from the interaction of the agent and the environment and demonstrates an exquisite sensitivity to the relational and motivational implications of the environment. These studies’ demonstrations of context sensitivity contradict the notion that mental processes, such as the fundamental attribution error or attitude change through dissonance reduction, are invariant properties of our perceptual or cognitive systems. Instead, these processes are found to depend on specific features of the social environment (Carlsmith et al., 1966; Norenzayan & Schwarz, 1999), suggesting that they emerge as a function of the relational and communicative context of action.

B. TAKING THE THEME FURTHER As the above review shows, social psychologists have developed several bodies of research and theory that are highly relevant to the assumptions of the situated cognition perspective. Yet in some ways, social psychology as a field has not fully adopted the assumptions of this emerging perspective. This section lists several ways in which some common assumptions demand rethinking.

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1. Conceptual Knowledge is Situation Specific If cognition and action depend on the details of specific situations, it follows that conceptual knowledge should not be represented in abstract, situationfree form but instead should be organized in terms of specific situations. This implies that conceptual knowledge takes diVerent forms in diVerent situations, consistent with the picture of situated cognition. Yeh and Barsalou (2000) have summarized a variety of evidence supporting this assumption. For example, people recall lists of words better in the same situation (e.g., the same physical room) in which they previously studied them than they do in diVerent situations. Words also can be recognized better when they are presented in the same sentence context at test as at study. People can verify that specific properties are true of an object or concept much faster when the properties are relevant to the situation in which the object is presented than in a situation that makes the property irrelevant. Yeh and Barsalou (2000) summarize these and other forms of evidence for the idea that the agent’s current situation activates related conceptual knowledge, at the same time as concepts activate related situational information. Active conceptual knowledge always takes situation-specific forms. The authors argue that these aspects of situated cognition are highly functional, on the basis that using situations during conceptual processing is likely to improve prediction of the environment. This is because concepts are likely to continue to be relevant in situations where they were relevant on past occasions. In contrast, social psychologists have often assumed that inner representations are abstract and context free—stored as prototypes, schemas, or rules, divorced from the specifics of the situations in which the knowledge was acquired and used.

2. Methodological Implication: Study How People Use Environments to Support Social Behavior Because the environment can be part of our cognitive processes, it is natural to assume that we learn to actively manage the environment to ease memory or processing loads. As Kirsh (1995) has described, we do exactly this. We remind ourselves to buy more laundry detergent by putting the empty detergent box near the door so we will notice it when we go out. We physically cover up or hide things that represent tasks that cannot be done yet, avoiding distraction. We leave tools and materials where we can readily find them again. We physically group together a number of similar small items (e.g., pencils and pens) rather than leaving them individually scattered about, so that they are more readily perceptually locatable and identifiable.

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All these and other tricks let us use our environment to oZoad memory (e.g., we do not have to recall information that is right in front of us) and choice (e.g., we do not have to decide what to do next if materials for the next task are right on top), saving cognitive resources. The SSC approach prompts seeking explanations of behavior in such interactions between an agent’s inner ‘‘machinery’’ and aspects of the environment. Research using this approach assumes that ‘‘machinery and dynamics [i.e., behavior patterns] constrain one another: only certain kinds of machinery can participate in given kinds of dynamics in a certain environment. For example, an agent that always puts its tools back where they belong may need simpler means of finding those tools than an agent that leaves them lying about’’ (Agre, 1997, p. 62). Given this conceptualization, the principle of ‘‘machinery parsimony’’ becomes a key methodological guideline: ‘‘postulate the simplest machinery that is consistent with the known dynamics’’ (p. 62). This principle leads directly to a research focus on the ways that environments provide useful resources (supports, scaVolding) that can simplify an agent’s tasks. ‘‘Far from the Cartesian ideal of detached contemplation, real agents lean on the world. The world is its own best representation and its own best simulation’’ (Clark, 1997, p. 63, italics in original). For example, social psychologists have often uncritically adopted the mentalist assumption that routine behaviors such as eating in a fast-food restaurant are driven by internal representations or ‘‘scripts’’ (Schank & Abelson, 1977). Considering the potential supports for behavior provided by the environment opens a profoundly diVerent alternative viewpoint. The next time you are in a fast-food restaurant, notice that there are signs saying ‘‘Order Here.’’ Lines of customers may be waiting to be served. The cashier will ask, ‘‘May I take your order?’’ and at a later time state, ‘‘That will be $3.47, please.’’ In other words, simple language skills and a few generalpurpose algorithms (stand at the end of a line; pay when asked for money) would suYce to guide one through the restaurant behavior. No overall script knowledge is necessary because of the plentiful environmental supports. Thus, one specific direction for research opened up by the socially situated cognition perspective is investigation of the ways social and physical environments support social behaviors that had been traditionally attributed to inner processes and representations. 3. Methodological Implication: Study Social Behavior in Context If human behavior is sensitive to social situations and contexts, it follows that the situation cannot be ignored when social behavior is being studied. Sometimes the social psychological laboratory is regarded as a sterile, virtually

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context-free setting for studying behavior, and thus superior to other more specific and limiting contexts (such as organizations or other field settings). In our view, this is a mistake. The laboratory is a social situation, and thus many aspects of it (such as the communicative relationships between experimenters and participants) aVect participants’ responses, just as they do in any social situation. As noted earlier, for example, the fundamental attribution error may be specific to contexts that suggest that the experimenter is interested in personal dispositions as potential attributional responses (Norenzayan & Schwarz, 1999; Schwarz, 1994, 2000). Theoretically informed assumptions about socially situated action invite us to rethink experimental contexts, the goals of participants in our experiments, and the stimulus materials we use. The true strength of the laboratory is not its supposed insulation of behavior from context eVects, but its flexibility in allowing experimenters to construct very diVerent types of contexts, suited to test diVerent types of theoretical hypotheses. But a methodological implication of this way of thinking is that laboratory researchers should be mindful of the contexts and situations they are creating. The social context of the psychological experiment was a major concern of the field once before, in the 1960s and early ’70s. The focus was on demonstrating the contribution of unintended factors such as ‘‘demand characteristics,’’ or participants’ understandings of the communicative and other goals of the researcher, to experimental outcomes (Orne, 1962; Rosenthal & Rosnow, 1969; inter alia). This entire debate addressed, in our terms, the socially situated nature of experimentation. The lack of understanding (at that time) of the socially situated nature of cognitive and behavioral processes made it possible for these sources of variance to remain unnoticed. Such factors include the types of demands that are conveyed implicitly to participants, the influence of experimenter’s expectancies on outcomes, and the participant’s role (e.g., of being a good ‘‘subject’’). There is another way in which contexts have been overlooked and neglected in our methodological practice. Self-report measures are a mainstay of social psychological research, and they often ignore context by asking people (for example) to report their attitudes toward various objects without any context being specified, or to report their standing on various broad personality traits or aVective states, again without context. Thus, a participant might be asked to indicate how favorably he or she evaluates Asians, or to state to what extent he or she is generally honest or happy. Although such measures are so often used and familiar that it may be diYcult to see the problem, in fact by failing to specify a context they require the participant to develop one on his or her own. Should Asians be evaluated in the context of competitors for a limited number of jobs, for example? However, self-report

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questionnaires need not ask general, context-free questions. We could ask participants specifically how they evaluate Asians as potential job competitors, how honest they are with close family members, or how happy they are when engaging in leisure activities. Or we could use experience-sampling methodology, beeping participants at selected times and asking them to report how happy they are at the moment, or how honest they were in their most recent social interaction. Or we could use scenario methodologies, describing specific situations and asking people to indicate how they would evaluate a social group member in that situation, or how honest or happy they would be. Such methodologies seem to be required to assess theories that emphasize the role of context in people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Reliance on general self-report questions that ask people to make summary judgments without specifying context does not simplify theory by ignoring an irrelevant but complicating factor. Rather, such reliance may complicate theory by introducing arbitrary variation as diVerent participants select diVerent contexts to anchor the questions and give them meaning, as well as by denying researchers the opportunity to systematically investigate the consequences of varying contexts on whatever is being measured.

IV. Cognition is Distributed Spatially and Temporally Across Tools, People, and Groups The fourth major theme of the SSC approach is that cognition is distributed. Cognition not only takes place within individual brains, but also makes use of tools and other artifacts, aspects of the environment, other people, and groups. Indeed, the social psychologist Thomas M. Ostrom argued in 1984 that all cognition is inherently social, thus challenging a purely individual-centered view of information processing. The evolution of human society in general and individual functioning in society cannot be understood properly unless we conceive of knowledge as a cumulative process that is distributed and preserved by diverse means. Such means include physical tools (such as compasses, hammers, and calculators), the structuring of the physical environment (road signs, the architecture of restaurants, and post oYces), and the distribution of knowledge across people and groups (car mechanics, navigators, programmers). Of course, for agents to be able to ‘‘lean on the world’’ (Clark, 1997), they must be able to access, coordinate, and synchronize distributed knowledge to solve specific problems. This means that agents have to have access to shared or common knowledge and to tools (e.g., language) that enable ‘‘social coupling’’

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(Semin, 2000a). This is not a mere passive uptake of knowledge but a twoway interaction, either between agents or between an agent and the physical environment or physical tools. These constitute some of the central themes addressed in this section. A paradigm example of distributed cognition is Hutchins’ (1995b) analysis of ‘‘how a cockpit remembers its speeds.’’ The cockpit is that of a commercial airliner, and the speeds that need to be remembered are those at which specific types of flight maneuvers can take place (e.g., flaps can be extended). The relevant memory system includes the pilot and copilot, who maintain a division of labor between them (one performing the demanding task of flying the airplane on a runway approach, the other calling out relevant speeds). The memory system goes beyond these two interacting individuals to include external mechanical memory aids as well, such as movable indicators (‘‘speed bugs’’) that mark specific zones on the face of an air-speed indicator on the control panel. Hutchins persuasively shows that all of these elements can be usefully analyzed as a single memory system—that the cockpit (not the pilot) remembers his speeds. The idea that cognitive processes such as memory can extend outside the head may seem odd if one holds to a definition of the ‘‘cognitive’’ that draws the line a priori and says that only brains can take part in cognitive processes. Yet such a definition is problematic. By focusing only on unaided brains (i.e., ruling out external artifacts like a calculator), it rules out language too—also an artifact. In fact, this definition of cognition is even more restrictive than a definition that equates cognition with information processing; certainly other things besides brains (e.g., calculators and computers) can process information. The situated cognition perspective does not state that brains are irrelevant, but holds that cognition as preparation for adaptive action emerges from the interaction of brains, bodies, and the world (Clark, 1999b). There are numerous examples of the way agents ‘‘lean on the world’’ to simplify their inner processing requirements. Most have been investigated by cognitive scientists and others outside of social psychology. These examples include the distribution of complex tasks across group members (Hutchins, 1995a), the fact that direct observation can often usefully replace complicated deductions (Brooks, 1991; Kirsch, 1995), the provision by cultures of linguistic and representational schemes that support complex forms of cognition (Latour, 1986), and the ways common artifacts (pencils, forks, scissors) provide readily perceptible cues to their functions (aVordances; see Agre, 1997, p. 225). In social psychology, study of the distributed nature of cognition has focused on how cognition extends outside the isolated individual and includes people or groups. Complementarily, there is a long-standing social psychological interest in the socially shared nature of knowledge. We turn first to these domains.

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A. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEME Social psychology has made substantial contributions toward understanding the socially distributed nature of knowledge, by elucidating how cognition is distributed over individuals and groups and how it is possible for people to lean on such social resources. Moreover, the issue of how distributed knowledge is accessed and used has also been a focus. Recent years have seen increasingly articulated social psychological analyses of what it means for cognition to be social, distributed, and shared (Caporael, 1997; Levine, Resnick, & Higgins, 1993; Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991; Schwartz, 1996) and what group cognition may entail (Kerr et al., 2000; Ruscher & Duval, 1998; Tindale & Kameda, 2000; see for a general review: Thompson & Fine, 1999). Some of these concerns have been of long-standing interest in social psychology. For instance, the issue of how socially shared reality emerges in social interaction has long been at the core of social psychology (e.g., Asch, 1955; Festinger, 1950; Sherif, 1936), continuing to today (e.g., Hardin & Higgins, 1996). There is a growing acknowledgement across these diverse theorists of the importance of understanding what it means for human interaction to form a common reality. Nevertheless, these approaches still remain ‘‘an orientation or perspective’’ (Thompson and Fine, 1999, p. 280) rather than an integrated theory with a body of systematic empirical results. Social psychological contributions cluster around two broad subjects: (1) that cognition is socially distributed and preserved and (2) that cognition is socially shared. These two subjects are complementary. Although it may be self-evident that knowledge is distributed, it is equally important to understand how distributed knowledge is coordinated and used. Knowledge distributed across multiple individuals has to be somehow synchronized or linked to be used. Socially shared cognition provides the means to couple distributed knowledge to implement situated action, such as the cooperative activities of a group of experts (e.g., a heart surgery team). The following sections presents these twin themes: the socially distributed nature of cognition and socially shared cognition. 1. Cognition is Socially Distributed and Preserved Many important tasks are diYcult, time consuming, or even impossible for unaided individuals. In such cases, we lean on knowledge that exceeds the capacities of the individual. This gives rise to a number of complex problems that we solve by means of distinctive tools (artifacts). For instance, we have compasses, computers, and calculators. As discussed later, these

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tools allow us to solve problems without having to fully apprehend the knowledge that has gone into their production. All we need to know is the causal relationship between the tool and the goal we wish to achieve. For tasks that exceed the capabilities of an individual, we can use the concerted action of a number of individuals—as in performing heart surgery or navigating a large vessel. In such instances, we lean on others to solve problems. The ways in which such tasks are performed show a number of distinctive characteristics. Obviously, complex tasks that supersede individual capabilities mean that each individual in such groups or teams possesses unique and specialized knowledge. We do not need to know anything about the specialized knowledge that the other members of the team possess. However, we need to coordinate this socially distributed knowledge to execute complex tasks eYciently and eVectively. Although each team member does not need to know the specialized knowledge that is distributed, it is essential for the execution of the task that each has shared knowledge by means of which it is possible to deploy specialized knowledge. Shared knowledge is therefore akin to knowing the causal relationship between a tool and the goal that has to be achieved by the use of that tool, rather than knowing the knowledge that has gone into the shaping of that tool. For instance, a heart surgery team consists of diverse experts (the surgeon, the anesthetist, etc.), each with his or her specialist and unshared knowledge bases relevant to the performance of the operation. Yet, the team also shares knowledge about their joint activity, as well as how to coordinate and synchronize such activity. Thus, while some knowledge is distributed across diverse individuals to constitute the scaVold for joint action, other types of knowledge (when to do what, the general purpose, etc.) must be shared to coordinate and synchronize the sequential execution of diverse tasks. Interpersonal communication is of the essence for a smooth and relatively flawless execution of joint action. Cooperating individuals must frequently exchange requests, instructions, corrections, and so on to ascertain that the activities are coordinated and matched. Thus communication provides the means by which the progress of the task and the coordination of actions are kept in constant check and the sharedness of joint reality monitored. A further feature of shared knowledge is time. Because the performance of shared tasks always has a sequentially organized structure, the coordination of the activities of a number of people takes place over a temporal horizon. One example of socially distributed cognition is carefully analyzed in Hutchins’ work (1995a) on a task that exceeds the capabilities of an individual: navigating a large Navy ship. The task is cyclical and involves processing complex, socially distributed information. It is performed by several individuals who play discrete roles (reading a timepiece, identifying a landmark, communicating a bearing, etc.) and using physical and computational tools

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(charts, protractors, compasses, etc.). The task is accomplished by a sequence of actions that occur as diVerent individuals coordinate their activities and draw on each other’s specialized information to establish knowledge that supersedes each individual’s unique knowledge. In all these cases (heart surgery or navigating a large vessel), the human organism interacts with external entities (other people or physical objects) to perform a task. If the task is a cognitive one (navigation, decision making, heart surgery), then we can say that cognitive processes ‘‘extend out beyond the individual’’ in the sense that the causal role played by aspects of the external environment are fully equal to the causal role played by the agent’s internal states and processes. ‘‘Remove the external component and the system’s behavioral competence will drop, just as it would if we removed part of its brain’’ (Clark & Chalmers, 1995, p. 4). The manner in which people provide external scaVolds for each other has been investigated in Wegner’s (1995) work on transactive memory systems. This work shows how memory becomes progressively specialized, socially shared, indexed, and complementary in interdependent groups. When interdependent individuals (e.g., a couple) communicate with each other and share information, they coordinate their respective memory expertise that gives rise to a qualitatively diVerent memory system. Individuals can refer to information stored by another person as a type of external memory. Put another way, the cognitive powers of the individual mind are enhanced by socially available and accessible scaVolds. One has access to the information available in another ‘‘system’’ (i.e., individual memory) by knowing that the other has the relevant item and by addressing that individual to retrieve it. Thus, this interdependent system is able to supply a more elaborate memory than that of any individual member (Wegner, 1995). Transactive memory is a system that is irreducible, operates at the group level, and depends on a distribution of specializations within this system, as in the case of partners (Wegner, 1995). Other social psychological research examining how distributed knowledge is used has been conducted with decision-making groups. This research has predominantly used groups of individuals who are not explicitly diVerentiated in terms of their knowledge or expertise. (It is important to note that this stands in contrast to the groups involved in navigating a large vessel or performing heart surgery, where individuals are socially diVerentiated and marked for their expert roles.) In undiVerentiated groups the coordination of available expertise (distributed knowledge) has been repeatedly shown not to be eYcient, due to a phenomenon known as the common knowledge eVect (Gigone & Hastie, 1993, 1997; Tindale & SheVey, 2002). These studies show that if an item of decision-making information is widely shared prior to group discussion, then this shared information has a greater impact on the

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group judgment. These and other types of studies show that under specific circumstances groups do not eVectively share all the information relevant to solving a problem (see also Stasser, 1992; 1999; Stasser & Stewart, 1992). 2. Socially Shared Nature of Cognition Deploying knowledge that is distributed across the members of a group or a team requires coordination or synchronization through ‘‘social coupling’’ in a two-way interaction (Semin, 2000a). Social coupling is achieved by means of communication, involving the use of diverse social conventions and in particular the use of language. Communication constitutes purposeful social interaction, takes place in a social context, and is regulated by social rules and conventions (e.g., regarding language use) that are deployed to establish a shared reality and to attain individual goals (e.g., Austin, 1962; Grice, 1975; Higgins, 1981, 1992; Krauss & Fussell, 1996; Searle, 1969). Synchronization between speaker and addressee requires conventions to regulate the sequential flow of conversation. Conversationalists concurrently access a set of tacit conventions or maxims. These maxims are derived from the unspoken principle of cooperation, by means of which intended meaning is achieved in communication (Grice, 1975, 1978). The roles of speaker and addressee reverse in a turn-taking process regulated by conversational conventions signaling turns (Sacks, SchegloV, & JeVerson, 1974). These are but some of the conventions that contribute to establishing socially shared meanings or realities. These conventions have evolved to regulate the speaker–addressee relationship. A substantial amount of social psychological research addresses how social coupling and shared reality are achieved. The synchronization of conversation between speaker and addressee involves monitoring the perspective of the addressee (e.g., Fussell & Krauss, 1989a,b, 1991; Krauss & Fussell, 1988; Shober, 1998), which influences how a message is shaped. Studies by Krauss and colleagues (e.g., Fussell & Krauss, 1989a,b) using a referential communication paradigm examine message design as a function of addressee characteristics. These types of studies illustrate how perspective taking influences the linguistic features of messages and how these in turn influence communicative accuracy. Considerable groundwork is necessary to achieve intersubjectivity (Rommetweit, 1974; Schu¨tz, 1962). One of the ways in which this is accomplished is by monitoring whether or not common ground is established with the addressee (e.g., Clark & Shober, 1992; Clark, Schreuder, & Buttrick, 1983). To this end a number of typically linguistic strategies are used to coordinate joint reference to objects and events in a communicative setting (e.g., Clark, 1992, 1996; Krauss & Fussell, 1996).

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Language is the main vehicle in the coordination and synchronization of two-way interaction. Language is distinctive in that it constitutes a stable type of knowledge that is shared by all to establish an intersubjective (Schu¨tz, 1962) or shared reality. Whereas meaning is initially unshared and subjective, word meanings, syntactic rules, and conversational conventions must be shared to create an ‘‘objective’’ or intersubjective reality (Rommetweit, 1974; Schu¨tz, 1962) without which communication could not be accomplished. In order to be able to communicate an intention, experience, idea, wish, or desire, I must access a medium that is ‘‘objective,’’ namely shared and detached from each and every person. In Vygotski’s terms: ‘‘In order to transmit some experience or content of consciousness to another person, there is no other path than to ascribe the content to a known class, to a known group of phenomena, and as we know this necessarily requires generalization. Thus, it turns out that social interaction necessarily presupposes generalization and the development of word meaning, i.e., generalization becomes possible with the development of social interaction’’ (Vygotski, 1956/1987, pp. 48–49). As a whole, communication involves drawing on shared resources thereby enabling the coordination and synchronization of those processes by which it is possible to share or pool knowledge distributed across members of a group or a team or to convey potentially novel and unique meanings (Semin, 1995, 1996). Finally, for recurrent social or task situations (e.g., navigating a large vessel or performing heart surgery) participants have a representation of the overall cycle of activities to be performed, including the respective distributed roles and temporal ordering constraints for role-related activities. Such generalized knowledge, which has a managerial function, does not require detailed knowledge possessed by the respective specialists in a team or group. We do not need to know the workings of the post oYce to use it eVectively to send a letter to its destination, and the post oYce does not need to know the specific purpose behind our letter. Nevertheless, our roles are coupled to achieve the aim of delivering the letter at the designated address by means of diverse environmental markers/devices (see next section for detail), such as post boxes in public places, our representation of the postal system and its general function, and so forth. Many important tasks also have external agents who maintain the representation of an overall cycle of activities. These agents (captains, managers) may have no specialized function within the task, but may be responsible for coordinating distributed knowledge by prompting individual actors when necessary to perform the right act at the right moment, and so forth. Thus, diverse means are available to coordinate cognition that is distributed across agents. These range from socially shared representations (Moscovici, 1984) of specific situations (e.g., navigating a large vessel) to socially designated

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roles for diverse agents, including that of a master of ceremonies (captain or manager) who oversees the coordination of the diverse situated actions. Finally, there is extensive corrective communication to steer the course of jointly created public knowledge in the right direction (Hutchins, 1995a).

B. TAKING THE THEME FURTHER Social psychological exploration of the socially distributed nature of cognition can be advanced by incorporating additional features of distributed cognition. Cognition makes use of tools and other aspects of the individual’s environment, aside from people and groups. Moreover, to lean on people and groups, tools (e.g., language) are also needed to coordinate and synchronize social interaction. Precisely how this is achieved has not been addressed extensively within social psychology. Despite the considerable interest in socially shared cognition (e.g., Resnick, Levine & Teasley, 1991) and shared realities (Hardin & Higgins, 1996; Higgins, 1992), the ways they are established and the purposes they serve is not addressed, nor is there any consideration of the use of tools (e.g., language) by means of which individual behaviors are coordinated and synchronized. This, in fact, is a general issue for this emerging field. For instance, Caporael (1997) notes that: ‘‘The role of artifacts in distributed cognition and shared reality has not received much attention in social psychology’’ (p. 290). As she further notes, ‘‘Hardin and Higgins (1996) made virtually no mention of the role of artifacts in constituting socially shared reality’’ (p. 290). As a conceptual approach to these issues, consider that tools, in A. Clark’s (1997) terms, provide scaVolds for cognitive activity. For instance, to multiply two five-digit numbers, which most of us would not be able to perform mentally, we use paper and pencil as tools. Such tools provide scaVolds by downloading knowledge and releasing cognitive space for the performance of other practical tasks (see also Vygotsky, 1978). ScaVolds can take diVerent forms. The availability of practical tools such as hammers, scissors, and drills, provide mechanical scaVolds to achieve solutions, which would otherwise be diYcult if not impossible (e.g., by using a stone instead of a hammer). Language as a tool fulfills the same function. Take, for instance, a task-oriented group, such as the crew of a ship (cf. Hutchins, 1995a). The synchronized and coordinated communication between the diVerent crew members is intended to structure collective action such that a constantly monitored and publicly shared cognitive state is achieved. The socially distributed knowledge between crew members in its public coordination, as well as physical tools such as charts and compasses, in which knowledge is literally embodied, become scaVolds for the successful navigation of a ship.

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Thus, when cognitive activities are distributed across space, but also in any simple communication, language becomes an indispensable resource to structure a recipient’s cognitive properties (Semin, 2000a). This section considers issues that remain wide open for social psychological investigation, regarding the nature and cognitive properties of tools and of language. 1. Properties of Tools Tools provide a clear illustration of the distributed nature of cognition. Tools include not only physical tools (like scissors or hammers) but also what we might call computational artifacts (computers, calculators, maps, and charts), and communicative tools (language, symbolic notation for music or math). What is the significance of tools, and the ways they ease and enable cognition, in the context of socially situated cognition? The evolution of human society as it is known today is based on the invention of tools that extend our sensorimotor and cognitive abilities (Preston, 1998). It is impossible to think of current human existence without the aid of tools. Tools are products of complex cognitive eVorts to find adaptive solutions to problems. They emerge historically as standardized solutions to recurring problems, such as driving a nail into hard material, navigating a vessel over open water, or transmitting ideas or requests to other people. Tools . . . are feats of centuries of engineering, (and) are not only the products of collective experience and knowledge, they also (preserve and) represent this knowledge. These special tools contained the distilled knowledge about the relation between a task and the best fit between a task or a goal and human propensities (e.g., physical propensities such as moments, handling, and vision. . . . Tools have properties that have been engineered to optimize their use in a variety of contexts or practical domains. For instance, in the case of hammers, the tool has a shaft and a peen, a hard, solid head at a right angle to the handle; depending on their functions, hammers can also display other properties. One such property is a claw on the head for extracting nails, which typically appears on carpenter’s hammers. A tool’s properties are distinct from its aVordances, the variety of things that one can do with it or its uses. (Semin, 1998, p. 230–231, emphasis in the original)

Tools embody solutions to problems in that their properties emerge adaptively for the specific problem at hand. Tools allow socially situated cognition to take place by delegating processing demands to external aids, scaVolds, and resources. Tools also preserve the functional knowledge that shapes their structure. Thus, while a solution means finding a means to unravel a problem, the means by which this is achieved is also preserved in the tools that are created for the solution. Thus, not only the architecture of

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our minds and bodies but also external resources or tools are used by and therefore constrain human cognition. 2. Coupling Humans and Tools All tools (language, symbolic notation for music or math, scissors, hammers, and pliers, etc.) are designed for the specific problem for which they have been developed. They are practical aids to solve recurrent situated problems. By definition, all types of situated action requires a two-way interface between human embodiment and the nature of the problem, whatever it may be (e.g., cutting a piece of paper neatly, driving a nail into a piece of wood, declaring a contract null and void). Thus, scissors, hammers, pliers, and language have particular forms and properties that emerge for the type of situated problem they have been designed to resolve. They are also adapted to the corresponding parts of the human body. Scissors provide an illustration of this dual adaptation (Clark, 1997; Semin, 2000b). One part of a pair of scissors is optimally suited to the particular anatomical and motoric makeup of the human hand. The other part is perfectly designed for cutting a sheet of paper neatly. The unique quality of such tools is their twoway adaptation. Tools are dually adapted to the constraints of embodiment and to the distinctive features of the object or problem. The dual adaptation principle, although perhaps more diYcult to visualize than with hardware tools, also applies to tools such as language and symbolic systems. For instance, some argue that the reliance in early Greece on the use of ordinary language and an algebra that used letter symbols to represent unknown quantities stunted algebraic development in that civilization (Seanger, 1997). Adaptation of Arabic numerals changed this. ‘‘EVective mathematical notation allows a maximum amount of information to be unambiguously displayed in foveal and parafoveal vision’’ (Seanger, 1997, p. 132). Similarly, musical notation underwent a major change in the eleventh century after its early emergence around the eighth and nineth centuries. ‘‘Neurophysiologically, both the new musical and new textual formats presupposed a broad eye-voice span and the extensive use of parafoveal vision in the left visual field to perceive the forms of melody, words, and word groupings’’ (in Seanger, 1997, p. 141). The shift from scriptura continua (continuous writing without any spacing) to the introduction of diVerential spacing between the letters in a word and between words during the Renaissance was a crucial technological innovation that was responsible for the emergence of silent reading (Saenger, 1997). This is another instance of how specific tools (writing) are gradually adapted to human processing constraints to facilitate rapid and silent reading, a prototypically cognitive skill.

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Because tools are the products of dual adaptation, they carry information about the types of constraints that are introduced by our brain-body makeup. Thus, the shape of a scissors handle is an adaptation to the particular grip that is the most eYcient way of distributing pressure by the hand. The particular spacing between letters in a word and between words is informative of the facilitatory link between perceptual processing, reading, and text comprehension. As these examples illustrate, systematic examinations of tool properties can be informative about both psychological and task constraints that have contributed to the shape of the tools in the first place. Moreover, understanding the properties of tools is also highly informative about how the agent is coupled to the problem or task, because the choice of tool is indicative of the type of relationship or interdependence between agent and task. These relationships point to entire research agendas for social psychology. As one example of this type of analysis, research on the linguistic intergroup bias (Douglas & Sutton, 2003; Semin et al., 2003) demonstrates that people’s choice of linguistic forms (as a tool) reflects specific cognitive and motivational processes such as intergroup relations. 3. No Expertise Required for Preserved Knowledge As users of tools, we do not need to know anything about the knowledge that has gone into the production of the tool. All we need to know is the causal relationship between the tool and the goal we want to achieve. If we want to communicate with a long-lost friend, all we have to do is write a letter and deliver the duly stamped envelope in a mailbox, which will take it to its destination. We do not have to know the machinations of the postal system or the particular person(s) who will be handling our letter. Alternatively, an e-mail is enough. We do not have to know anything about the machinations of our computer or the Internet. Similarly, we do not have to reinvent a hammer or a pair of scissors, or language, syntax, and semantics. In other words, the complex cognitive and practical knowledge that has gone into the production of the tool is downloaded into the tool. The significance of this conclusion is that considerable cognitive load can be avoided or delegated to external devices that are manageable with minimal manipulative skills. At the same time, the very fact that such downloading takes place changes human mental processes. As Vygotsky has argued, the development of such tools changes the structure of social events. ‘‘It does this by determining the structure of a new instrumental act just as a technical tool alters the process of natural adaptation by determining the form of labor operations’’ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 24).

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4. Methodological Corollary: Understand the Properties of Tools Since tools are used to aid cognition, their properties also constrain and influence cognition. This becomes a key methodological point from the SSC perspective. The primary tool from this viewpoint is, of course, language. Two aspects of language in particular have a great impact on situated cognition: properties of linguistic representations in themselves, and the general conventions of communication. The SSC perspective holds that cognition is distributed across inner mental processes, the tools by which cognition is implemented (e.g., language), and the environment as a scaVold (e.g., as a memory aid). Therefore properties of those tools may contribute to regularities in observed behavior—regularities that may be mistakenly attributed solely to inner processes. As a central example, the widespread use of textual stimuli for psychological research means that we are perpetually in danger of having our studies identify properties of text and mistakenly interpreting those as properties of mental representations and psychological processes. A typical illustration of this is found in the social psychological research on the causality implicit in interpersonal verbs (Brown & Fish, 1983). The general phenomenon is the following. Take two sentences, which vary only in terms of the verb—namely, ‘‘John helped David because he is kind’’ and ‘‘John likes David because he is nice.’’ The general finding is that the types of verb systematically disambiguate the ambiguous personal pronoun ‘‘he’’ to either the sentence subject (John in sentence 1) or to David (in sentence 2). A large body of social psychological literature (see Semin, 1998, 2001 for reviews) has treated this as a phenomenon that has to be explained in terms of cognitive processes. The simple fact that this phenomenon is a particular cognitive property of interpersonal verbs rather than a specific cognitive process is a much more parsimonious and situated explanation. Conceptually, this explanation implies treating language as a tool with specific properties that is used as a structuring resource for communication purposes, rather than treating language and language-driven processes as purely intraindividual phenomena (Semin, 2000b). In this situated perspective the choice of a particular verb over another becomes informative about how a speaker intends to structure the representation of an event and its reception by a listener. Another example showing that the properties of language can be mistaken for properties of psychological processes is found in a replication of Asch’s classic impression formation studies (1946). Semin (1989) used a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms to compute the semantic overlap between the diVerent stimulus sets (including warm, cold, polite, blunt) and the response scales used by participants in the studies. By developing an index of the strength of semantic associations between the composite stimulus sets and

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the response items, Semin was able to show that the distinctive patterns obtained in actual Asch data could be replicated simply by using a dictionary and no subjects. There was a 90% overlap between the dictionary-derived index and the Asch data. This finding suggests that our studies are often examining regularities of the types of tools that we use, particularly language, rather than regularities related to psychological processes. To put it bluntly, as Clancey (1997a) did: If you give research participants textual stimuli, you should be prepared to find results that suggest they have texts inside their minds. 5. Language as a Tool Social psychologists might profitably undertake a more systematic examination of the properties of tools or artifacts and the role these tools (language, inter alia) play in the creation of intersubjective reality. Some of the issues raised include examining more specifically collectively shared constructs, such as collective identity or shared world views, that organize (and are organized by) lower-level activity (Caporael, 1997). The social nature of cognition is probably most evident when we use such external resources such as collectively shared constructs, but the point is equally valid when such social structures have been internalized (Vygotsky, 1986). These considerations are very akin to thinking about syntax and language use. Examined more deeply, any use of language has two aspects. One is the communication of meaning and the other is a structure that carries this meaning. Whereas the former is subjective, the latter is intersubjective—for example, in order to be able to convey meaning that is initially unshared or subjective, word meanings, syntactic rules, and the like must be shared. Language use then amounts to drawing on shared structure to convey a potentially novel and unique meaning. Language use not only transmits meaning, but in addition reproduces and reinforces the structure (syntax and semantics). The same structure can carry a whole host of communicative contents for a great variety of actors. Although the structure is determinate in terms of its properties (specified by semantic and syntactic rules), its aVordances and potential uses are indeterminate (Semin, 1998). The analogy here is between language and speech on the one hand and tool and tool use on the other (Semin, 1996). The tool metaphor in itself is not new (see Vygotski, 1978; Wertsch, 1998), nor is the distinction between language and speech (deSaussure, Mead, Riceour, inter alia). What is new in our proposal is that each and every human communication has two interrelated fundamental features, namely (1) the reproduction of a structure, without which (2) meaning could not be conveyed (Giddens, 1976). Where the tool and tool use analogy falls

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short (in particular in the writings of people from the sociocultural school, e.g., Wertsch, 1998) is that while literal tools have a real existence independent of their use, the tools of communication (language) do not have an existence independent of communication. They are reproduced in communication. In terms of social behavior, the fact that I utter a sentence in English contributes to the reproduction of English as a language. This, as Giddens notes (1979), is the unintended consequence of uttering that sentence. Language is the prime example of a social resource that structures, shapes, and regulates our internal processing. For instance, children ‘‘talk’’ to themselves silently or aloud in ways that improve their self-regulatory abilities and task performance (Clark, 1997). From time to time we all subvocally rehearse verbal self-instructions as we perform tasks that are not yet well learned. ‘‘Public speech, inner rehearsal, and the use of written and online texts are all potent tools that reconfigure the shape of computational space. Again and again we trade culturally achieved representation against individual computation. Again and again we use words to focus, clarify, transform, oZoad, and control our own thinkings. Thus understood, language is not the mere imperfect mirror of our intuitive knowledge. Rather, it is part and parcel of the mechanism of reason itself’’ (Clark, 1997, p. 207). Language is fundamental to social influence. 6. Reconceptualization of Role of Culture The SSC approach also oVers a principled understanding of the nature of culture and its relations to cognition, an increasingly important area of social psychology (Schwarz, 2000). Culture is not just a body of knowledge that is represented in the environment and learned by an individual. Rather, culture is a body of practices. ‘‘The idea that knowledge is a possession of an individual person is as limited as the idea that culture is going to the opera. Culture is pervasive; we are participating in a culture and shaping it by everything we do . . . Knowledge is pervasive in all our capabilities to participate in our society; it is not merely beliefs and theories describing what we do’’ (Clancey, 1997b, p. 271). This perspective puts culture in its true role as one of the central constraints on situated and adaptive action— and hence gives it a central place in socially situated cognition. An important defining feature of culture is given by tools and their use. Of course, tools, broadly speaking, are the distinctive feature of humans beings as a species. Importantly, tools carry cultural information and shape the historical and cultural range of things that are possible in socially situated cognition and action. As Tomasello and Rakoczy (2003) note: ‘‘. . . such things like languages, symbolic mathematics, and complex social institutions are not individual inventions arising out of humans’ extraordinary individual

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brainpower, but rather they are collective cultural products created by many diVerent individuals and groups of individuals over historical time’’ (p. 121). It is therefore not surprising that cognition is historically, socially, and culturally contextualized in its situated expression. This view is shared in a number of converging schools of thought (e.g., Cole, 1996; Tomasello, 2000; Wertsch, 1998), which owe their intellectual heritage to Vygotsky (1962/ 1986). To the extent that all action takes place by means of tools that mediate between people, all action is culturally and historically situated. Reversing this line of thought suggests that a proper analysis of tools and their use can provide insights into culture (e.g., Semin & Rubini, 1990; Semin, Go¨rts, Nandram, & Semin-Goossens, 2002). The SSC approach also leads to entirely diVerent ways of conceptualizing and investigating the age-old problem of the relationship between language and thought and consequently on the influence of cultural diVerences in lexical and grammatical categories. The classic example is the following question. If two cultures linguistically code the color spectrum diVerently, do they then perceive and represent colors incommensurably? The classic take on this problem has been an individual-centered one (e.g., Hardin & Banaji, 1993; HoVman, Lau, & Johnson, 1986; Hunt & Agnoli, 1991). In contrast, a SSC approach to this problem treats lexical and grammatical categories as resources (tools) in a social context. When language is considered as a tool for action, it becomes a structuring resource for communication purposes. This changes the nature of the problem regarding the language-cognition interface dramatically, into one concerning how speakers’ language use influences listeners’ representation of some reality. Language and its use are always intended to influence thought. But the classic individual-centered representational conceptualization of the problem uses a specific methodological angle in which participants are always put into the listeners’ role (and not speakers). Methodologically, both the speaker and listener perspectives need to be taken into account if we are to understand the relationship between language and cognition by highlighting the eVects of motivated communication as a structuring resource. As a methodological corollary, one should seek cultural diVerences in situated practices, not in mental contents. The implication of this view of culture is that cultural diVerences are in the first place diVerences in repertoires of socially situated action, rather than just diVerences in inner representations. Such an emphasis is clear in the recent work by Hong et al. (2000) on their ‘‘dynamic constructivist’’ approach to culture, which argues that thinking and acting as a member of a given culture is a state rather than a stable trait. And the state is readily aVected by the situation. One of the authors of that paper who is Spanish but currently resides in the United States, ‘‘often surrounds herself with Spanish music, food, and paintings to

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keep alive her Spanish ways of thinking and feeling’’ (2000, p. 718). Michael Tomasello expresses a similar conclusion: ‘‘In cultural learning young children learn to use the tools, artifacts, symbols, and other cognitive amplifiers of their culture’’ (2000, p. 357). In other words, the focus of research on cultural diVerences should broaden from diVerences in mental contents to diVerences in cultural practices as well as the tools (including symbolic tools such as language) aVorded by diverse cultures. Like all tools, culture represents a set of two-way adaptations that both reflect and influence cognition.

V. Summary This chapter has described four basic themes of the socially situated cognition approach, which we have argued are equally basic to social psychology’s unique conceptual focus as a field. To a large extent, social psychology recognizes that cognition—including the formation of attitudes, stereotypes, person impressions, and other inner representations—is essentially for action. Our field has recognized the importance of embodiment, the role of bodily states (such as emotion and motivation) in cognition and the reciprocal influences between bodily movements and judgments (as when putting on a facial expression resembling a smile causes people to judge that cartoons are especially funny). The situated nature of cognition is also a major theme of social psychology; Asch, Sherif, Milgram, and other researchers intuitively grasped the power of social situations to control action, generating behavior that would not have been predicted from an abstracted (nonsituated) inventory of their participants’ beliefs, values, and attitudes. Finally, the distributed nature of cognition, and the importance of shared reality when people interact in dyads, groups, or larger cultural communities, is also a significant area of ongoing social psychological investigation. However, despite its general compatibility with social psychological theories and perspectives, the SSC perspective calls for some shifts of conceptual focus and of research methodology for our field. Social psychology has not yet fully appreciated the implications of the shift from computation to biology as a metaphor and framework for understanding cognition (Barsalou, 1999a, p. 77; Caporael, 1997; Fiske, 1992). Psychologists implicitly adopt a computational perspective when they try to explain social behavior (or any other kind) solely on the basis of the agent’s inner representations, processes, beliefs, and goals, through the conceptual lens of information processing. As an alternative, the biological perspective carries the insight that cognition is for action, and that embodiment and the situated nature of adaptive action are crucial constraints. We have noted ways that the four themes of action–orientation,

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embodiment, situatedness, and distributed cognition–suggest further areas for conceptual and empirical exploration, areas that are intrinsically social psychological in terms of the definition of our field but that we have barely begun to explore. These explorations are important, for as we have implied, the field of social psychology can almost be defined as the study of socially situated cognition. Or, in other words, the socially situated cognition perspective selects social psychology as the central standpoint from which the entire body of the cognitive sciences makes conceptual sense. Most if not all of human cognition is social, for we are intrinsically interdependent agents, who rely on other people, use tools such as language, and make use of cognitive abilities shaped through evolution in social contexts (Caporael, 1997). As Clancey (1997a, p. 366) stated, the ‘‘overarching content of thought is not scientific models [descriptions, symbolic representations of states of the world], but coordination of an identity’’ in a social context. Although social psychologists have already investigated much of this territory, we have done so without an overall map. The socially situated cognition perspective can put these seemingly disparate areas of study into conceptual relationship to each other. The approach will also help researchers in adjoining areas—cognitive scientists, cognitive and developmental psychologists, and the like—understand why social psychology is important, even central to the analysis of all human behavior.

Acknowledgments Supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, No. K02 MH01178; from the National Science Foundation, No. 0091807-BCS; and from the Free University Amsterdam and NWO (Dutch Science Foundation), No. 575-31-008. We thank to Chris Agnew, Ximena Arriaga, Robert Krauss, Diane Mackie, and Laura Sweeney for extensive comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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SOCIAL AXIOMS: A MODEL FOR SOCIAL BELIEFS IN MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Kwok Leung Michael Harris Bond

A five-factor structure of general beliefs or social axioms was established in five cultures by Leung et al. (2002). This chapter describes a global research program designed to evaluate the universality and meaning of this structure. Student data from 40 cultures and adult data from 13 cultures were collected, with both types of data providing strong support for the generality of this five-factor structure. Specifically, social cynicism indicates the extent to which actors expect positive versus negative outcomes from their engagements with life, especially with more powerful others. Social complexity indicates an actor’s judgments about the variability of individual behavior and the number of influences involved in determining social outcomes, both issues reflecting a complex theory of social causation. Reward for application indicates how strongly a person believes that challenges and diYculties will succumb to persistent inputs, such as relevant knowledge, exertion of eVort, or careful planning. Religiosity indicates an assessment about the positive, personal, and social consequences of religious practice, along with the belief in the existence of a supreme being. Fate control indicates the degree to which important outcomes in life are believed to be fated, but are predictable and alterable. The validity and usefulness of this structure are established by correlating citizen profiles across these dimensions for each cultural group with societal characteristics. Furthermore, within-culture and cross-cultural studies are reviewed to support the meanings of these axioms. Theoretical implications of our findings and directions for future research are discussed.

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Man, biologically denied the ordering mechanisms with which the other animals are endowed, is compelled to impose his own order upon experience. —Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion

Each of us confronts a material, a social, and a spiritual universe that must be structured so that we can negotiate our way through the maze of life. This structuring involves prioritizing our goals for the various types of situation we confront and then using our received and achieved knowledge to realize our goals. Through a lifetime of transactions with our world, we develop a blueprint for action or inaction at this interface. The valuational component of this interface has been well studied by social and personality psychologists (e.g., Rokeach, 1973). This work has been leavened culturally by social scientists who have attempted to incorporate culturally distinctive values into their measurements (e.g., Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961), establish the metric equivalence of their value constructs for persons in many cultural groups (e.g., Schwartz, 1992), and then administer their measures to equivalent samples from a variety of cultures (e.g., Bond, 1988). The result of these labors has been a mapping of the value universe, enabling comparisons to be made in the value profile of representative persons socialized into diVerent cultural traditions (e.g., Echter et al., 1998). The best-known research program on values around the globe is probably the work of Schwartz (1992), who used theoretical considerations and the measures they suggested to discover a pan-cultural typology of values. Given that the value constructs used were comprehensive and meaningful for all these persons, cross-cultural studies could then be conducted to link these value constructs to social behavior. DiVerences in the behavioral profile of persons from these diVerent cultural groups could then sometimes be unpackaged (Bond, 1998) by using the diVerent strengths of these value constructs across cultural groups to explain diVerences in behavioral intensions and actual behaviors across these cultural groups (e.g., Bond, Leung, & Schwartz, 1992; Sagiv & Schwartz, 1995). Or sometimes not. Ip and Bond (1995) found that diVerences between Hong Kong Chinese and Americans in their use of self-descriptive categories, such as traits or social roles, were unrelated to any of Schwartz’s (1992) domains of value, either within or across cultural groups. Values did not unpackage category use in this case. Whenever we fail to unpackage diVerences in outcomes across cultures by using a psychological construct, a variety of possibilities suggest themselves. For instance, the behavioral outcome in question may be normatively constrained in one or more of

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the cultural groups and not be controlled by an internal, psychological mediator, like values (Smith & Bond, 2004). Another possibility, which is more relevant to this chapter, is that other types of psychological construct may be driving the behavioral outcome within the cultural groups, such as expectancies (Leung, 1987; Leung, Bond, & Schwartz, 1995). Only recently have cross-cultural psychologists begun calling for and testing hypotheses about cultural mediation of psychological processes (e.g., Brockner, 2003), and our development of theory and mediating mechanisms is nascent. This chapter describes a research program designed to identify one such psychological construct, general beliefs or social axioms. This program was designed to establish pan-cultural dimensions of what people hold to be true by developing a Social Axioms Survey that integrates the psychological literature on beliefs, which is primarily Euro-American in origin, and inputs from two other cultural traditions, Chinese and Venezuelan. A five-dimensional structure of social axioms was identified in Hong Kong and Venezuela, and subsequently replicated in the United States, Germany, and Japan (Leung et al., 2002). The universality of this structure of social axioms was then evaluated by a round-the-world study, the results of which are presented in this chapter. Two strategies are adopted to evaluate the validity and usefulness of this structure. First, we develop citizen profiles across these dimensions for each national group, and these profiles and dimension scores are then linked to societal characteristics to discover how individual ‘‘consciousness’’ tracks institutional processes and is sustained by these ‘‘plausibility structures’’ (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). In other words, the correlations between the social axiom scores of citizens and country-level indexes constitute a nomological network on which the meaning and validity of these dimensions can be established. Second, whatever these citizen profiles, persons within any given nation will endorse them to varying degrees and use them accordingly to anticipate, guide, and rationalize their behavior. Social axioms function like other individual diVerences constructs, with their own nomological networks linking them to other constructs such as values, and combining with these other psychological constructs to generate behavior. This pattern of linkage among the internal constructs and with behavior may vary from culture to culture. Additionally, external, social factors contribute to improving behavioral predictions, diYcult as these situational forces may be to conceptualize and measure (e.g., Seeman, 1997; Wicker, 1992). Establishing these facts, however, requires within-culture and cross-cultural studies that treat beliefs or other mediators as individual diVerences factors, investigating their impact in concert with other internal, and theoretically relevant, external, social factors. This chapter also presents some emerging data from this perspective on social axioms in the hope of stimulating extensions of this

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work into other behavioral domains. Unlike the first strategy, results from this approach are pitched at the individual level (Leung & Bond, 1989).

I. Beliefs in Social Psychological Research Beliefs are key concepts in major disciplines in social sciences, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Bar-Tal (2000, ch. 2) has presented a historical review of the study of shared beliefs in social psychology, tracing its intellectual roots to Wundt and Durkheim. For our purposes, the social psychological studies of beliefs may be roughly grouped into four categories based on their intellectual traditions. A. SHARED BELIEFS This perspective argues that beliefs are necessarily social in nature, and hence are widely shared within a social group, such as a community and a nation. The best-known approach in this tradition is social representations theory initiated by Moscovici some 50 years ago, itself inspired by the work of Durkheim on collective representation. The central idea of this approach is that an understanding of reality is made possible by social representations, which are shared among people in a group. According to Moscovici (2001), a social representation ‘‘chooses and combines our shared concepts, links together accepted assertions, decides which aspects from our categories are examples for classifying people and things’’ ( p. 18). Social representations allow people to understand their social world, enable them to interact and communicate with each other eVectively, and guide their actions. Social representations exist not only in people’s minds but are also represented in products of human endeavors, such as books, architecture, and movies. In Moscovici’s formulation, social representations are dynamic in nature and can change as a function of interpersonal interaction and communication. People develop social representations for a variety of objects, events, situations, and domains, and these representations may vary in complexity and abstraction. A simple example of how social representations aVect our perception is provided by Duveen (2001), concerning the relative location of Prague and Budapest in relation to Vienna. Most people are likely to believe that both Prague and Budapest are to the east of Vienna, because both cities belong to the former Eastern Bloc. In reality, Prague is west of Vienna, and is closer to Western than to Eastern Europe. Wagner and Kronberger (2001) have provided a more complex example in their investigation of the social representations of genetic engineering of foodstuV in Europe. They have

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identified some key beliefs in these representations, such as the belief that genes introduced into living beings make them bigger and monstrous. The emergence of these specific beliefs was then traced back to widespread beliefs about how bacteria cause diseases and how misguided science can generate ‘‘Frankensteinian’’ monsters. In short, people’s understanding and perception of unfamiliar objects are often influenced by social representations of objects related to these unfamiliar objects. A major criticism of social representations theory is its vagueness, especially with regard to the construction of its concepts (Jahoda, 1988). Markus and Plaut (2001) noted jokingly that, ‘‘Social representations was the type of theory that if you forgot your lecture notes on the day you intended to cover this material, you were in trouble’’ (p. 183). In a recent book, Bar-Tal (2000) has described a special kind of social representation, labeled as societal beliefs, whose primary function is to provide the basis for a group’s identity. The framework proposed by Bar-Tal is well defined, with clearly specified concepts and hypotheses. Societal beliefs are defined as, ‘‘enduring beliefs shared by society members, with contents that are perceived by society members as characterizing their society’’ (p. 39). Societal beliefs are organized around themes, and Bar-Tal has described several types of societal belief: patriotism, security, siege, and delegitimization. If security is used as an example, beliefs under this theme are concerned with assessments of the extent of perceived insecurity, types of perceived threat, means for attaining security, and the conditions deemed necessary for security. Bar-Tal further proposed the notion of an ethos, which is constituted by a particular configuration of societal beliefs and provides the characterization of a society. For instance, based on the work of McClosky and Zaller (1984), Bar-Tal described the American ethos as dominated by beliefs based on capitalism and democracy. Thus, shared beliefs reflect how people construct their social world to seek meaning and understanding of social realities. This construction is shared, thereby allowing people to interact and communicate with each other, providing them with a common social identity, and guiding them toward a consensual course of action. In this research tradition, social representations are typically studied in a particular context, and the beliefs involved are context specific.

B. BELIEFS AND LAY THEORIES In navigating their everyday social worlds, people need some assumptions of how their social worlds function. These understandings, often expressed as beliefs, are known as implicit or lay theories. The root of this work is often traced to Heider’s (1958) naive analysis of actions, in which people are

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viewed as lay scientists who develop, test, and revise hypotheses in their daily life. Another pioneer in this area is Kelly (1963), who introduced the notion of personal construct, which people use to perceive and interpret events and to chart a course of action. Furnham (1988) has provided an overview of lay theories in various domains, including medicine, psychiatry, psychology, economics, education, statistics, and law. Although researchers have identified structures underlying the lay beliefs in domains that interest them, no attempt has been made to search for and develop a fundamental, contextfree structure of lay beliefs. Subsequent to Furnham’s (1988) review, lay theories have continued to flourish in the social psychological literature. However, current research on lay theories, as in many fields of psychology, has assumed a more cognitive outlook. For example, in the area of group perception the notion of perceived entitativity has become an influential topic and channeled much of the research in this area. The central notion is that people have a tendency to view aggregates of individuals as social entities bonded together in some way. The degree of perceived entitativity of a group of individuals has been shown to exert a significant impact on the perceiver’s judgment and behavior toward these individuals (Brewer & Harasty, 1996; Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). Lickel et al. (2000) have found that perceived entitativity varied across diVerent types of group, with intimacy groups (e.g., friends) showing the highest level of perceived entitativity, followed by task groups (e.g., work teams), social categories (e.g., women), and loose associations (e.g., classical music lovers). Dasgupta, Banaji, and Abelson (1999) found that people ascribed more hostile intentions and traits to groups that were perceived to consist of members with similar physical features. These findings suggest that physical features provide one basis of perceived entitativity. A second example comes from the cross-cultural research on attribution. Morris and colleagues (e.g., Morris, Menon, & Ames, 2001; Morris & Peng, 1994) proposed the notion of implicit theories of agency for understanding social perception in general and cross-cultural diVerences in attribution in particular. Implicit theories of agency refer to ‘‘conceptions of kinds of actors, notions of what kind of entities act intentionally and autonomously’’ (Morris et al., p. 169). This theorizing then is used to account for consistent cultural diVerences in attribution between Chinese and Americans, namely, that Chinese are more likely to attribute an action to social causes; Americans, to dispositional causes. This pattern of cultural diVerences is consistent with the view that Chinese are likely to subscribe to the view of agentic collectives (e.g., families and groups), whereas Americans are likely to subscribe to the view of agentic individuals. For instance, Menon, Morris,

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Chiu, and Hong (1999) found that Americans were more likely to endorse statements such as ‘‘individuals possess free will’’ and ‘‘follow their internal direction,’’ where Singaporeans were more likely to endorse similar statements about organizations. In summary, lay beliefs have been studied in many domains across the past three decades, and many exciting findings have been documented. However, no attempt has been made to search for a basic structure of lay beliefs that is domain general.

C. PROCESS MODELS OF BELIEFS An independent but related development that parallels the study of lay theories is concerned with the processes underlying the formation and change of beliefs. Research on process models of beliefs in social psychology is often associated with the long tradition of research on attitudes, which are viewed as consisting of cognitive, aVective, and behavioral components. Given that beliefs are the key components of attitudes, process models of beliefs have emerged alongside process models of attitudes. Work by Festinger (1957) on cognitive dissonance pioneered the research on process models of beliefs. Cognitive dissonance is generated when people are confronted with two contradictory cognitions, resulting in cognitive, aVective, and behavioral changes. Subsequently, perhaps the most widely known research program on social psychological processes underlying beliefs is that exploring the self-fulfilling prophecy, which provides compelling evidence for the capability of beliefs to create social reality (Snyder, 1984). A more recent process approach to beliefs is the theory of lay epistemics proposed by Kruglanski (1989), which describes and explains the formation and modification of human knowledge through hypothesis generation and validation. This model, like other process models, focuses on the dynamics involved in perceptual and cognitive processes, so that the content of beliefs and cognitions is accorded only peripheral attention. Another well-known category of process models of beliefs is concerned with the organization of knowledge structures, such as schemas and scripts (e.g., Abelson, 1981; Rumelhart, 1984). Abelson (1988) added to this line of work by highlighting the importance of strongly held beliefs. One example of such beliefs is provided by Roseman (1994), who examined beliefs about disarmament. In general, the beliefs studied in this tradition tend to be textured and domain specific, and the discovery of a general, context-free structure to beliefs has not been a goal of this line of work.

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D. BELIEFS AS INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Beliefs have been widely used as individual diVerences variables to explain and predict social behavior. In this tradition, belief scales are developed and their validity and usefulness is demonstrated by significant relationships with a variety of variables in an expected fashion. The concept of locus of control, which refers to a person’s belief about whether events that happen to oneself are within or outside of one’s control (Rotter, 1966), may be the best-known example of this line of enquiry. Locus of control has been shown to relate to a wide spectrum of behaviors (e.g., Lau & Leung, 1992; Spector, 1982). The work of Wrightsman (1992) on beliefs about human nature provides another example of this approach. He identified six factors of such beliefs: trustworthiness, altruism, strength of will and rationality, independence, complexity, and variability. Individual beliefs about human nature were shown to relate to many interpersonal behaviors. For instance, counselors who believed that people possess strength of will and rationality were preferred as counselors and better liked by their peers (Wrightsman, Richard, & Noble, 1966). One point to note is that while belief items are found in many scales in the individual diVerences literature, they are often mixed together with items that tap values or behaviors. This conflation creates theoretical ambiguity and imprecision in model development. Scales that are based entirely on beliefs are rare, and locus of control and beliefs about human nature are among the very few scales that are primarily based on beliefs.

E. SECTION SUMMARY The previous review of the major research on beliefs makes it clear that belief is a key construct in social psychology and that significant discoveries have been made about the content of beliefs in diVerent domains and their underlying psychological processes. Although the research on belief is vibrant and ubiquitous, one obvious observation is that findings in diverse areas are typically tied to a particular context and are extremely rich in detail. Confronting the work about beliefs in social representations, lay theories, and belief scales can create confusion because of its diversity and range. In biology, the range of flora and fauna is perhaps even more diverse, but a taxonomy primarily guided by evolutionary theory has organized the vast multitude of living organisms into coherent and ordered groups. Such a taxonomy is lacking for beliefs, and the field has not developed a theoretical scheme for organizing beliefs into a coherent structure. The reason for the lack of interest in developing such a scheme, in our opinion, is twofold. First,

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the level of abstraction of a great deal of belief research is pitched at the concrete end of the continuum. For instance, most research in shared belief is tied to a particular context, and the beliefs identified are typically concrete and specific to that context. Second, when researchers work on more abstract, or context-free beliefs, as is common with lay theories and belief scales, they often focus on a specific belief, such as locus of control or group entitativity. The simultaneous examination of a wide range of general beliefs has not yet been a research agenda in this literature. To address this omission, a major goal of our research program on social axioms is to identify a pan-cultural structure of broad, context-free beliefs and to examine how this structure is related to a wide range of social behavior. II. Social Axioms as a Basic Psychological Construct ‘‘There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature.’’ —William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences

A. THE IMPORTANCE OF GENERAL BELIEFS Humans confront James’ ‘‘booming, buzzing confusion’’ with a naive scientific persistence in extracting order from chaos. Our earliest experience with this process is the discovery of the sequences that inform pleasurable and painful experiences—appetitive and aversive conditioning. Subsequent developmental progression involves higher-order conditioning with physical and symbolic stimuli and stimulus complexes. Then we begin to extract domain-specific knowledge about the relations among the elements and events made salient through conditioning, so that we may deal more eVectively with the micro-worlds that confront us in the developmental niches provided by our culture (Super & Harkness, 1986). Useful constructs are deployed, assessed, and elaborated. Armed with this knowledge about how our world operates, we become better able to manage our lives more eVectively, extracting the rewards we have come to desire and avoiding the punishments we have learned to fear. This pervasive ordering process may be an innate, irresistible disposition, part of our human endowment, as Kant maintained. Voegelin (1956) believes that our search for order is driven by the basic terror of chaos: Any historical society is an order, a protective structure of meaning, erected in the face of chaos. Within this order the life of the group as well as the life of the individual makes sense. Deprived of such order, both group and individual are threatened with the most fundamental terror, the terror of chaos, that Emile Durkheim called anomie, literally a state of being ‘‘order-less.’’ (p. 9)

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Within any given society, individuals will engage in this ordering process to varying degrees, depending in part on their need for cognition (Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, & Jarvis, 1996). In addition, there will be variations within a given society in the resulting constructions of reality maintained by its citizens. This variation in the content of the cognitive constructions of our worlds arises from the socialization influences operative in a citizen’s proximal social environments across the developmental sequence. We expect that the informational and attitudinal inputs and reinforcement contingencies provided by one’s parents will be especially important (Harkness & Super, 1996), along with genetic impairments that result in certain individuals’ belief systems being labeled as ‘‘delusional’’ (Oltmanns & Maher, 1988), and the particular events of an individual’s life course (Bandura, 1982). This accumulated knowledge about the world is most obviously derived from the explicit acquisition of information and training about the material world transmitted through schooling. Simultaneously and implicitly, however, we human beings are learning about how the social world functions, our position within that interpersonal and institutional maze, our capacity to shape outcomes for ourselves and for others, and the role of other social and spiritual forces external to ourselves in directing the course of personal, interpersonal, social, economic, and political events. Many of these beliefs are generalizations, extracted from direct experience across a variety of contexts or mediated by mentors, and deduced from indirect experience provided through the media, literature, and cultural myths and sustained by social discourse. These beliefs are likely to show cultural variations as diVerent cultures are associated with diVerent physical and social environments (Triandis, 1964). As previously reviewed, psychologists have studied these understandings using diVerent rubrics, such as lay theories (Furnham, 1988) and shared beliefs (Bar-Tal, 2000; Garfield, 1988).

B. SOCIAL AXIOMS AS CONTEXT-FREE GENERAL BELIEFS These synthesized understandings of how the world works are termed social axioms. Beliefs vary in specificity. Some beliefs are anchored in a context, defined by the actors involved and tied to a particular setting in a given time period. For instance, we may develop specific beliefs about a city we have visited (e.g., visiting Kyoto in April when the cherry trees blossom is relaxing and uplifting for the Japanese) or about the people we know (e.g., John is often forgetful when under a heavy workload). Specific beliefs are numerous, and each is only applicable to a narrow range of situations and actors. However, the specificity of these beliefs is often instrumental to the understanding of why a particular behavior occurs, as in the case of some

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attitudinal models, which rely on salient beliefs in a given context to predict specific behaviors (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). In contrast, some beliefs are general and may be viewed as generalized expectancies, a concept first proposed by Rotter (1966) to characterize the construct of locus of control. Because these general beliefs are pitched at a high level of abstraction, they are context-free and are related to a wide spectrum of social behaviors across diverse contexts, actors, targets, and time periods, as in the case of locus of control. We choose the label social axioms for these general beliefs in the sense that, like axioms in mathematics, these beliefs are basic premises that people endorse and rely onto guide their actions. These beliefs are axiomatic because they are often assumed to be true as a result of personal experiences and socialization. Beliefs have been defined in many diVerent ways, and the following two definitions are representative: ‘‘If a man perceives some relationship between two things or between something and a characteristic of it, he is said to hold a belief ’’ (Bem, 1970, p. 4). ‘‘A proposition to which a person attributes at least a minimal degree of confidence. A proposition, as a statement about an object(s) or relations between objects and/or attributes, can be of any content’’ (Bar-Tal, 1990, p. 14).

Based on these definitions, social axioms are formally defined as: ‘‘generalized beliefs about oneself, the social and physical environment, or the spiritual world, and are in the form of an assertion about the relationship between two entities or concepts’’ (Leung et al., 2002, p. 289).

This definition implies that a social axiom has the structure—A is related to B. A and B can be any entities, and the relationship may be causal or correlational. So, for example, the belief statement, ‘‘Hard work leads to reward,’’ asserts that a causal connection exists between labor and positive outcomes for the laborer. It is a general statement, because there are many forms of ‘‘hard work’’ just as there are many types of ‘‘reward.’’ It is not an attitude or a value, since the respondent is not assessing the desirability either of ‘‘hard work’’ or ‘‘reward.’’ Axioms claim truth-for-the-actor; they do not assess desired goals. Specifically, a value assumes the form: A is good/desirable/important. A is a value, and its importance is determined by the importance or desirability that people attach to it. Because the structure of a value is quite similar to the structure of a belief, some researchers actually regard a value as an evaluative belief. We do not deny that an evaluative dimension underlies most, if

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not all beliefs, because an evaluative dimension underlies all semantic objects (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). However, we argue that beliefs are diVerent from values because, whereas the evaluative component of a value is general, it is specific for a belief. In other words, if the desirability pole of an evaluative belief becomes specific, it turns into a social axiom. For instance, ‘‘Wars are bad’’ and ‘‘power is desirable’’ are evaluative beliefs and would be classified as values rather than social axioms. In contrast, ‘‘Wars will lead to the destruction of civilization,’’ and ‘‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’’ are regarded as social axioms because these statements define a specific relationship between two entities. Social axioms also diVer from norms, often expressed as normative beliefs, which are prescriptive in nature, and take the form—A should do X, where A is a person and X is an act. ‘‘We should protect our environment’’ is a normative belief, but not a social axiom, because the statement prescribes a proper course of action rather than claim in a relationship between two entities. As noted, previous research on beliefs often involves a congeries of social axioms, values, and normative beliefs, and these diVerent constructs are not carefully distinguished (e.g., see the belief scales included in Robinson, Shaver, & Wrightsman, 1991). The locus of control scale (Rotter, 1966), perhaps the most famous belief scale, actually contains some normative statements. For example, the item ‘‘one should always be willing to admit mistakes’’ is a normative statement rather than a general belief. Normative statements, such as ‘‘Do you believe that parents should allow children to make most of their own decisions?’’ can also be found in the Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External local of control scale (Nowicki & Duke, 1983). As noted, belief scales composed of pure beliefs are rare. More examples of social axioms are listed in the description of our research program.

C. A FUNCTIONALIST VIEW OF SOCIAL AXIOMS One commonality that spans across the work on social representations, lay theories, and attitudes is a functionalist approach to beliefs, described and endorsed at the beginning of this section. This view proposes that beliefs and other attitudinal constructs serve at least four functions for human survival and functioning (Katz, 1960; Kruglanski, 1989). Following this argument, we propose that these axioms ‘‘facilitate the attainment of important goals (instrumental ), help people protect their self-worth (ego-defensive), serve as a manifestation of people’s values (value-expressive), and help people understand the world (knowledge)’’ (Leung et al., 2002, p. 288). Given this extensive range of functions, social axioms qualify to be considered as a

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fundamental psychological constructs. We expect that they may be linked to other broad psychological constructs like values, and predict more specific psychological constructs such as domain-specific eYcacies (Bandura, 2002) or beliefs about the causes and cures of psychological problems (Luk & Bond, 1992). Axioms help channel one’s behavior, as in expectancy-value theories (Feather, 1982), and provide mechanisms for explaining personal outcomes, interpersonal exchanges and environmental events, both human and physical. Such a functionalist argument also provides the conceptual basis of the cross-cultural project on values by Schwartz (1992). In essence, Schwartz argued that human beings are confronted with a set of universal problems for survival and eVective functioning. In his words, ‘‘Values represent, in the form of conscious goals, three universal requirements of human existence to which all individuals and societies must be responsive: needs of individuals as biological organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and welfare needs of groups’’ (p. 4). Thus, people from diverse cultural and ecological backgrounds should develop a common scheme of value types to guide their actions and choices in addressing these three pancultural needs. Consistent with this argument, his multinational study demonstrated the universality of 10 value types across highly diverse cultural groups, with diVerent socioeconomic-political backgrounds. However, specific cultural contexts shape the relative strength of each cultural group’s endorsement of these universal value types. Note that Schwartz’s (1992) work, like our work on social axioms presented here, but unlike Hofstede’s (1980) famous cultural dimensions, is also at the individual level because the individual is the unit of analysis and the theorizing is psychological rather than societal. Following the functionalist tradition in attitude research and Schwartz’s (1992) logic for a universal structure of values, we propose that social axioms, like values, are instrumental for individuals in coping with a set of universal problems of survival and eVective functioning, and hence the structure underlying these axioms should be identifiable in diVerent cultural groups with diverse backgrounds. In other words, the commonality of the basic problems that all human beings face should lead to the emergence of a pan-cultural structure of social axioms. Obviously, the fact that these social axioms are recognizable by people of diverse cultural origins and structured in a similar fashion across diVerent cultural groups does not mean that cultural contexts exercise no influence on their level of endorsement. On the contrary, we expect that the axioms themselves will vary in their endorsement levels as a function of the socialization experiences crystallizing around culture, gender, education level, religion, age, and social class.

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III. Dimensions of Social Axioms . . . we hold also that some constructions serve us better than others in our eVorts to anticipate comprehensively what is actually going on. The big question is, of course, which ones and how do we know. —George A. Kelly, The Psychology of the Unknown. In D. Bannister (Ed.), New Perspectives in Personal Construct Theory.

A. THE INITIAL FIVE-CULTURE STUDY OF SOCIAL AXIOMS Prescriptive knowledge and operating beliefs are legion within a given cultural tradition, let alone across the world’s major cultural systems. However, many are merely alternative ways of expressing the same observation about how the world works. Simplifying these various axioms into manageable groupings first requires due diligence in culling the full range of general beliefs, so that any resulting typology may claim comprehensiveness. Leung et al. (2002) have provided the initial attempt at identifying a pan-cultural structure of social axioms across five cultural groups. Their starting point is the psychological literature on beliefs, which is primarily Euro-American in origin. The psychological literature on beliefs was extracted from three volumes of survey instruments, containing more than 300 scales (Miller, 1991; Robinson et al., 1991; Stewart, Hetherington, & Smith, 1984). Items were included if they were consistent with our definition of social axioms. Input from other cultural sources that are distinct from the Euro-American traditions is also needed to broaden the cultural coverage of the axioms, Leung et al. (2002, Study 1) gathered beliefs from a variety of sources in Hong Kong Chinese culture—proverbs, newspaper reports, cultural stories, and structured interviews with a broad range of citizens. An additional guarantor of comprehensiveness involved undertaking the same process in an ostensibly diVerent cultural tradition, so that additional and possibly distinctive axioms relevant and salient to culture carriers of that tradition could be added to those from our Cantonese cohort. To that end, a similar process of belief identification was undertaken by Sharon Reimel de Carrasquel and her colleagues in Venezuela, a primarily Catholic country in South America. Such open-ended, multichannel searching led to the identification of more than 2000 items in Hong Kong and 1000 items in Venezuela. The resulting beliefs were assembled and obvious repetitions were deleted from the group. Domain-specific beliefs were likewise dropped or rewritten to render them context-free or less idiomatic or metaphorical. To check the comprehensiveness of the beliefs collected, statements about similar topics and issues were grouped into four broad categories:

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Psychological attributes—axioms concerning characteristics or tendencies of persons Orientation toward the social world—axioms about the social characteristics of groups, organizations, and societies Social interaction—axioms about how people interact with each other Environment—axioms about aspects of the environment that have implications for social behavior

Furthermore, based on our subjective judgments, the items were grouped into 33 subcategories across these four broad areas. This classification was not meant to be definitive but as a simple heuristic to help evaluate the comprehensiveness of the items. For several subcategories with insuYcient representation, additional items were generated so that these subcategories would have a chance to surface as a coherent group in subsequent analysis. A total of 182 axioms were finally identified after this exhaustive process, with each item phrased in simple language. A 5-point scale was used for the items, with labels ranging from ‘‘strongly believe,’’ ‘‘believe,’’ ‘‘no opinion,’’ to ‘‘disbelieve,’’ and ‘‘strongly disbelieve.’’ Three language versions were developed, in Chinese, English, and Spanish, with the English version as the standard. The survey was then administered to citizens and university students of both Hong Kong and Venezuela. Cluster analysis was first conducted in each of the two cultures to identify major groupings among the items and to facilitate interpretation of factors arising from the subsequent factor analysis (Gorsuch, 1983, p. 211). Three to nine factor solutions were examined in each culture, using both varimax and oblique rotations. The scree plots and the interpretability of factors were used as criteria to determine the optimal number of factors, determined to be five for both cultural groups. The orthogonal solution was adopted because it was closely similar to the oblique solution and easier to interpret. A factor analysis based on a combined sample of the two groups was conducted to arrive at an optimal solution for both cultural groups. To avoid the eVects of diVerences in the item means across the two cultural groups, which would aVect the factor analytic outcomes, we followed the procedure recommended by Becker (1996) for the meta-analysis of factor structures. The correlation matrix of each cultural group was transformed by the Fisher transformation and averaged to generate a combined matrix, which was then transformed back to a correlation matrix for factor analysis. This procedure weights each culture’s correlation matrix equally and assumes that each cultural group’s sample provides the best approximation of correlations in its population. As expected, a five-factor solution was

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KWOK LEUNG AND MICHAEL HARRIS BOND

optimal, which is defined by 60 items. To check how closely the factor structure of each cultural group resembles the common structure, a Procrustes rotation was performed on these 60 items by rotating the factor structure of each culture toward the common factor structure (see Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997). Congruence coeYcients were calculated to evaluate the fit between the resultant factor structure and the common structure for each culture. For Hong Kong, the coeYcients ranged from .88 to .98, and for Venezuela, the range was from .90 to .97. These numbers do not suggest a perfect fit for some of the factors, but Leung et al. (2002) concluded that the common factor structure was reasonably good for the two cultural groups. Leung et al. labeled and described the five dimensions in the following terms. 1. Factor one is labeled social cynicism, because the items represent a negative view of human nature, especially as it is easily corrupted by power, a biased view against some groups of people, a mistrust of social institutions, and a disregard of ethical means for achieving an end. 2. The second factor is labeled social complexity because the items in this factor suggest that there are no rigid rules, but rather multiple ways of achieving a given outcome, and that apparent inconsistency in human behavior is common. 3. The third factor is labeled reward for application because the items represent a general belief that eVort, knowledge, careful planning, and the investment of other resources (Foa, 1971) will lead to positive results and help avoid negative outcomes. 4. The fourth factor is labeled spirituality (to be renamed religiosity below), as the items assert the existence of supernatural forces and the beneficial functions of religious belief. 5. The fifth factor is labeled fate control, as the items represent a belief that life events are predetermined and that there are some ways for people to influence these outcomes. Interestingly, lay people accept the logical contradiction between predetermination and their ability to alter predetermined events. In fact, practices for avoiding bad luck are commonplace in many cultures, and the contradiction involved in the simultaneous belief in predetermination and possibilities for altering one’s fate may be widespread in everyday life. Several items with relatively lower factor loadings are included in the final solution, because in the initial stage of the research program, it is better to err on the side of overinclusiveness. See Table I for the items defining these five dimensions. One step toward establishing these five dimensions of social axioms as universal is to replicate them in other cultural contexts. Leung et al. (2002, Study 2) evaluated the replicability of these five axiom dimensions in three more cultural groups: the United States, Japan, and Germany. The

TABLE I Five-Factor Solution Based on Leung et al. (2002)

Item

1 Social cynicism

Powerful people tend to exploit others

.59

Power and status make people arrogant

.54

Kind-hearted people are easily bullied

.50

Significant achievement requires one to show no concern for the means needed for that achievement

.48

Kind-hearted people usually suVer losses

.48

Old people are usually stubborn and biased

.48

Young people are impulsive and unreliable

.47

It is easier to succeed if one knows how to take shortcuts

.44

Females need a better appearance than males

.44

It is rare to see a happy ending in real life

.43

People will stop working hard after they secure a comfortable life

.42

People deeply in love are usually blind

.41

To care about societal aVairs only brings trouble for yourself

.40

Most people hope to be repaid after they help others

.37

2 Social complexity

3 Reward for application

4 Spirituality

5 Fate control

.31 .28

.30

(continues)

TABLE I (continued )

Item

1 Social cynicism

Harsh laws can make people obey

.36

Old people are a heavy burden on society

.35

The various social institutions in society are biased toward the rich

.34

Humility is dishonesty

.25

2 Social complexity

3 Reward for application

4 Spirituality

5 Fate control

.32

.31

One’s behaviors may be contrary to his or her true feelings

.58

People may have opposite behaviors on diVerent occasions

.57

One has to deal with matters according to the specific circumstances

.54

There is usually only one way to solve a problem

.49

Human behavior changes with the social context

.45

There are phenomena in the world that cannot be explained by science

.45

Current losses are not necessarily bad for one’s long-term future

.42

To deal with things in a flexible way leads to success

.41

To plan for possible mistakes will result in fewer obstacles

.39

.26 .35

To experience various lifestyles is a way to enjoy life

.35

Individual eVort makes little diVerence in the outcome

.26

.32

One’s appearance does not reflect one’s character

.14

.25

.60

One will succeed if he or she really tries Adversity can be overcome by eVort

.29

.60

Every problem has a solution

.51

Good deeds will be rewarded, and bad deeds will be punished

.51

Hardworking people will achieve more in the end

.51

One who does not know how to plan his or her future will eventually fail

.50

Knowledge is necessary for success

.50

The just will eventually defeat the wicked

.48

Competition brings about progress

.31

.28

.34 .32

A modest person can make a good impression on people

.30

Caution helps avoid mistakes Mutual tolerance can lead to satisfactory human relationships

.26

.45 .37

Social justice can be maintained if everyone cares about politics Failure is the beginning of success

.32

.46

.29

Belief in a religion helps one understand the meaning of life

.69

Belief in a religion makes people good citizens

.65

Religious faith contributes to good mental health

.63

There is a supreme being controlling the universe

.26

.63

(continues)

TABLE I (continued )

Item

1 Social cynicism

2 Social complexity

3 Reward for application

.33

.53 .25

Ghosts or spirits are people’s fantasy Religious beliefs lead to unscientific thinking

5 Fate control

.53

Religious people are more likely to maintain moral standards Religion makes people escape from reality

4 Spirituality

.30

.26

.47 .44

Individual characteristics, such as appearance and birthday, aVect one’s fate

.66

Good luck follows if one survives a disaster

.55

Fate determines one’s successes and failures

.55

There are certain ways to help us improve our luck and avoid unlucky things

.54

There are many ways for people to predict what will happen in the future

.43

All things in the universe have been determined

.42

A person’s talents are inborn

.42

Most disasters can be predicted

.24

Note. Some items are recoded, so that all primary loadings are positive regardless of the actual wording. The variances accounted for by these five factors are 8.89% (social cynicism), 7.94% (social complexity), 5.22% (reward for application), 4.09% (spirituality), and 3.28% (fate control).

SOCIAL AXIOMS

139

United States and Germany, as generally individualistic cultures (Hofstede, 1980), provide a good contrast to the two generally collectivistic groups from which the social axioms were derived. These two countries, being primarily Protestant, also extend the coverage of religions, because Venezuela is primarily Catholic, and Hong Kong has a Buddhist tradition. Finally, like Hong Kong, Japan is generally collectivistic and Buddhist, but Japan is much higher in uncertainty avoidance and masculinity than Hong Kong (Hofstede, 1980). If the same five dimensions of social axioms also emerge in these three cultural groups, any claim of their universality is strengthened. Based on the first study, a short form of the Social Axioms Survey containing the 60 items presented in Table I was created and administered to university students in these three cultural groups. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for each culture to determine whether the prior structure provided a good fit to the data. For the U.S. sample, the results pointed to an adequate fit, with a goodness of fit index of .93. For the Japanese sample, the fit was marginal, with a goodness of fit index of .88. For the German data, the fit was very good, with a goodness of fit index of .95. Procrustes rotation also was used to check the fit of the factor structure of each culture to the common structure obtained before. Because of missing values in the German data, only Japanese and the U.S. data were included. The five-factor model was obtained in each culture by rotating the factor structure toward the common structure identified before. Congruence coeYcients were then calculated between the corresponding factors to evaluate their similarity, and most results pointed to an acceptable level of congruence. However, for Japan, spirituality (religiosity) and fate control showed low congruence (both at .68), whereas for the United States, social complexity (.70) and fate control (.52) showed low congruence. The dimension of fate control seemed problematic for both groups, whereas other dimensions were reasonably congruent. Leung et al. (2002) concluded that the five factors are distinct and identifiable in these two new cultural groups, but the demand for factor congruence should be relaxed to the demand for factor similarity. For practical purposes, as long as factors show a good level of similarity across cultures, they should be viewed as universal. This controversial point is discussed in a subsequent section.

IV. A Global Study of Social Axioms This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in. —Shakespeare, As You Like It

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The structure of social axioms identified by Leung et al. (2002) was originally derived from two cultures and subsequently replicated in three more cultures. A fundamental question remains unanswered: Does the origin of this structure from Hong Kong and Venezuela result in a cultural bias and limit its generality? In other words, can these five, tentatively designated dimensions of individual belief be identified in a broader sample of our world’s cultural groups, or are there fewer or more dimensions common to our patterns of social cognition? Regardless of the number of belief dimensions, what is their composition, and can each of these five dimensions be defined by the same items? Such structural equivalence (Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997) is a precondition for eVecting cross-cultural psychological comparisons, but it is an elusive goal when individuals from a large number of diVerent cultural groups are being considered. Bosland (1985), for example, was unable to extract psychologically equivalent measures across cultures from the Hofstede’s (1980) value survey, so that comparisons could not be made across persons, genders, or nations in the individual-level endorsement of psychological values. To answer this question of universality, we have orchestrated a global project on social axioms, involving the collaboration of more than 50 colleagues from around the world and data collection from 40 national/cultural groups. The goal was to identify an optimal structure of axioms in a culturally balanced fashion across a diverse range of cultures and determine whether this structure resembles the structure originally identified in Hong Kong and Venezuela.

A. METHODS AND PARTICIPANTS The 60-item Social Axioms Survey developed by Leung et al. (2002) was used in the round-the-world survey. We used the short form because the other items in the original item pool did not generate additional factors in the previous study, and it is unlikely that they would lead to new factors in the global study. However, for some cultural groups, some items identified in Germany in the previous study were added, but subsequent analysis showed that these new items added nothing to the results, and they have been excluded from the analyses reported herein. Data from university students were collected in 40 national/cultural groups, and adult data were collected in 13 national/cultural groups. The adult data were based on convenient samples, and no claims are made about their representativeness. The details of the participating cultural groups are given in Table II.

141

SOCIAL AXIOMS TABLE II Sample Information

Country

Sample size (student)

Sample size (adult) 152

Spanish

284

106

Dutch, French

Argentina Belgium

Questionnaire language

Brazil

200

Portuguese

Canada

146

English

China

160

Chinese

Czech Republic

100

Czech

Estonia

124

Estonian

Finland

100

Finnish, Swedish

France

120

French

Georgia

118

Georgian

Germany

272

86

Greece

136

680

Greek

Hong Kong

162

162

Chinese

Hungary

258

68

India

710

110

Indonesia

178

German

Hungarian English, Bengali Bahasa Indonesia

Iran

84

Israel

150

Italy

138

Italian

Japan

180

Japanese

Korea

222

Korean

Latvia

142

Latvian

Lebanon

110

English

Malaysia

324

Bahasa Malaysia, English

Netherlands

252

Dutch

New Zealand

200

Nigeria (Yoruba)

94

Persian 96

Hebrew

English 62

English

Norway

104

Norwegian

Pakistan

142

Urdu

Peru

122

Spanish

Philippines

172

English

Portugal

304

Portuguese

Romania

128

Romanian (continues)

142

KWOK LEUNG AND MICHAEL HARRIS BOND TABLE II (continued ) Country

Sample size (student)

Russia

116

Singapore

138

Spain

104

Taiwan

246

Thailand Turkey United Kingdom United States (Caucasian)

Sample size (adult)

Russian English

62

Spanish Chinese

90

English

198

Turkish

80 682

Venezuela Total

76

Questionnaire language

7590

English 616

English

62

Spanish

2338

Note. Both student and adult samples are gender-balanced.

B. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS The first step in data analysis was to discard cases with considerable missing data. A total of 18 respondents from the student data set were dropped because they had more than 40% of missing items, but no cases were dropped from the adult data set. Gender-balanced samples were created so that the results would not be biased by any gender diVerences in the endorsement of the items. Specifically, cases from the gender with more respondents were randomly discarded for each cultural group to maintain a 50% –50% gender ratio. The final sample consisted of 7590 students from 40 cultural groups and 2338 adults from 13 cultural groups. The sample size varied across diVerent cultural groups, and a minimum was set at 80 male and female respondents for the student data, and national/cultural groups that did not meet this minimum were discarded. For the adult data, because the number of cultural groups was smaller, a lower minimum was set at 62 respondents so as to include more groups. In the final data sets, the sample size varied above these minimums to some extent across cultural groups. The best procedure to identify a factor structure of social axioms in a culturally balanced fashion is to follow the procedure for meta-analysis of factor analysis used by Leung et al. (2002) as described previously. This procedure yields a structure that provides an optimal fit across all the cultural groups included. Specifically, two sets of factor analyses were conducted: one on the student data and the other one on the adult data. For each set, a 60 60 correlation matrix was calculated for each national/

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cultural group, and the resulting correlations were transformed into a matrix of Fisher z scores. Missing values in the data for each group were handled by the use of pairwise correlations. These many matrices were then averaged across the cultural groups involved, and the resulting Fisher z scores of the pooled matrix transformed back into correlations. The final matrix was then subjected to a factor analysis. This procedure treats each of the cultural groups equally, weighting less populous nations the same as the more populous, thereby equating their cultural voice in the resulting pan-cultural factor analysis. No nation’s structure is privileged by becoming the standard template against which other groups are compared, as is the case in many cross-cultural studies of personality (see e.g., McCrae, 2002). By virtue of this equality solution, however, emic (culture-specific) relationships are ‘‘averaged out’’ and the resulting matrix shows strong correlations for pairs of variables likely to be associated across most, if not all, of the constituent cultures (see Bond, 1988, for a variant of this approach). Note that this analysis is conducted at the individual level, and that the results of a Hofstede-type culture-level analysis are reported elsewhere (Bond, Leung, Au, Tong, Reimel de Carrasquel et al., in press). A crucial decision in exploratory factor analysis is the number of factors to extract. Although our previous work with the five foundation cultural groups suggested five factors, we explored by extracting and rotating to orthogonal structure a number of possibilities (3 to 9 factor solutions). Our concerns were to identify a solution that would provide packages of conceptually understandable items that were loaded on factors strongly and discretely. Such solutions promise greater likelihood that the resulting factor groupings will be applicable and meaningful in all the cultural/national groups. A five-factor solution proved best for both student and adult data by these considerations, as well as by the scree plots (Fig. 1). For identifying the salient items in a factor, we decided to apply stringent criteria to increase the probability that the items constituting a factor would show adequate generality across the 40 national/cultural groups contributing to the pan-cultural solution. We used a somewhat high criterion of .35 for a minimum loading of items to their factors and the absence of sizable secondary loadings (>.30). For the student data, the criteria based on the size of primary and secondary loadings resulted in 39 items. The factor loadings based on a factor analysis of these 39 items are given in Table III. For the adult data, the factor loadings derived from a factor analysis of these 39 items are given in Table IV. Oblique rotations were also tried, and the results are similar to those of orthogonal rotations. For the sake of easy interpretation, the results presented here are based on orthogonal rotation. Two observations are obvious from the results presented in Tables III and IV. The factor structure is remarkably similar across students and adults, and

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KWOK LEUNG AND MICHAEL HARRIS BOND

Fig. 1.

Scree plots for student and adult samples.

these two structures are highly similar to the structure from the earlier, fivenation study. To confirm these impressions, a Procrustes rotation was conducted to evaluate the factor similarity between the student and the adult structures, and between each of these two structures and the structure of Leung et al. (2002) reported before. All 60 items were included so that the present structures can be compared with the structure of Leung et al. (2002).

SOCIAL AXIOMS

145

For the student and adult structures, the congruence coeYcients across these 60 items ranged from .92 to .98, with a mean of .96, suggesting a very high level of congruence (Chan, Ho, Leung, Chan, & Yung, 1999). Equally impressive were the congruence coeYcients between the student structure and the Leung et al. (2002) structure (.86 to .97, with a mean of .93), and between the adult structure and the Leung et al. (2002) structure (.79 to .96, with a mean of .90). In other words, the current structures derived in a culturally balanced fashion across a very diverse set of cultures are highly similar to the structure based on data from Hong Kong and Venezuela. Fate control showed the lowest congruence for both groups, which confirmed its lower cross-cultural congruence reported in the earlier study (Leung et al., 2002). Nevertheless, given such striking convergence, the same labels will be used to characterize the factors, except for our change to religiosity, because most items in this factor concern the social functions of religion and the consequences of religious adherence. Because the structure of the student data was derived from a large sample size, it is estimated reliably and is adopted as the standard structure in the rest of the discussion. Eleven items define social cynicism. The average itemtotal correlations across these 11 items for the 40 cultural/national groups was .33, with a high of .46 (Iranians) and a low of .15 (Russians). Note that in calculating an item-total correlation, the item involved is excluded in computing the total score. Only one item yielded a negative item-total correlation of .02 in one of the national/cultural groups. With regard to the average item-total correlations for these 11 items, the high was .42 (‘‘Kind-hearted people usually suVer losses’’) and the low was .26 (‘‘Young people are impulsive and unreliable’’). Seven items define religiosity. The average item-total correlation across these seven items for the 40 cultural/national groups was .44, with a high of .68 (Turks) and a low of .13 (Thais). Only two items yielded a single, negative item-total correlation each of .003 and .09. With regard to the average item-total correlations for these seven items, the high was .57 (‘‘Belief in a religion helps one understand the meaning of life’’) and the low was .35 (‘‘Religious beliefs lead to unscientific thinking’’). Nine items define reward for application. The average item-total correlation across these nine items for the 40 cultural/national groups was .31, with a high of .49 (Iranians) and a low of .18 (Georgians). No item showed a negative item-total correlation. With regard to the average item-total correlations for these nine items, the high was .42 (‘‘One will succeed if he/she really tries’’) and the low was .23 (‘‘Caution helps avoid mistakes’’). Six items define fate control. The average item-total correlation across these six items for the 40 cultural/national groups was .29, with a high of .41 (Romanians) and a low of .12 (Pakistanis). Only two items yielded a single,

TABLE III Factor Solution for the Student Sample of 40 Cultural Groups

Item

1 Social cynicism

Powerful people tend to exploit others

.60

Power and status make people arrogant

.59

Kind-hearted people usually suVer losses

.57

Kind-hearted people are easily bullied

.53

People will stop working hard after they secure a comfortable life

.45

Old people are usually stubborn and biased

.45

The various social institutions in society are biased toward the rich

.44

It is rare to see a happy ending in real life

.44

To care about societal aVairs only brings trouble for yourself

.42

People deeply in love are usually blind

.39

Young people are impulsive and unreliable

.38

People may have opposite behaviors on diVerent occasions

2 Social complexity

3 Reward for application

.60

Human behavior changes with the social context

.54

One’s behaviors may be contrary to his or her true feelings

.54

One has to deal with matters according to the specific circumstances

.48

Current losses are not necessarily bad for one’s long-term future

.40

There is usually only one way to solve a problem

.39

One will succeed if he or she really tries

.63

Hardworking people will achieve more in the end

.59

4 Religiosity

5 Fate control

Adversity can be overcome by eVort

.56

Every problem has a solution

.50

Knowledge is necessary for success

.49

One who does not know how to plan his or her future will eventually fail

.45

Competition brings about progress

.42

Failure is the beginning of success

.40

Caution helps avoid mistakes

.36

Belief in a religion helps one understand the meaning of life

.75

Religious faith contributes to good mental health

.72

There is a supreme being controlling the universe

.62

Belief in a religion makes people good citizens

.61

Religion makes people escape from reality

.59

Religious beliefs lead to unscientific thinking

.54

Religious people are more likely to maintain moral standards

.51

Individual characteristics, such as appearance and birthday, aVect one’s fate

.60

There are many ways for people to predict what will happen in the future

.60

There are certain ways to help us improve our luck and avoid unlucky things

.52

Most disasters can be predicted

.51

Fate determines one’s successes and failures

.48

Good luck follows if one survives a disaster

.48

Note. Some items are recoded, so that all primary loadings are positive regardless of the actual wording. All secondary loadings are lower than .3. The variances accounted for by these five factors are 7.49% (social cynicism), 4.73% (social complexity), 6.48% (reward for application), 7.25% (religiosity), and 5.06% (fate control).

TABLE IV Factor Solution of the Adult Sample Based on the Items Identified in the Student Solution

Item

1 Social cynicism

Kind-hearted people usually suVer losses

.62

Power and status make people arrogant

.62

Powerful people tend to exploit others

.61

Kind-hearted people are easily bullied

.60

People will stop working hard after they secure a comfortable life

.47

It is rare to see a happy ending in real life

.46

2 Social complexity

3 Reward for application

4 Religiosity

5 Fate control

To care about societal aVairs only brings trouble for yourself

.42

The various social institutions in society are biased toward the rich

.39

People deeply in love are usually blind

.32

Young people are impulsive and unreliable

.31

.39

Old people are usually stubborn and biased

.28

.26

People may have opposite behaviors on diVerent occasions

.59

One’s behaviors may be contrary to his or her true feelings

.54

Human behavior changes with the social context

.50

Current losses are not necessarily bad for one’s long-term future

.50

There is usually only one way to solve a problem

.38

One has to deal with matters according to the specific circumstances

.38

.29

.62

Adversity can be overcome with eVort One will succeed if he or she really tries

.61

One who does not know how to plan his or her future will eventually fail

.55

Every problem has a solution

.55

Hardworking people will achieve more in the end

.49

Knowledge is necessary for success

.47

Competition brings about progress

.47

Caution helps avoid mistakes

.29

Failure is the beginning of success

.25

.27

Belief in a religion helps one understand the meaning of life

.75

Religious faith contributes to good mental health

.71

Belief in a religion makes people good citizens

.67

There is a supreme being controlling the universe

.62

Religion makes people escape from reality

.58

Religious people are more likely to maintain moral standards

.56

Religious beliefs lead to unscientific thinking

.26

.54

There are many ways for people to predict what will happen in the future

.62

Individual characteristics, such as appearance and birthday, aVect one’s fate

.54

Good luck follows if one survives a disaster

.50 .50

There are certain ways to help us improve our luck and avoid unlucky things Fate determines one’s successes and failures Most disasters can be predicted

.34

.44 .43

Note. Some items are recoded, so that the primary loadings are positive regardless of the actual wording. Only loadings larger than .25 are presented. The variances accounted for by these five factors are 7.66% (social cynicism), 4.74% (social complexity), 6.32% (reward for application), 7.84% (religiosity), and 5.53% (fate control).

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negative item-total correlation each of .003 and .04. With regard to the average item-total correlations for these six items, the high was .34 (‘‘Individual characteristics, such as one’s appearance and birthday, aVect one’s fate’’) and the low was .26 (‘‘Most disasters can be predicted’’). Six items define social complexity. The average item-total correlation for these six items across the 40 cultural/national groups was .23, with a high of .37 (Singaporeans) and a low of .04 (Iranians). Five items yielded eight negative item-total correlations, but only two are worse than .10. With regard to the average item-total correlations for these six items, the high was .30 (‘‘People may have opposite behaviors on diVerent occasions’’) and the low was .16 (‘‘There is usually only one way to solve a problem’’). See Table V for means of these axiom dimensions of the 40 cultural groups.

C. FACTOR SIMILARITY VERSUS FACTOR CONGRUENCE Before delving into the meaning of these dimensions of social axioms, a methodological issue concerning the notion of factor similarity must be addressed. Any claim of universality of a factor structure requires its congruence (being identical in a statistical sense) across diVerent cultural groups. The factor structure we have identified by means of the metaanalytic procedure is optimal for these 40 cultural groups considered as a whole. This factor structure is very stable because of a high degree of similarity between the structures based on student and adult data and between the current structures and the structure reported by Leung et al. (2002). The meta-analytic procedure guarantees a reasonably good fit between the factor structure and the data from most of the constituent cultures, but it is possible that for a small set of cultures, a modified structure would provide a better fit to the data. Perhaps to some statistical purists, we have not identified a factor structure that is ‘‘congruent’’ across the 40 cultural groups studied. Technically speaking, this criticism is valid, but we believe that in conducting global studies involving many cultural groups, it is impractical to set perfect congruence as the standard in the search for universal structures. Cross-cultural research involves many steps that are likely to generate random and systematic errors, such as translation and procedures followed in administering questionnaires (Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997), which significantly jeopardize any real chance to identify a congruence structure, even if it does exist. Recently, for example, Heine, Lehman, Peng, and Greenholtz (2002) found that people tend to evaluate themselves relative to similar others, and this social comparison tendency may constitute a source of error

151

SOCIAL AXIOMS TABLE V Citizen Axiom Scores of the Student Sample Social cynicism

Social complexity

Reward for application

Religiosity

Fate control

American (Caucasian)

2.65

4.10

3.66

3.18

2.46

Belgian

2.97

4.03

3.36

2.58

2.58

Brazilian

2.81

3.98

3.54

3.39

2.49

British

2.75

4.11

3.46

2.81

2.35

Canadian

2.63

4.20

3.74

3.10

2.43

Chinese

3.03

4.08

3.74

2.92

2.90

Czech

2.77

4.10

3.29

3.10

2.62

Dutchman

2.62

4.18

3.18

2.73

2.56

Estonian

3.16

4.11

3.81

2.70

2.81

Filipino

2.84

4.09

4.03

3.52

2.60

Finn

2.76

4.08

3.59

3.07

2.54

French

3.05

4.08

3.56

2.60

2.62

Georgian

3.37

3.88

3.69

3.65

3.00

German

3.32

4.33

3.76

2.93

2.77

Greek

3.32

4.02

3.73

3.13

2.37

Hong Kong Chinese

3.13

4.08

3.70

3.44

2.69

Hungarian

2.96

4.13

3.40

2.99

2.67

Indian

3.04

3.92

4.19

3.37

2.97

Indonesian

2.72

3.96

4.14

4.22

2.91

Iranian

2.89

3.79

4.12

4.15

2.85

Israeli

2.76

4.16

3.60

2.60

2.53

Italian

2.74

4.01

3.28

2.72

2.29

Japanese

3.16

4.04

3.50

2.65

2.59

Korean

3.16

3.98

3.85

3.10

2.98

Latvian

3.05

4.02

3.58

3.10

2.77

Lebanese

3.05

4.11

3.77

3.10

2.47

Malaysian

2.88

3.93

4.29

4.30

2.96

New Zealander

2.77

4.14

3.59

2.83

2.34

Nigerian

2.98

3.89

4.04

3.67

3.08

Norwegian

2.66

4.37

3.53

2.55

2.01

Pakistani

3.29

3.77

4.15

4.40

3.15

Peruvian

3.29

3.67

3.88

3.21

2.48

Portuguese

2.87

3.90

3.61

3.09

2.43

Citizen

(continues)

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KWOK LEUNG AND MICHAEL HARRIS BOND TABLE V (continued ) Social cynicism

Social complexity

Reward for application

Religiosity

Fate control

Romanian

3.23

3.72

3.74

3.29

2.55

Russian

3.09

3.86

3.82

3.12

2.97

Singaporean

2.93

4.14

3.78

3.24

2.52

Spanish

2.89

4.14

3.48

2.40

2.27

Taiwanese

3.30

4.22

3.87

3.22

3.01

Thai

3.22

3.80

3.98

3.43

3.14

Turk

2.94

4.14

3.97

3.48

2.68

Citizen

in cross-cultural comparison. Finally, cultural diVerences may actually give rise to a slightly diVerent twist and slant to similar notions, thereby making perfect congruence highly unlikely in the real world. Our goal in this multicultural project on social axioms is to identify and itemize factors across a wide range of cultures, and consequently the items identified in the five-factor, pan-cultural factor structure are unlikely to be the best set of items that could be used to define these factors for some of the cultural groups. Obviously, locally derived items should show a higher level of reliability and validity for mapping these social axioms for these cultural groups (e.g., Cheung & Leung, 1998). However, we present some evidence in subsequent sections to show that our pan-cultural items are adequate markers for the identified axiom dimensions. This logic also has been adopted by some researchers engaged in global studies. In his search for universal value types, Schwartz (1992) also adopted a logic of similarity rather than a logic of congruence in assessing the usefulness of specific values as universal markers for the value types. Schwartz found that 87% of these value items were located in the correct value type in 70% or more of the samples. In other words, some mismatches occurred between the markers and the value types in some cultural groups. Our view is that this ‘‘good enough’’ logic in the operational definition of universal markers does not weaken Schwartz’s near-universal claim for his value types. In fact, Spini (2003) has recently examined the measurement invariance of the value structure proposed by Schwartz (1992) by means of confirmatory factor analysis across 21 countries. With an approach that is moderately strict from a statistical point of view, Spini concluded that most of the value types showed measurement invariance. However, perfect congruence has not been achieved, and Spini concluded that cross-cultural

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invariance in this case is like deciding whether the glass is half empty or full. In his words, ‘‘If the aim of research is to set forth a definitive theoretical model of the cultural diVerences on the basis of universal and shared value, the glass is probably half empty. . . . But if we take the view . . . that research gradually approaches reality, then the present research represents more than a half-full glass’’ ( pp. 20–21). Another example is derived from the research on the universality of the big-five model of personality orchestrated by McCrae, Costa, and colleagues (see McCrae, 2002). Five dimensions of personality traits are claimed to be fundamental and hence universal: agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness. The cross-cultural generality of this model using the NEO-PI-R is typically tested at the facet rather than the item level (e.g., McCrae, Zonderman, Costa, Bond, & Paunonen, 1996). In other words, facet means are obtained by averaging the items defining the facets, which then become the basic unit of factor analysis conducted to establish the cross-cultural congruence of the big-five model. To the best of our knowledge, there is no attempt to evaluate whether the items defining the facets are congruent across the diverse cultures in which the big-five model has been examined. Technically, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to confirm a factor model at the item level. The chance of obtaining factor congruence across a large number of cultures with a 240-item instrument, the NEO-PI-R, is probably next to zero, regardless of whether confirmatory factor analysis or Procrustes rotation is used. Nonetheless, in our view, the five-factor model shows impressive similarity across the diverse range of cultures studied.

D. CONTENT OF THE PAN-CULTURAL DIMENSIONS We now consider these five identified dimensions of human belief separately and as a totality. This discussion is primarily based on the content of the items and their conceptual linkage to previous research imbuing these dimensions with meaning. Evidence from within and across cultures will be presented later to enrich understanding of these belief dimensions and the psychological space they attempt to map. 1. Social Cynicism Many of these items are concerned with the corrosive eVects of power or authority derived from wealth or age, orienting others toward self-absorption and indiVerence to their fellow citizens. There are, however, additional

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features about the uselessness of showing goodwill toward others and the inevitable frustration of charity and public spiritedness. This belief syndrome suggests a lay version of Hobbesian theory—‘‘nature red in tooth and claw,’’ of social life as a jungle of willful, callous, indolent, and foolish others requiring vigilance and skepticism for one’s survival. Conceptually, this belief construct is reminiscent of Machiavellianism (Christie & Geis, 1970), La Piere’s (1959) Freudian ethic, and Wrightsman’s (1992) first and third assumptions about human nature: untrustworthiness and selfishness (versus altruism). These overlappings are limited, however, by two considerations. First, the previous scales measuring these concepts often include non-belief items tapping values or behavioral intentions and self-reports. Social cynicism as a construct of belief may well predict domains of value and aspects of behavior, hence accounting for the intercorrelations among items measuring these diVerent constructs. However, this conflation of constructs undercuts the development of a model for behavior where beliefs, values, and other constructs will be linked to behaviors of interest. Second, the focus of other ‘‘cynicism’’ scales (e.g., that in the MMPI) is on the human actor himself or herself, and generally excludes items of belief about social, material, or spiritual factors in determining the outcomes of human life. Whether the social cynicism measured in the Social Axioms Survey is a projection of the perceiver’s personal cynicism is a conceptual and empirical issue worthy of further study.

2. Religiosity The contents of this belief dimension focus on the positive functions of religious belief in six of its seven items. The seventh item asserts the existence of a supreme being, which is a central tenet in the world’s monotheistic religions. As the dimension highlights the psychological and social consequences of religious belief, however, we think it apt to rename this factor from its former name of spirituality to religiosity. Religious belief and practice are features of all cultural groups. Sociologists have argued that they provide a conservative social thrust and exercise integrative social eVects on communities (Berger, 1967), while psychologists have argued that they provide meaning and a sense of shared purpose for the followers of the religion (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczinski, 1991). Just as many social scientists would personally disagree with these positions, so too do the citizens in any given nation, thereby yielding variation across this belief syndrome. Measures of religious belief (Argyle, 2000) tend to be culture-specific in the sense that they assess endorsements of belief in the dominant religion of

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that culture. In addition, they tend to conflate measures of value and behavior (religious practice) along with beliefs about religion generally or the particular religion of the culture. We expect that our measure of religiosity will correlate with all these constructs but prefer the construct separation that a pure and more general measure of religiosity provides. 3. Reward for Application The nine items defining this core etic (a universal that is culture-general) all reflect an optimism that the challenges of life can be resolved by human endeavor and the application of individual resources to their solution. There are parallels in the content of these items to those items assessing coping styles (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), the Protestant Work Ethic (Furnham et al., 1993), just world beliefs (Lerner, 1980), and especially internality in Rotter’s (1966) measure of internal-external locus of control that has inspired so much research (e.g., Phares, 1965). However, the items from the Social Axioms Survey do not ask the respondents to assess their own level of internality, their own level of personal self-eYcacy (Bandura, 2001), or their own level of application (Yik & Bond, 1993), but rather their understanding about the interface between human agency, whoever its origin, and environmental responsiveness. In this respect, Singelis, Hubbard, Her, and An (2003) did not find a significant relationship between reward for application and internality as measured by Rotter’s (1966) instrument, although the correlation was in the expected direction. There are some possible reasons for this disconfirmation of expectation. Rotter’s scale is itself multifactorial, so that a single score derived from totaling all its items represents a conflation of constructs (see e.g., Bond & Tornatsky, 1973). Furthermore, some of the items in Rotter’s scale ask about ascriptions of internality to the self; others ask about ascriptions of internality in the lives of people in the world. It is likely that reward for application does not overlap substantially with internality as measured by Rotter, and probably their distinctiveness arises for conceptual reasons. Its meaning awaits the results of future studies done both within and across cultures. 4. Fate Control A close inspection of the items constituting this factor suggests two major themes: the predictability of important outcomes in one’s life and the ‘‘fatedness’’ of one’s outcomes. Several items are concerned with the extent that individuals believe in the predictability of important outcomes, and the actions that they as individuals can undertake to shape them. The word fate

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appears in two of the six items, and fate in these contexts also refers to a pervasive force determining one’s life outcomes. There are numerous scales tapping fate-related concepts in our literature, such as Dake’s (1992) fatalism or Wrightsman’s (1992) external control and irrationality. In common with others, Pepitone and SaYotti (1997) defined their concept of fate as a term ‘‘invoked to explain those life events that are perceived to be predestined and wholly under the control of some external power’’ (p. 25). The key word in their definition is wholly, a restriction that would exclude the possibility of controlling fate itself. But controllability of fate is precisely what is involved in one of the items defining fate control, viz., ‘‘There are certain ways to help us improve our luck and avoid unlucky things.’’ So, in the lay epistemology of the world’s peoples, even fate has a degree of controllability, being subject to knowledgeable forms of human agency, and our scientific constructions of the fate concept may be missing an important component of beliefs about outcomes with respect to their controllability by special practices or rituals. For this reason, we prefer to honor our respondents’ pan-cultural association of fate and other outcomes with their controllability and propose a more influencible conception of fate in our interpretation of this factor of fate control. Fate controls outcomes but is itself controllable. 5. Social Complexity The interpersonal world is complicated for some persons; individual behavior may vary from time to time and context to context and not map onto the individual’s feelings, thoughts, or traits in obvious ways. Present outcomes may not predict future outcomes, and the individual must deal with events on a case-by-case basis. The logic underlying events is not transparent, and daily life requires complex, lay theories for some people so that they can eVectively negotiate daily exchanges. Other people do not believe that the above is an accurate description of the world, instead assessing their worlds as constituted by a simpler, more easily predicted set of events. This contrast in world views gives social complexity its dimensionality. In associating to this construct, one is reminded of Openness to Experience from the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992), need for closure (Kruglanski, 1989), and cognitive flexibility (Applegate, Kline, & Delia, 1991; Martin & Anderson, 1998). We must again be alert to the varied composition of these scales, often involving items tapping values, attitudes, behavioral intentions and self-reports, in addition to beliefs. Perhaps the closest parallel to social complexity then is Wrightsman’s (1992) complexity versus simplicity measure of assumptions persons make about the world. All these measures have inspired a host of studies in the social

SOCIAL AXIOMS

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psychology of attribution, especially around the concept of attributional complexity (Fletcher, Danilovics, Fernandez, Peterson, & Reeder, 1986).

V. Evidence for the Meaning and Usefulness of the Social Axiom Dimensions Two diVerent strategies exist to evaluate the meaning and usefulness of these five axiom dimensions. The first strategy is rarely used in social psychology, because most social psychological research is monocultural. In the present research, however, we have collected comparable university student data from 40 cultural groups, and each group may be represented by a ‘‘citizen’’ axiom profile, that is, the average axiom score across male and female university students for the five axiom dimensions as identified in the above, pan-cultural analysis. So, by using university students as surrogates for representative samples from these 40 countries, we can create ‘‘citizen’’ scores for social cynicism, religiosity, reward for application, fate control, and social complexity. Using culture as a unit of analysis, we can correlate these citizen scores with a wide range of country-level indexes, building in essence a nation-level nomological network for interpreting the meaning of these axiom dimensions. This strategy targets each dimension of axioms separately, correlating citizen scores with societal features of a nation. This is a well-established approach in the study of modernity where variations across a dimension of values, like post-modernism (Inglehart, 1997), are linked to a measure of societal modernization, such as GNP/capita or a broader measure like Georgas, van de Vijver, and Berry’s (2004) factor of aZuence, a composite measure tapping level of economic development. Often the selection of societal correlates of psychological functioning is driven by theoretical considerations about how social systems and their institutional components promote the development of compatible psychological supports, like Durkheim’s (1893/1984) work on industrialization and alienation, Fukuyama’s (1995) on capitalism and trust, or Inglehart’s (1997) on modernization and post-modern values. We expect, for example, that some of our axiom dimensions form one of the psychological underpinnings of democracy (Sullivan & Transue, 1999). This speculation may be assessed by correlating the axiom dimensions with measures of a nation’s level of freedom or of democracy. Two issues associated with this approach need to be addressed. First, it is well known that individual-level and culture-level analysis bear no logical relationship with each other (e.g., Leung, 1989). The average citizen scores are based on an individual-level factor analysis, in which an individual is the

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unit of analysis. However, the average citizen scores are at the culture level, and when we correlate average citizen scores with societal indexes, the analysis is obviously at the culture level. This approach may be viewed as an example of mixing levels, but we argue that this procedure is legitimate. Although the citizen scores are based on an individual-level factor structure, they represent meaningful constructs at the culture level. For example, in some cultures many citizens have a high score in social cynicism, whereas in some other cultures, most people are low in social cynicism. Intuitively, it seems plausible that these two groups of cultures are likely to diVer in some aspects at the societal level, which can only be revealed by correlating the average citizen scores with relevant societal indexes. Second, we should note that university students are hardly representative of their country’s population. Nonetheless, we propose to use their average scores as an approximation of the true citizen scores on the core etics of axioms for their country, assuming that the relative position of countries’ citizens, perhaps even their degree of diVerence from one another, will not diVer much from these scores. To evaluate this possibility, we have correlated the student and adult means for each of the axioms across the 11 cultural groups for which we have both types of data. The average correlation is supportive of our argument, with a mean of .83, a high of .89 (fate control), and a low of .68 (social complexity). The second strategy to evaluate the meaning of the axiom dimensions is common in social psychology, which involves the study of their antecedents and consequences across individuals. The evidence gathered so far in this line of work is reviewed in Section VII.

A. SOCIETAL VARIABLES ASSOCIATED WITH CITIZEN AXIOMS The institutional programs set up by society are subjectively real as attitudes, motives and life projects. —Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological/Theory of Religion

Bandura (2002) has argued that, ‘‘Social structures are created by human activity to organize, guide and regulate human aVairs in given domains by authorized rules and sanctions’’ (p. 278). Social axioms are an individual cognitive form of organization, guidance, and regulation that would facilitate adaptation to cultural environments characterized by certain reinforcement conditions. Which of the five core etics, however, is responsive to which societal features? We have grouped the country-level indexes into two broad categories: socioeconomic-political indexes, some of which may

SOCIAL AXIOMS

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not have any individual counterparts, as well as psychological indexes derived from aggregating psychological data across individuals. Before we present the results, we should note with Yang (1988) that there will be many psychological adaptations to the forces of modernization, although only those that bear some functional relationship to the institutions and social processes attendant on modernization will change (for a recent evaluation of this position, see Chang, Wong, & Koh, 2003). A major aspect of all cultural environments is the means of production used to generate economic output in that social system. More developed contemporary economic systems are characterized by their diversity, interdependency, regulation by laws and contract, focus on service and knowledge provision, scientism, and professionalization of the workforce (Landes, 1999). Socializing a workforce to function eVectively in such a complex environment should have a broad impact on the psychological functioning that characterizes its citizenry, its skills, its emotional experience (Wong & Bond, 2003), its values (Inglehart, 1997), and its beliefs. Yang (1988) has warned that modernization involves more than economic change, so we expect that additional, societal factors will shape citizen beliefs—religious traditions, especially their assumptions about the nature of man and their authority structures; philosophical teachings, especially those related to epistemology; ecological features, like disaster proneness and resource-richness; historical legacies, like colonization, immigration flows, domestic political violence, and interaction patterns of ethnic groupings within their borders. Measures of these various societal factors are challenging to develop, and when they are, we may discover that they themselves are correlated with measures of economic development. One strategy for disentangling these interrelated groupings is to control for aZuence in examining the correlations between the axiom dimensions and country-level indexes. We use a nation’s per capita GDP as a measure of its aZuence in calculating the partial correlations, which is a common strategy in this line of research (e.g., Van de Vliert, 2003). We should also point out that we rely on correlations to analyze the data because we are still in an exploratory stage, and complex analyses such as regression analysis may blur some interesting relationships. In addition, we have not grouped the societal indexes into categories because a factor analysis of these indexes has produced a pattern that is hard to interpret. In essence, our analytic strategy is to present the basic relationships, which are intended to lay the foundation for future work that will be more sophisticated and theory guided. Finally, we have included a wide range of indexes, but we only present the indexes that yield significant correlations. Given that many correlations were computed, a small number may be spurious, and we have dropped a few indexes because their results are hard to interpret.

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B. CORRELATIONS WITH SOCIETAL VARIABLES The correlations of the citizen scores with the socioeconomic-political indexes are given in Table VI (see the Appendix for the sources of these indexes). As expected, aZuence as measured by per capita GDP correlated significantly with all five citizen scores. It may seem paradoxical that the same predictor works for all five axioms when the axiom dimensions from which citizen scores are derived are statistically independent of one another. That independence, however, is based on the factor analysis of the individual belief data from 40 cultural groups. That factor analysis enabled us to calculate factor scores for the individuals in all countries that were then averaged to produce the citizen scores. In fact, these five axioms based on citizen scores show some intercorrelations. Not surprisingly then, they sometimes show significant correlations with a given variable, as in the present case of aZuence. The fact that economic development as measured by national aZuence is related to the social axioms of citizens across all five dimensions suggests a ‘‘profile of beliefs for modern economies’’ characterized as low in social cynicism, religiosity, reward for application, and fate control, but high in social complexity. The negative correlation between reward for application and aZuence seems counterintuitive, because reward for application may be expected to promote economic development. However, this finding suggests that in an aZuent environment, people actually posit a weaker link between eVort and return. Perhaps measures that have been introduced in aZuent societies to equalize the impact of wealth, such as social welfare programs for the poor and high tax for the wealthy, are partly responsible for a weakened belief in reward for application in these societies. In less aZuent societies, however, people typically must fend for themselves, and more work is likely to lead to more return, giving rise to a stronger belief in reward for application. As discussed previously, aZuence may also show significant eVects on a wide range of societal phenomena and hence confound the relationships between social axioms and country-level indexes. To control for these eVects, partial correlations are reported, with per capita GDP being controlled for. In other words, significant relationships identified in this analysis are independent of a nation’s aZuence. A growing body of multicultural studies of individual psychological variables exists, ranging from McCrae’s (2002) presentation of big-five scores in 40 countries to Levine and Norenzayan’s (1999) analysis of pace of life in 31 countries. These psychological data are collated and analyzed to yield a nomological network of social beliefs in a latticework of other citizen characteristics. The correlations of the citizen scores with these psychological and behavioral indexes are given in Table VII. Again, per capita GDP was controlled for in these correlations.

TABLE VI Correlations Between Social Axioms and Socioeconomic-Political Indicators

Variable

Source

N

GDP per capita 2000 (PPP US$)

Human Development Report 2002, UN; The World Fact Book 2002

40

Average daytime temperature

National Geographic Atlas of the World 1990, as cited in Van de Vliert, Schwartz, Huismans, Hofstede, and Daan (1999)

Life expectancy at birth

Social cynicism .39

Social complexity .62*

Reward for application

Religiosity

Fate control

.62*

.62*

.60*

37

.45*

.41

Human Development Report 2001, UN

39

.39

.37

Population growth rate 2000–05

Statistical Division, UN

36

.55*

.49*

Number of persons per room 2001

Statistical Division, UN

23

.56*

.50

Urbanism 2000

Statistical Division, UN

39

Percent of GDP on education

Human Development Report 2001, UN

39

Percent of GDP on health

Human Development Report 2001, UN

32

Environmental sustainability index 2002

World Economic Forum (2002)

36

Human development index 1999

Human Development Report 2001, UN

39

.47*

.48*

.43*

Human rights

Humana (1992)

35

.56*

.43

.44*

.42*

.40 .33 .41

.56*

.67*

.36 .37

(continues)

TABLE VI (continued ) Variable Political rights and civil liberties 1992/93–2001/02

Source Freedom House (2002)

N

Social cynicism

Social complexity

39

Reward for application

Religiosity

.48*

.49*

.50*

.53*

Fate control

.42

Women’s status

Population Crisis Committee (1988)

35

Voter turnout at latest elections

Human Development Report 2000, UN

32

Working hours per week

International Labour Organization (2002)

28

Heart disease death rate

World Health Statistics Annual 1995–98

22

.52

Suicide rate

World Health Statistics Annual 1992–95

27

.54*

Alcohol consumption 1996

Human Development Report 2001, UN

36

.38

.45 .51*

.49*

.49*

.38

Note. All scales are scored so that a higher score indicates a higher level of the concept represented by the label. The correlations involving per capita GDP are simple correlations, and the rest are partial correlations with per capital GDP controlled for. All correlations are significant at the .05 level, and those with an asterisk are significant at the .01 level.

TABLE VII Correlations Between Social Axioms and Psychological Indicators at the Societal Level

Variable

Source

N

Social cynicism

Social complexity

Reward for application

Religiosity

Life satisfaction

World Value Survey 1990–93, as cited in Diener & Suh (1999)

21

Job satisfaction

International Survey Research (1995), as cited in Van de Vliert & Janssen (2002)

21

Satisfaction toward one’s company

International Survey Research (1995), as cited in Van de Vliert & Janssen (2002)

21

Positive aVect

World Value Survey 1990–93, as cited in Diener & Suh (1999)

24

.64*

Negative aVect

World Value Survey 1990–93, as cited in Diener & Suh (1999)

24

.45

Hedonic balance—Positive aVect minus negative aVect

World Value Survey 1990–93, as cited in Diener & Suh (1999)

24

.50

.47

.73*

.53

Pace of life

Levine & Norenzayan (1999)

19

Extraversion

McCrae (2002)

25

Agreeableness

McCrae (2002)

25

Conscientiousness

McCrae (2002)

25

Work ethic—Enjoyment of working hard

Lynn (1991)

22

Achievement via conformity

Lynn (1991)

22

Fate control

.69*

.55

.51

.60*

.50 .52

.49

.59*

.51 .54 .62* (continues)

TABLE VII (continued ) Variable

Source

N

Social Cynicism

Social Complexity

Reward for Application

Religiosity

Fate Control

Sources of guidance—Vertical (superiors)

Smith, Peterson, and Schwartz (2002)

32

.49*

Sources of guidance—Beliefs that are widespread in my nation

Smith, Peterson, and Schwartz (2002)

32

.42

Sources of guidance—Specialists

Smith, Peterson, and Schwartz (2002)

32

.45

View on leadership— Charismatic/value based

Den Hartog, House, Hanges, & Ruiz-Quintanilla (1999)

28

View on leadership—Humane

Den Hartog et al. (1999)

28

View on leadership—Teamoriented

Den Hartog et al. (1999)

28

Mate preference—Emphasizing mutual attraction; deemphasizing financial prospect, social status, and ambition

Shackelford & Schmitt (2002)

23

.74*

.54*

Mate preference—Emphasizing education and intelligence; deemphasizing desire for home and children

Shackelford & Schmitt (2002)

23

.53

.64*

Mate preference—Emphasizing sociability and pleasing disposition; deemphasizing religious background

Shackelford & Schmitt (2002)

23

.53

.65*

.46 .47

.46

.52* .72*

Tolerance of divorce

World Value Survey 1990–93, as cited in Diener, Gohm, Suh, and Oishi (2000)

25

.43

Percentage of thinking scientific advances will help mankind

Inglehart, Basan˜ez, and Moreno (1998)

23

.44

Importance of religion in life—% of very important

Inglehart et al. (1998)

24

.69*

Frequency of praying to God outside of religious services— % ‘‘often’’ or ‘‘sometimes’’

Inglehart et al. (1998)

20

.62*

Percentage of adult population that attends church at least once a week

World Value Survey 1990–93/ 1995–97, as cited in Swanbrow (1997)

26

Percentage of showing interest in politics

Inglehart et al. (1998)

23

In-group disagreement

Smith, Dugan, Peterson, and Leung (1998)

18

Other-referenced performance motive—compared with others’ performance

Lynn (1991), as cited in Van de Vliert & Janssen (2002)

22

.44

.53

.43

.55*

.43

.50 .60*

.68*

.67*

.49

Note. All scales are scored so that a higher score indicates a higher level of the concept represented by the label. All the correlations are partial correlations with per capital GDP controlled for. All correlations are significant at the .05 level, and those with an asterisk are significant at the .01 level.

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1. Social Cynicism Higher social cynicism is related to less frequent church attendance, lower life satisfaction, lower satisfaction toward one’s company, lower hedonic balance (more negative than positive aVect), and a faster pace of life. Perhaps the reason for people with high social cynicism to show a fast pace of life is that they take a businesslike, transactional approach in conducting their lives. Social cynicism is related to a lower level of conscientiousness, a factor in the big-five personality model that is concerned with competence, order, dutifulness and discipline, and the will to achieve. Social cynicism is also related to lower achievement via conformity, rejection of the view that leadership is based on charisma and values, lower endorsement of teamoriented leadership, and more disagreement within the in-group. People high in social cynicism seem unmotivated to get along with others and unlikely to endorse the view that leaders should inculcate a set of values in their followers and guide them with a vision and a sense of meaning in their goal attainment activities. These correlations suggest that people high in social cynicism are likely to be lower in church attendance, unhappy, lower in achievement via conformity, more likely to run into interpersonal problems, have less faith in charismatic leaders, be less conscientious, and show a faster pace of life. This profile fits nicely with our earlier description of social cynicism as a combination of a negative view of human nature, a biased view against some social groups, a mistrust of social institutions, and a disregard of ethical means for achieving an end. People high in social cynicism seem unable to cope with their social world eVectively, resulting in considerable negative psychological outcomes.

2. Social Complexity A higher level of social complexity is related to a higher proportion of GDP spent on health, a higher voter turnout rate, more interest in politics, and a lower performance motive that takes into account the performance of other people. Our earlier description of social complexity suggests a combination of belief in the lack of rigid rules, the existence of multiple solutions to a problem, and the inconsistency in human behavior. These significant correlations do not lend themselves to an obvious interpretation based on this description. However, given that social complexity is correlated with economic development, these correlations may suggest a general pattern of modernity. We may speculate that the higher investment in health may reflect a complex view of health problems. The endorsement of multiple ways of doing things may reduce the need for considering others’ performance in monitoring one’s performance. Finally, a complex world

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view may predispose one to engagement in complex issues, such as politics. Obviously, these interpretations are highly speculative and tentative. 3. Religiosity Religiosity is related to a higher daytime temperature, a lower life expectancy, a higher population growth rate, a larger average number of people in a room, a lower percentage of GDP spent on health and education, less favorable human development, less human rights, fewer political rights and civil liberties, a lower status of woman, longer work hours, and less alcohol consumption. With regard to psychological variables, religiosity is related to higher positive and negative aVect, higher hedonic balance, a slower pace of life, higher agreeableness, a factor of the five-factor model of personality that refers to friendliness and kindness. Religiosity is also related to stronger endorsement of humane leadership, stronger endorsement of the view that scientific advances will help mankind, a higher importance of religion in one’s life, more frequent oVering of prayers to God, more frequent church attendance, and a stronger performance motive that takes into account the performance of others. Even though wealth has been controlled for in these correlations, there is a clear pattern that religiosity is associated with living in a diYcult socioeconomic environment. Perhaps when life is diYcult, people are more likely to discover the benefits of religious practice. In addition, the results clearly support our interpretation of religiosity in that people high in religiosity indeed engage in more religious activities and regard religion as more important in their life. In addition, they also experience more aVect in their daily life, report a slower pace of life, consume less alcohol, see themselves as more agreeable, and endorse a humane view of leadership, A few correlations are hard to interpret, including the link between religiosity and temperature, a performance motive based on others’ performance, and confidence in science. Perhaps high daytime temperature is related to discomfort in daily life (e.g., Van de Vliert, 2003), which may give rise to higher religiosity. Religiosity may also lead to a higher other-focus, resulting in a performance motive that is sensitive to the performance of others. Finally, religiosity is related to diYcult socioeconomic conditions, which may lead to placing more hope in science to improve human conditions. In any events, these interpretations are highly speculative and require future verification and refinement. 4. Reward for Application Reward for application is related to a higher daytime temperature, a lower life expectancy, a higher population growth rate, a larger average number of people in a room, a lower percentage of GDP spent on health, less favorable

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human development, less human rights observance, fewer political rights and civil liberties, a lower status of woman, longer work hours, and lower alcohol consumption. With regard to psychological variables, reward for application is related to higher reliance on vertical sources (superiors) and widespread belief in one’s cultural traditions, and lower reliance on specialists to guide one’s action at work. Reward for application is also related to lower emphasis on mutual attraction, education and intelligence, as well as sociability and pleasing disposition, in mate preference, lower tolerance for divorce, stronger endorsement of humane leadership, a higher level of agreeableness, a stronger performance motive that takes into account others’ performance, and a stronger belief that scientific thinking will help mankind. It is interesting to note that, like religiosity, diYcult socioeconomic conditions are associated with a stronger belief in reward for application. In fact, the relationships with regard to this type of variable are highly similar to those for religiosity. Perhaps the belief in the benefits of hard work, knowledge, and careful planning is another strategy to cope with socioeconomic hardship. Reward for application is also related to lower tolerance for divorce and less emphasis on the role of mutual attraction, intelligence, and pleasing disposition in the selection of a spouse. Perhaps strong endorsement of this dimension leads to the view that eVort to establish a viable family can compensate for meager romantic feelings in intimate relationships. The emphasis on self-discipline by people high in reward for application may explain their reluctance to rely on specialists and their low alcohol consumption. In addition, people high in reward for application are obviously sensitive to how others are going to provide rewards for them. It is logical that they look to superiors and social conventions for guidance at the workplace and monitor their performance in light of the performance of other people. This interpersonal sensitivity is also consistent with their higher agreeableness and stronger endorsement of humane leadership. 5. Fate Control Fate control is related to a lower life expectancy, lower urbanism, a lower percentage of GDP spent on health, lower environmental sustainability, lower human development, less human rights observance, a lower status of woman, a lower voter turnout rate, a higher death rate due to heart disease, and a higher suicide rate. With regard to psychological variables, fate control is related to lower job satisfaction and lower satisfaction toward one’s company, a faster pace of life, and lower extraversion, a factor of the five-factor personality model that refers to outgoingness and sociability. Fate control is also related to lower

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work ethic (enjoyment of working hard), lower endorsement of teamoriented and charismatic leadership, and a lower emphasis on mutual attraction, education and intelligence in mate preference. Fate control is also related to more interest in politics, and a performance motive that takes into account others’ performance. Like religiosity and reward for application, diYcult socioeconomic conditions are associated with a strong belief in fate control. Perhaps the belief that life events are predetermined and that there are ways to influence these outcomes represents a way to cope with these diYculties. Consistent with the notion that people high in fate control do not take active control of events that happen to them and adopt a passive style in dealing with these events, high fate control is related to a higher suicide rate, a higher death rate due to heart disease, a lower voter turnout rate, a lower life satisfaction and satisfaction toward one’s company, a less active social life as reflected in low extraversion, lower endorsement of team-oriented and charismatic leadership, lower emphasis on education and intelligence in mate selection, and less positive work ethics. The positive correlations between fate control and interest in politics, other-focus in performance motive, and pace of life may seem puzzling at the first glance, but given that fate control does involve a belief in altering one’s fate, these correlations may reflect their attempt to positively shape their life outcomes. What remains unknown, of course, is when people high in fate control are passive and withdrawing, and when they attempt to exercise control over life events, an important topic for future research. Given that the patterns of correlations for religiosity, reward for application, and fate control are similar for quite a few variables, the question may be raised whether they really present distinct constructs. It seems that for ‘‘diYcult’’ environments, which are relatively less wealthy, resourceful, and stable (Triandis, 1973), reward for application, religiosity, and fate control are high, which may be regarded as coping responses in these diYcult environments. Furthermore, the psychological correlates of these three axioms suggest that they are related to a higher level of tolerance and interpersonal sensitivity. However, we argue for the distinctiveness of these three dimensions for two main reasons. First, they are derived from an orthogonal rotation of individual-level responses, and their correlates should be relatively distinct only at the individual level. As explained previously, the results presented here are at the national/cultural level, which explains why these citizen variables are related at a higher than expected level. For instance, the correlation between citizen religiosity and citizen reward for application is the highest, which, after controlling for aZuence, is .64. In a subsequent section, we will review evidence that supports their distinctiveness at the

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individual level. Second, these three dimensions do show some unique correlations that clearly reflect their distinctiveness. For instance, religiosity is related to observance of religious activities, whereas reward for application to the reliance of superiors for guidance at work and intolerance of divorce, and fate control to suicide and death due to heart diseases.

C. SECTION SUMMARY Each of these axiom dimensions shows generally interpretable, meaningful relationships with a subset of the societal indexes, lending support to our interpretation of their meaning. We should point out that we were somewhat constrained in our analyses by the societal indexes currently available. New indexes may have to be tailormade for our particular purposes for future work in this area, as Simonton (1976), for example, has been attempting. The present work on social axioms along with other recent multicultural work on psychological constructs (e.g., by Allik and McCrae (2004) on the big-five model of personality), will stimulate their development.

VI. Clustering Nations in Terms of Their Citizens’ Beliefs The citizen scores on these five social axioms may be used in a diVerent way to illuminate the impact of societal conditions on beliefs. A cluster analysis of belief scores across the five dimensions will group citizens on the basis of their similarity to one another. This pattern of grouping will provide a ‘‘psychograph’’ of ‘‘axiom mates,’’ stimulating conjectures about the possible basis for the groupings. A hierarchical cluster analysis of the citizen’s z scores on the five belief dimensions across 40 nations was conducted, based on the method of average linkage. The pattern obtained in this analysis is given in Figure 2. Perhaps the monumental work of Hofstede (1980) has cast a long and rigid shadow on our lay theory about how cultures should group together. Most people’s first reaction to the dendrogram is likely to be a mixture of unfamiliarity and bewilderment. Only a few obvious linkages are apparent in this psychograph of axiom similarities: the Muslim group of Iranians, Malaysians, Indonesians, and Pakistanis, although the linkage with the Pakistanis takes a number of steps to achieve; the Brazilians and the Portuguese are linguistic neighbors; the Czechs and the Hungarians are geographical neighbors; the Canadians and the Americans are both linguistic and geographical

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Fig. 2. Hierarchical cluster analysis of citizens’ social axioms on five dimensions from 40 cultural groups.

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neighbors; there is a Chinese grouping, but it, like the Muslim grouping, takes a number of steps to achieve, and shares its cluster with a number of disparate cultural groups. More striking are pairings and groupings that defy simple interpretations based on previous cultural maps: Peruvians with Romanians, Canadians and Americans with Finns, French with Japanese, and Israelis with New Zealanders and British; particularly striking is the clustering of Indians, Nigerians, Koreans, Russians, and Thais. The surprise at these sorts of groupings is relative to implicit models of how cultural systems and their psychological sequelae ought to organize themselves—geographically, linguistically, religiously, or in terms of diasporas. In fact, a primary objective of our research project is to search for results that are distinct from previous results. It is our hope that the cultural groupings presented will compel the field to explore new bases for organizing cultures and their associated dynamics.

VII. Roles of Social Axioms for Individual Behavior Thoughts are but dreams till their eVects be tried. —Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

This section reviews the antecedents and consequences of social axioms at the individual level, at which most social psychological research operates. Traditional personality and social psychological research is conducted using participants from a single cultural group. Individuals, rather than nations, cultural groups, or the average citizen, become the focus of attention and analysis. Using the individual as the unit of analysis is a familiar format for psychologists and enables us to produce theories and findings about individuals rather than about other social units. Occasionally, such within-culture studies are extended to other cultural groups to assess the presumed generalizability of such discoveries. Often these processes are found to be ‘‘universal,’’ but sometimes not (Smith & Bond, 1998). Specific to our context, we hypothesize that a person’s endorsement levels for the five social axioms represent generalizations arising from a confrontation between his or her eco-social aVordances and his or her deployable skill repertoire. They are experienced-based judgments about how his or her world works with respect to these five axes of diVerence. A person’s position along these dimensions informs us about his or her assessment of the reality constraints within which he or she operates in the world. Once in place, these

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levels of general beliefs along the five dimensions will channel individual behavioral choices.

A. WITHIN-NATION STUDIES OF SOCIAL AXIOMS Identifying general beliefs and motivations as separate constructs in predicting behavior implies that they are nonoverlapping constructs, both useful in the prediction of other psychological outcomes. In a number of Hong Kong–based studies, social axioms have been shown to be only moderately related to values, suggesting a complementary role for these constructs, as would be hypothesized by expectancy-value theory (Feather, 1982). In a recent study by Keung and Bond (2002), the degree of overlap between two dimensions of value derived from Schwartz’s (1992) value survey and the five social axioms was small—the highest correlation was .36 between other-concern and reward for application. Consistent with the finding of their relative independence and importance for the modeling of outcomes, social axioms were shown to add predictive power beyond that provided by values in predicting egalitarianism of political attitudes. Negative religiosity predicted the broad political orientation of freedom from regulation (e.g., euthanasia, abortion, and control of fire arms) over and above its predictability provided by the two broad dimensions of value. This specific finding echoes the culture-level relationship between religiosity and a low level of domestic political rights and civil liberties. We hypothesize that beliefs add predictive power to value orientations in predicting behaviors because of their channeling eVects. A person’s beliefs indicate one’s assessment of external constraints and aVordances, thereby changing the likelihood that goals may be achieved through engaging in particular tactics or strategies. To evaluate this possibility, Bond, Leung, Au, Tong, and Chemonges-Nielsen (in press) examined a person’s vocational preferences, preferred modes of coping, and use of diVerent conflict resolution styles among college students in Hong Kong. To evaluate the unique eVects of axioms on the dependent variables, Schwartz’s (1992) values were entered in the first step of a regression analysis, and the axioms were entered in the second step. Thus, any significant relationships between the axioms and the dependent variables are independent of values. Reward for application showed a significant relationship with conventional vocational preferences (e.g., loan manager) over and above the eVects related to values. Perhaps the return on eVort is perceived as higher for this type of vocation. With regard to conflict resolution styles, reward for application predicted the conflict resolution style of accommodation after values had exercised their eVects. Religiosity was positively related to both conflict

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resolution styles of accommodation and competition. The relationship with the accommodative style is consistent with the correlation between religiosity and agreeableness at both the individual and culture levels (discussed in the next paragraph). The significant relationship with the competitive style is puzzling and awaits future replication. Perhaps people high in religiosity view conflict as involving issues that are either right or wrong, and a competitive style may be seen as eVective in bringing out the moral truth of a dispute. Social cynicism was related to a lower tendency to use the collaborative and compromising styles, both of which require mutual cooperation. These relationships confirm the negative view of people by individuals high in social cynicism. Finally, social complexity predicted the conflict resolution style of compromise and of collaboration. In other words, people are more likely to compromise or collaborate if they accept the complex nature of human behaviors. For coping styles, social complexity predicted the coping style of problem solving, which may suggest that a complex view of human behaviors encourages rational approaches to personal diYculties. Fate control was significantly related to distancing, a tendency to be passive and avoid thinking about diYculties, and to the wishful thinking coping style, which involves fantasizing and daydreaming. These findings are consistent with correlations obtained at the culture level, showing that fate control is associated with withdrawing reactions to diYculties in life, such as suicide. Social axioms do relate in predictable fashion to dimensions of the fivefactor model of personality. Leung and Bond (1998) reported that the beta weights for Hong Kong Chinese in predicting social cynicism were .18 agreeableness .21 conscientiousness; for religiosity, .26 agreeableness .21 openness to experience; for reward for application, .23 conscientiousness; for fate control, .25 neuroticism; for social complexity, .40 openness to experience. A welcome convergent and discriminant validity is evident in the patterning of these relationships. However, it must be borne in mind that the specific items constituting the NEO-PI-R measure of the big five factors include some belief items, not only about the self but also about the world. Relations between the Social Axioms Survey and the NEO-PI-R may thus arise in part because of construct overlap. We have also examined the axiom dimensions at the culture level. One observation is that social axioms show more significant relationships with the big five factors at the individual than at the culture level. Second, two of the four significant correlations at the culture level are replicated at the individual level: the negative correlation between social cynicism and conscientiousness and the positive correlation between religiosity and agreeableness. Of note, many big five items are behavioral self-reports combined with motivational self-assessments and self-reported beliefs to give a

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comprehensive measure of personality dispositions. We can separate these constructs, as done by Keung and Bond (2002), into motivational and belief components, and then examine their joint eVects on outcome measures, such as behavioral self-reports. Leung (in preparation) has conducted two surveys in Hong Kong that examined the correlations between social cynicism and job attitudes. In the first study, 605 Chinese employees in Hong Kong were randomly interviewed by telephone. Social cynicism showed significant negative correlations with job satisfaction, job commitment, and perceived organizational justice. In the second study, based on telephone interviews of 427 Chinese employees in Hong Kong, social cynicism was again found to show a significant negative correlation with job satisfaction and perceived organizational justice, as well as organizational commitment, evaluation of superiors, and life satisfaction. As reported previously, a negative correlation was also found between social cynicism and life satisfaction and job satisfaction at the culture level. The studies reviewed above were conducted with Hong Kong Chinese. In the following, a few studies conducted in other cultural contexts are discussed. Singelis, Hubbard et al. (2003) have examined the relationships between social axioms and several individual diVerence variables and behaviors among U.S. college students. The individual diVerence variables include locus of control, interpersonal trust, social desirability, and cognitive flexibility, which refers to a flexible and creative style of problem solving, and paranormal beliefs, which include beliefs in a supreme being and other paranormal phenomena. Singelis, Hubbard, et al. found that social cynicism correlated positively with external locus of control and supernatural beliefs (e.g., black cats can bring bad luck) and negatively with social desirability, interpersonal trust, and cognitive flexibility. Religiosity showed a highly positive correlation with traditional Christian beliefs (e.g., the belief in God, heaven and hell, and soul). Reward for application correlated positively with social desirability, cognitive flexibility, and traditional Christian beliefs. Fate control correlated positively with external locus of control and negatively with cognitive flexibility. Fate control also showed a negative correlation with traditional Christian beliefs, but positive correlations with spiritual beliefs, supernatural beliefs, and belief in precognition. Finally, social complexity correlated positively with cognitive flexibility and negatively with interpersonal trust. These correlations provide good support for the convergent and discriminant validity associated with the five axiom dimensions. Convergent validity is demonstrated by significant correlations between social cynicism and interpersonal trust (negative); religiosity and traditional religious beliefs; reward for application and social desirability; fate control with external

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locus of control, and social complexity with cognitive flexibility. Discriminant validity is demonstrated by lower correlations with conceptually unrelated variables. With regard to social behaviors, Singelis, Hubbard et al. (2003) reported that religiosity was related to seeking advice from a spiritual adviser, praying, reading scriptures, and church attendance. These findings corroborate the relationship between religiosity and religious activities at the culture level previously discussed. Reward for application was related to trying harder the next time when unsuccessful, and working hard to maintain good interpersonal relationships. These findings seem consistent with the correlations between reward for application and a lower tolerance for divorce and a lower emphasis on mutual attraction in mate preference at the national level. Endorsement of fate control predicted having a lucky number and reading one’s horoscope, which corroborates the earlier finding that fate control is related to supernatural and spiritual beliefs as well as belief about precognition. Social complexity was related to feeling comfortable with talking to strangers and speaking one’s mind even if it may hurt others’ feelings. This finding seems to suggest that a pluralistic approach to issues by people high in social complexity may lower their attentiveness to how others may react to their behavior, which is consistent with the negative correlation between social complexity and an other-focus performance motive at the culture level. Van Bavel, Noels, and Williams (2002) have correlated the five axiom dimensions with a variety of self-reported behaviors among a group of undergraduates in Canada. Social cynicism is related to fewer organizations volunteered for; social complexity and fate control are related to checking the horoscope; religiosity is related to attending religious services and engaging in prayer or mediation. The correlation between social complexity and checking the horoscope seems puzzling, but the uncertainty associated with a complex world view may result in the reliance on diverse strategies to seek guidance for one’s actions. Rupf and Boehnke (2002) examined the relationship in Germany between social axioms and hierarchic self-interest, which refers to the hierarchical and self-serving nature of interpersonal relations, and right-wing behavior (e.g., listening to right-wing rock music). Results showed that right-wing behavior was related positively to social cynicism and negatively to religiosity. Hierarchic self-interest was related positively to social cynicism and reward for application, and negatively to religiosity. The relationships involving social cynicism are consistent with the negative world view of people high in social cynicism. The findings with regard to religiosity are consistent with the finding that religiosity is associated with agreeableness at the

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cultural level. It is unclear why reward for application is related to hierarchic self-interest. People endorsing this belief may expect that everyone should take care of himself/herself, giving rise to this correlation. Ward and Ramakrishnan (2003, Study 1) studied the relationship between social axioms and kiasu, the fear of losing out, among university students in Singapore. Kiasu behaviors reflect selfishness, rudeness, greed, calculation, and competitiveness. When social desirability is controlled for, reward for application showed a significant positive relationship with kiasu. Perhaps the emphasis on eVort and planning in reward for application is associated with behaviors that reflect a fear of losing out. This finding is consistent with the earlier finding that reward for application is related to hierarchic self-interest, and that reward for application is related to an other-focus performance motive at the culture level. Safdar, Lewis, Greenglass, and Daneshpour (2003) examined the relationships between social axioms and coping strategies regarding the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States among university students from three diVerent religious groups (Muslim, Jewish, and Christian) from three nations: Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Proactive coping, which refers to active strategies such as goal setting with selfregulatory goal attainment, as well as avoidance coping, characterized by delaying and lack of eVort in problem-solving, were included. Results showed that proactive coping was related positively to reward for application and to social complexity. Avoidance coping was also positively related to social complexity, which seems consistent with the earlier finding about the tendency for people high in social complexity to read the horoscope. Perhaps the indeterminacy associated with social complexity gives rise to the use of indirect coping strategies. Furthermore, these researchers reported that participants who were practicing their religions were more likely to engage in both active and avoidant coping behaviors. Active religious participation by the three religious groups (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) also was associated with high levels of reward for application, religiosity, and social complexity. Whereas the above studies explored the correlates of social axioms, Kurman and Ronen-Eilen (2004) conducted a study that examined the functional value of social axioms. Two immigrant groups in Israel were surveyed—one from the former Soviet Union and the other from Ethiopia. These two groups were asked to respond to the Social Axioms Survey and to estimate the axiom scores of average Israelis. An Israeli group was also asked to estimate the axiom scores of average Israelis, and another random sample of Israelis was asked to respond to the Social Axioms Survey to generate the profile for average Israelis. Results showed that Israelis provided more accurate estimates of the axiom scores of average Israelis than did the

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immigrants. Furthermore, better knowledge of the average axiom scores in Israel was related to better social adaptation (psychological and interpersonal adjustment) and functional adaptation (living comfortably in Israel). The only exception concerns social cynicism, which suggests that knowledge about the cynicism level in Israel was related to worse adaptation. One explanation for this interesting finding is that the immigrant groups perceived average Israelis as more socially cynical than they actually were. Schwartz’s (1992) value survey was also included in the study, and the eVects of knowledge about values and axioms on adaptation were contrasted. Results showed that axioms were generally more predictive of adaptation than values. Finally, knowledge of the profile of axiom scores for average Israelis and adoption of this profile were contrasted in terms of their impact on adaptation of the immigrants. Results showed that axiom knowledge predicted social and functional adaptation, whereas axiom adoption only predicted social adaptation. These results provide strong support for our functionalist view of social axioms.

B. CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION OF INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL AXIOMS Within-culture studies may be extended multiculturally. This strategy enables researchers to (1) discover whether the psychological construct may be used to ‘‘unpackage’’ the cultural diVerences observed in the average levels of the outcome variable observed across cultural groups (Brockner, 2003), (2) establish whether the process linkages of psychological constructs to other psychological or behavioral constructs generalize across social systems, and (3) associate cultural variables with variations in the strength of the linkage between the constructs examined, as done by Diener and Diener (1995) in showing that the strength of the correlation between selfesteem and life satisfaction was positively correlated with the individualism of that national group. This type of cross-cultural work moves the discipline toward developing and testing models of psychological process and behavior that include cultural variations in their composition. To date, one study following this approach has been completed. Fu et al. (in press) argued that observation of one’s own outcomes, as well as those of others, will lead to assessments of how eVective various strategies of influence will be when used in one’s social environment. Furthermore, the eVectiveness of a given influence strategy will be derived from the variable social aVordances provided by each cultural context. Thus, detectable linkages should exist among cultural characteristics of nations and the eVectiveness

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of influence strategies as rated by their culture members. Social axioms reflect considered experience on how things work in one’s social system, and therefore they can be used to unpackage observed diVerences in the rated eVectiveness of various influence strategies. For example, Fu et al. (in pess) argued that a socially cynical belief set reflects a realistic assessment that one’s social environment is responsive to and compliant in response to displays of power. Consistent with this reasoning, they found that the higher the social cynicism of persons in 12 nations, the higher the rated eVectiveness of using assertive influence tactics within each of the nations involved. Furthermore, social cynicism could be used to unpackage the average diVerences in rating the usefulness of assertive tactics of influence across the 12 nations. Relationship-based strategies add the weight of others in the proximal social field to any influence attempt, and these strategies should likewise be more eVective in social environments characterized as power-oriented. Again, Fu et al. found that the higher the social cynicism of persons in their 12 nations, the higher the rated eVectiveness of using relationship-based influence tactics, both within and across the nations involved. People high in social cynicism may see people as manipulatable and responsive to gains and losses. Thus, using an assertive strategy, which emphasizes social pressure and coercion, is likely to be perceived as eVective. Conversely, a belief set high in reward for application reflects an experience-based assessment of one’s social environment as yielding to a personal investment of knowledge, planning, and competition. In such an environment, debate, reasoning, and persuasion would be relatively more eVective than when this belief about the world is low. Consistent with this prediction, Fu et al. (in press) found that the higher the belief in reward for application of persons in their 12 nations, the higher the rated eVectiveness of using relationship-based influence tactics, both within and across the nations involved. Thus, three culture-general relationships between axioms and broad strategies of interpersonal influence explain diVerences in their rated eVectiveness both within and across cultural groups. Hypotheses about the relationship between a particular dimension of social axiom and the social outcome in question are based on reasoning tailored to the outcome in question and its relation to a physical, social, or spiritual environment reflected by its belief profile. This profile of social axioms is both individual and cultural, derived from the personal learning history of the actor holding that belief and the cultural tradition in which he or she is embedded. Such a conceptual approach may be taken with beliefs to traditional areas of social psychology, such as attributions of responsibility and in-group favoritism, or emerging areas, like moral disengagement and interpersonal justice. For

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instance, it is possible that people high in reward for application may emphasize eVort in accounting for successes and failures, and that social cynicism may moderate the eVects of justice perception.

C. SECTION SUMMARY The studies reviewed previously were conducted at the individual level, including participants from several cultural groups, and involved several individual-diVerences variables and social behaviors. The overall results warrant two conclusions: first, the findings are interpretable and meaningful based on our description of these five axiom dimensions, and considerable convergent and divergent validity has been demonstrated. Second, the findings are generally coherent across studies and corroborate some of the correlations obtained at the culture level. Overall, the findings at the individual level point to satisfactory reliability and validity of these five axioms dimensions.

VIII. Conclusions and Directions for Future Research ‘‘. . . ensconsing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.’’ —Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

A. THEORETICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIAL AXIOMS The notion of beliefs is not new, and before specific issues are explored, it is important to ascertain the theoretical significance and the ‘‘added value’’ of social axioms. Our axiom framework is important for at least three reasons, and the first reason is obvious and has been elaborated. Crosscultural psychology has been dominated by value frameworks, and social axioms provide an alternative perspective for understanding and interpreting cultural similarities and diVerences. Axioms may provide explanations for cultural phenomena that are diYcult to explain by values, and propel cross-cultural research into new areas, some of which have been discussed in previous sections. On a deeper level, social axioms provide a very diVerent perspective on theorizing about cultural influences than do values. Whereas values are concerned with what is important and desirable, axioms are

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concerned with perceived contingencies in one’s social world, which may give rise to very diVerent theoretical frameworks. For instance, individualism-collectivism has been related to a wide range of social behaviors and a coherent framework has been established (e.g., Triandis, 1995). A similar attempt can be made with regard to the dimensions of social axioms, such as social cynicism. Research that focuses on how social cynicism shapes social behaviors and what leads to a socially cynical world view may eventually lead to a cognitively oriented framework that is very diVerent from valuebased frameworks, such as individualism-collectivism. Second, our results have pointed to some very interesting possibilities with regard to the role of these social axioms in shaping behaviors. For instance, the country-level analysis has uncovered some very intriguing findings, such as substantial correlations between social cynicism and satisfaction measures, between social complexity and concern for politics, between reward for application and the deemphasis on internal characteristics in mate preference, between religiosity and agreeableness, and between fate control and suicide. Why these relationships emerge may currently prompt speculation, but future work is likely to lead to theoretical breakthroughs in these important areas. Third, we have developed pure measures of beliefs in this project. Most socalled belief scales involve a mixture of constructs, thus conflating normative and motivating influences along with the directive power of ‘‘pure’’ beliefs. We do not yet know much about the empirical consequences of this conflation, but very diVerent theories clearly are associated with normative and evaluative processes, and a more cognitive approach to measuring ‘‘beliefs’’ may lead to new discoveries.

B. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE FIVE FACTORS OF SOCIAL AXIOMS The five dimensions of social cynicism, religiosity, reward for application, fate control, and social complexity are universal, as far as we have been able to determine. They reflect the basic human issues of whether social life will bring positive outcomes, whether spiritual beliefs and religious practices are true and useful, whether individual enterprise yields benefits, whether fate predicts future events, and whether the course of interpersonal events follows simple or complicated rules. These axioms are pitched at a general level and may have been derived from synthesizing across domain-specific exchanges with the world. Given their grounding in transactions with the environment, however, we expect that social axioms will be powerful predictors of the manner in which an individual processes daily events and deals

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with his or her material, interpersonal, social and spiritual worlds. Some evidence consistent with this view has already been reviewed. Each cultural system provides prolonged training in the life skills required for accommodating to its requirements. Those requirements derive from its historical legacy, institutional superstructure, and current eco-social and geopolitical challenges. Individuals within those social systems use cognitive representations of their worlds to varying degrees, extracting structure from their exchanges with their cultured world and channeling their future exchanges in light of their goals for living. Their endorsement of social axioms thus reflects in part their cultural location. The fact that many meaningful culture-level correlations were obtained between dimensions of social axioms and societal variables provides strong support for this view. Of interest, in a recent review of the cross-cultural research on the fivefactor model of personality, Triandis and Suh (2002) conclude that its universalist claim is compromised by the lack of data on illiterate populations. Literacy is not a cornerstone of our model, and hence this consideration may not aVect its generality, which can only be confirmed by future research that explores the existence of these five axiom dimensions among illiterate respondents.

C. A UNIVERSAL MODEL OF SOCIAL AXIOMS Models are developed either inductively or deductively. In our case, the five-factor model of social axioms and its subsequent confirmation with students and adults from a diverse range of cultures is inductively derived. Given the robustness of the structure and its meaningful associations with a wide range of variables across and within cultures, there are now suYcient grounds for accepting its conceptual basis and extending its range of convenience through further research. Beliefs about the world—people, their interactions, social institutions, and nonmaterial forces—is epistemology-in-action, an elaboration of the assessments individuals have come to make about the worlds they encounter with the agendas for survival and self-extension they bring to this lifelong encounter. Social axioms are the general cognitive distillates of people’s transactions with the world, reflecting the assessed operation of its forces and constraints. We next attempt to develop a framework that argues for the fundamental nature of these five dimensions of social axioms. Our framework is functionalist in orientation and begins with the assumption that universality must be linked to basic requirements for human survival and adaptation. Developmental psychologists have long known that attachment characterizes much of infantile behavior (e.g., Bowlby, 1969),

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but over time young children start to engage in exploratory behaviors and optimize between a balance of attachment and exploration (e.g., Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). In exploring and surviving the social and physical world, evolutionary psychology argues for the need to develop competence in two broad domains: social and problem solving (Keller, 1997). In the social domain, a crucial skill for survival and adaptation is the ability to deceive others and to detect deception, skills which have been documented extensively among primates and human beings (e.g., Humphrey, 1983; Whiten & Byrne, 1997). We propose that social cynicism emerges as a response to a fundamental requirement of survival and adaptation in a social world in which deception by others is frequent and gullibility dangerous. We extend this argument to include exploitation, oppression, and other negative elements of social life that threaten the well-being of people. In short, in navigating their social and physical world, people need to judge whether it is a benign or a dog-eat-dog world and react to and cope with it accordingly. In the problem-solving domain, survival obviously requires the acquisition of knowledge and skills, from feeding to reproduction, types of adaptation that are also well documented among primates and human beings. We propose that at least three fundamental issues must be settled for eVective problem solving. First, a fundamental question is whether problems encountered are generally solvable, and what constitutes an eVective coping strategy. An extreme judgment is that all problems are intractable, leading to the well-known state of learned helplessness, in which inaction is the principal mode of response regardless of whether problems are solvable or not (Seligman, 1975). A more diVerentiated judgment involves assessing the source of the causes for the events that aVect people, an assessment that is embodied in the construct of locus of control (Rotter, 1966). We argue that fate control represents a general judgment that diYculties encountered in our social world are controlled by fate, and that there are ways to predict and alter the decree of fate in our attempts to subdue these diYculties. People high in fate control are likely to attend to signs, signals, and omens, reacting in ways that they believe will help them steer clear of negative events and happenings. People low in fate control tend to discount fate and predetermination and will not divert their attention and resources to the coping strategy of enhancing luck and altering fated events. Second, a fundamental issue informing problem-solving activities is to determine the likelihood of the eVort in leading to some success—sort of a cost-benefit analysis as illustrated in the logic behind the expectancy model (Vroom, 1964). We argue that reward for application represents our general assessment of the cost-benefit features of the life tasks frequently encountered.

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If rewards are judged to fall behind eVort, loss aversion will lead to lower investment of inputs. Third, in seeking a solution to a problem, one needs to know whether a contingent approach is required for most diYculties encountered in life or if a ‘‘one-size-fits-all’’ strategy is adequate. In our terminology, a complex world calls for contingent approaches that take into account situational and individual variations, the acceptance of inconsistency in many domains, and the assumption of multiple solutions to a problem. However, in a simple world, standardized solutions are generally eVective, inconsistency is an abnormality, and most problems have a single solution. It is noteworthy that in the creativity literature, the distinction between divergent and convergent thinking is well established (e.g., Brophy, 2001; Torrance, 1974). Divergent thinking involves the generation of a wide range of ideas and alternatives, whereas in convergent thinking, the focus is to search for the best idea or alternative. Obviously, the relative eVectiveness of these two styles depends on the specific task to be solved. We argue that social complexity involves a general judgment of whether the social world is pluralistic, where ‘‘many roads lead to Rome,’’ or monolithic, where truth is singular. This judgment has significant consequences for the problemsolving styles adopted to tackle problems and diYculties encountered. Finally, one major diVerence between human beings and other animals is the need for human beings to seek meaning in their existence (e.g., Williams, 1997). One important way to define the meaning of existence is through spiritual activities, including involvement in religious practices, and this argument has a long history in social sciences. Pepitone and associates (DeRidder, Hendriks, Zani, Pepitone, & SaYotti, 1999; Pepitone & SaYotti, 1997) provided a confirmation of the salience of religious beliefs in interpreting life events by participants from the United States, The Netherlands, Italy, and India. On a practical level, religions also help provide a stable social structure and psychological peacefulness and security. We argue that religiosity emerges both as a general response to the spiritual need of human beings (Berger, 1967) and as a solution to many social problems. In fact, the content of religiosity is more about worldly than spiritual concerns, because this dimension is primarily defined by the perceived functionality of religious activities. A schematic representation of this framework is given in Figure 3.

D. ARE THESE FIVE DIMENSIONS COMPREHENSIVE? The five-factor model of social axioms and its subsequent confirmation with students and adults from a diverse range of cultures is empirically based. Derived as they were, these five dimensions of general social axioms

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A universal model of social axioms.

are strong contenders to represent the core etic dimensions in the human belief system. At this point, we do not and cannot pronounce that the search for universal social axioms should end with our current eVort, as future endeavors may uncover additional dimensions. However, we do claim that our current dimensions have defined a basic framework for integrating any additional dimensions that may be uncovered. Our claim is based on the fact that we made every attempt to be comprehensive and culturally representative in our sampling of axioms that people may extract from their daily exchanges with the physical, personal, social, and spiritual worlds. Decisions about the number of factors to extract from a matrix of correlations is always a subjective exercise, but we have attempted to ‘‘hear the voice of the data’’; as the items organized themselves into various numbers of factors, we chose these five on the basis of the apparent similarity of items in their meaning and the discreteness of item loadings onto the factors. We also do not deny the existence of additional emic axioms. There are two senses in which intensive within-culture examination of beliefs, like Wrightsman’s (1992), may reveal cultural emics. First, particular general

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beliefs, distinctive to that cultural tradition, may join the other pan-cultural definers of a factor to lend local fullness to one of the core etics. Second, local items may combine with some of the original 60 to produce additional, new factors. This conclusion would of course have to be taken as tentative until distinctive construct validity is established for any novel factor relative to the pan-cultural five. The same caveat applies to an entirely indigenous extraction of beliefs, not using the original 60 items: whatever factors are extracted from such work would have to demonstrate discriminant validity to be regarded as having revealed emicly distinctive factors (see Cheung et al.’s, 2001, work on the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory for an example of this process). We encourage such explorations.

E. BUILDING CULTURALLY REFLECTIVE EMICS FROM PAN-CULTURAL ETICS Given the exhaustive and culturally open procedure adopted in developing the original survey, we propose that the items identified above represent the ‘‘core etics’’ of psychological axioms—the items and the five dimensions are universal. The content of these five dimensions in any particular cultural group should include these items but extend well beyond their core composition. Thus, for Hong Kong Chinese, the original 60-item belief survey yields additional definers for each of the five axiom dimensions (Bond, Leung, Au, Tong, & Chemonges-Nielsen, in press), and the addition of these emic (culture-specific) items increases their reliability. The usefulness of emic items has also been demonstrated by Singelis, Her et al. (2003) in a study involving diVerent ethnic groups within the United States. We expect similar enlargements to the range of convenience for these five axiom constructs in any and all cultural groups. Researchers from a given cultural tradition can use the items defining the core as a basis for adding new, culture-specific belief items to the 60-item survey. Such culture-focused explorations will allow for a richer, more comprehensive tapping of the five belief constructs as they manifest themselves in any particular cultural niche. In this way, these core etics may be used as a springboard into a fuller pool of culturally sensitive and resonant reflections of these universal constructs. A related issue is that only three of the five axiom dimensions show acceptable reliability in the majority of the cultural groups studied. The average Cronbach alphas across the 40 student and 13 adult data sets are as follows: social cynicism (student: .67; adult: .68), reward for application (student: .61; adult: .59), religiosity (student: .71; adult: .75), fate control (student: .53; adult: .55), and social complexity (student: .45; adult: .41). For within-culture research, the addition of emic items will improve the

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reliability of axiom dimensions that are low in reliability. For cross-cultural research, we defer to the current etic items to maintain cross-cultural comparability until we develop better alternatives. Perhaps the use of latent variables may provide one way to compensate for the lower reliability of some of the dimensions, because correction for unreliability is made when latent variables are being used.

F. DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH This program of research has indicated at least five directions for future research. Given the recent emergence of this research, our discussion is concerned with general issues rather than specific research hypotheses. First, research should continue to explore the antecedents and consequences of these five social axioms within and across cultures. Our review has suggested a number of leads in this direction. For instance, it is interesting to examine how social cynicism plays out in the workplace. Previous research has shown that specific cynicism tied to an organization event such as downsizing can generate a wide range of negative attitudinal and behavioral reactions from employees (e.g., Andersson, 1996). It would be interesting to know how social cynicism, a general belief that is not event specific, is related to job attitudes and work behaviors. Other interesting areas of inquiry include the role of social axioms in the broad field of culture and social cognition (e.g., Kashima, 2001) and the relationship between social axioms and elementary forms of social behavior (Fiske, 1992). A related area for future research is to explore the relationships between social axioms and specific beliefs. We conceive of social axioms as higherorder constructs of belief under which subordinate belief domains are embedded. As an example of this logic, domain-specific beliefs about the causes and cures of psychological problems (Luk & Bond, 1992) may be related to more general axioms, particularly reward for application and social complexity. Neurotic clinical syndromes such as depression and paranoia, along with acting-out disorders, should likewise have distinctive belief profiles across the five dimensions. At the culture level, we have also uncovered meaningful and important societal correlates of the five axiom dimensions. Although most social psychological research is concerned with individual-level processes, a macro perspective on social psychological processes may have significant social relevance and implications for social policies and changes. The relationship between fate control and suicide rate and heart disease may serve as an example. What are the psychological processes underlying these two correlations? One possibility is to adopt what Leung and Bond (1989) term a strong

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etic approach, which regards individual-level and culture-level processes as similar. Perhaps people high in fate control are more prone to suicidal thoughts and more susceptible to traps of unhealthy lifestyles that culminate in heart diseases. As a result, societies with more individuals who endorse fate control are higher in suicide rate and heart diseases. Alternately, we can assume that no relationship exists between individual-level and culture-level processes and explore whether independent causal mechanisms are needed to explain processes and relationships at these two diVerent levels. Obviously, the strong etic approach is simpler, and we have adopted it implicitly as our starting point in interpreting the findings reported in earlier sections, but we are open to the possibility that for some variables, diVerent processes may be involved at the two levels. In any event, answers to these issues are immensely important of improving the conditions of human existence. Second, two axiom dimensions, fate control and social complexity, show low internal reliabilities, a finding that is not ideal for within-culture research. Future research should identify new items that can improve the reliability of these two dimensions. Emic items can be developed for use in a particular cultural context and their cross-cultural generality assessed in subsequent cross-cultural research. A long-term goal is to develop better and more etic items to capture these axiom dimensions more reliably. Third, we have proposed a framework to account for the universality of the five axiom dimensions. In reviewing Schwartz’s (1992) universal theory of values, Lonner and Adamopolous (1997) noted a problem of indeterminacy in the theory when basic needs for human survival and functioning are linked to the 10 value types, because ‘‘the explanation of the emergence of structure is exogenous to the core of the theory’’ (p. 74). Other psychological models may provide an explanation of these value types, and our framework also suVers from the same problem of indeterminacy. However, theories that explain the origin of value and axiom structures are ‘‘metatheories,’’ and like evolution theory and the big bang theory, their validity will take decades to establish, perhaps constituting a long-term goal for the entire field. Fourth, considerable variation exists along dimensions of belief within a given cultural group. This variation is responsive to the range of personal possibilities oVered in complex cultural systems. Individuals must be socialized to undertake a range of roles and occupations, each with its attendant norms, expectations, values, and beliefs. We need to know more about the embeddedness of beliefs within social systems, as we already know about values, for example (e.g., Kohn, Slomczynski, & Schoenbach, 1986), and how these beliefs are socialized in the family, the schools, the playing fields, and the workplace. Finally, a primary motivation for our development of these social axioms has been to complement the frameworks based on value, such as those of

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Schwartz (1992), which have dominated cross-cultural psychology in the last decades. Now that the universality of the five social axioms is supported, future work should begin to examine how these two frameworks can be integrated for a better understanding of social behaviors and cultural similarities and diVerences. At a more concrete level, the expectancy model (Vroom, 1964) provides a well-known integration of valence and expectancy into a single framework. Given that values can be regarded as generalized valences, and social axioms as generalized expectancies, it is interesting to see if values and axioms can be integrated in a similar fashion as valences and expectancies. Another intriguing possibility is that the way these two types of construct ought to be integrated may depend on the specific social behavior involved. In our view, this type of research question is crucial to the development of cross-cultural psychology and will elevate cross-cultural theorizing to a new level. ‘‘There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees which are falsehoods on the other.’’ —Pascal, Pensees, 60 (294), G. Hofstede, trans.

Acknowledgments We thank Joel Brockner, Shalom Schwartz, Harry Triandis, Evert Van de Vliert, and the editor for their insightful comments on an earlier draft. Supported in part by a research grant provided by Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. This global project grew out of a project supported by a grant provided by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. We thank the following collaborators for collecting the data from the countries reported in this chapter: Markus Broer (Argentina); Filip Boen and Sophie M. Lambert (Belgium); Maria Cristina Ferreira (Brazil); Kimberly A. Noels and Jay van Bavel (Canada); Jianxin Zhang and Lina Chen (China); Iva Solcova and Iva Stetovska (Czech Republic); Toomas Niit and Kaisa-Kitri Niit (Estonia); Helena Hurme and Mia Bo¨ling (Finland); Vije´ Franchi (France); Guguli Magradze and Nino Javakhishvili (Georgia); Klaus Boehnke, Gu¨nter Bierbrauer, and Edgar Klinger (Germany); Penny Panagiotopoulou (Greece); Marta Fulop and Mihaly Berkics (Hungary); Nandita Chaudhary, Sujata Sriram, Anjali Ghosh, and Neharika Vohra (India); Dien Fakhri Iqbal (Indonesia); Saba Safdar (Iran and Canada); Jenny Kurman and Ram David Thein (Israel); Anna Laura Comunian (Italy); Fumio Murakami and Susumu Yamaguchi (Japan); Son Kyung Ae (Korea); Ivars Austers (Latvia); Charles Harb (Lebanon); Joseph O. T. Odusanya, Zainal A. Ahmed, and Rosnah Ismail (Malaysia); Fons van de Vijver and Xu Huang (Netherlands); Colleen Ward (New Zealand and Singapore); Andrew A. Mogaji (Nigeria); David Lackland Sam (Norway); Muhammad Jahan Zeb Khan (Pakistan); William E. Cabanillas (Peru); Ly SyCip (Philippines); Fe´lix Neto, Rosa Cabecinhas, and Paulo Xavier (Portugal); Margareta Dinca (Romania); Nadezhda Lebedeva, Andrianna Viskochil, and Oksana Ponomareva (Russia); Luis Oceja and Silvia Campo (Spain); KwangKuo Hwang (Taiwan); June Bernadette D’Souza (Thailand); Bilge Ataca (Turkey); Adrian

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Furnham and J. Rees Lewis (United Kingdom); Theodore M. Singelis (United States); Sharon Reimel de Carrasquel (Venezuela).

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United Nations (2002). Social indicators [data file]. Available from United Nation Statistics Division Web site, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/social/default.htm United Nations Development Programme (2000). Human development report 2000. New York: Oxford University Press. United Nations Development Programme (2001). Human development report 2001. New York: Oxford University Press. United Nations Development Programme (2002). Human development report 2002. New York: Oxford University Press. Van de Vliert, E., & Janssen, O. (2002). ‘‘Better than’’ performance motives as roots of satisfaction across more and less developed countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, 380–397. Van de Vliert, E., Schwartz, S. H., Huismans, S. E., Hofstede, G., & Daan, S. (1999). Temperature, cultural masculinity, and domestic political violence: A cross-national study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 291–314. World Economic Forum (2002). Environmental Sustainability Index 2002 Rankings. Retrieved July 20, 2003, from http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/indicators/ESI/rank.html World Health Organization (2002). World health statistics annual (online edition) [data file]. Available from World Health Organization Web site, http://www3.who.int/whosis/ menu.cfm

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VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES: SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF VIOLENT CONTENT ON AGGRESSIVE THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIOR

Craig A. Anderson Nicholas L. Carnagey Mindy Flanagan Arlin J. Benjamin, Jr. Janie Eubanks Jeffery C. Valentine

Three experimental studies, one correlational study, and a meta-analysis tested key hypotheses concerning the short-term and long-term impact of exposure to violent video games. Experiment 1 found that violent video games in general increase the accessibility of aggressive thoughts. Experiments 2 and 3 found that playing violent video games increased aggression, even when arousal and aVect were controlled. Experiments 2 and 3 also found that trait hostility and trait aggression were positively related to laboratory aggression. Furthermore, there was correlational evidence of a link between repeated exposure to violent video games and trait aggressiveness. Mediational analyses suggested that the trait eVects and the violent video game eVects on laboratory aggression were partially mediated by revenge motivation. The correlational study uncovered links between habitual exposure to violent video games, persistent aggressive cognitions, and self-reported aggressive behavior. A destructive testing regression approach found that the video game violence/aggression link remained significant even after stressing the link by partialling out sex, narcissism, emotional susceptibility, and Big Five personality factors. However, consistent with prior empirical and theoretical work emphasizing the importance of media violence in the creation of habitual aggressive patterns of thought, partialling out aggressive attitudes reduced the video game violent/aggression link to nonsignificance. The meta-analyses revealed significant eVects of violent video 199 ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 36

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games on aggressive behavior, aVect, and cognition; on cardiovascular arousal; and on prosocial behavior. A best-practices meta-analytic approach revealed that contrary to media industry claims, better conducted studies tend to yield stronger eVects of violent video games on aggression and aggression-related variables than do more poorly conducted studies.

I. Introduction A. CRITICAL INCIDENTS Violent video games are popular with adolescent and adult males and females, are marketed to youth in ways that violate the video game industry’s own standards, and are easily obtained regardless of age (e.g., Buchman & Funk, 1996; Federal Trade Commission, 2000; Walsh, 1999). School shootings by boys with a history of playing violent video games [e.g., West Paducah, KY (December 1997); Jonesboro, AR (March 1998); Springfield, OR (May 1998), Littleton, CO (April 1999), Santee, CA (March 2001), Wellsboro, PA (June 2003) and Red Lion, PA (April 2003)] heightened public debate about the role played by this relatively new violent entertainment medium, including a hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held on March 21, 2000. Other recent violent crimes linked to violent video games include a violent crime spree in Oakland, California (January 2003); five homicides in Long Prairie and Minneapolis, Minnesota (May 2003); beating deaths in Medina, Ohio (November 2002) and Wyoming, Michigan (November 2002); and the Washington, D.C. ‘‘Beltway’’ sniper shootings (Fall 2002). However, such public incidents and outcries do not constitute scientific evidence of a true causal link. This chapter explores current work by media violence researchers and presents five new studies. B. BRIEF HISTORY OF VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES Video games first emerged in the late 1970s, but in the 1990s violent games came of age, with the first-person shooter ‘‘Wolfenstein 3D’’ and the thirdperson fighter ‘‘Mortal Kombat’’ leading the way. By the end of the 20th century, even more graphically violent games were available to virtually anyone who wanted to play them, regardless of age (Walsh, 1999). As early as the mid-1990s, fourth grade girls reported playing video games more than 5 1/2 hours a week, and boys reported playing more than 9 hours a week (Buchman & Funk, 1996). Furthermore, this same sample of fourth graders reported that the majority of their favorite games were violent ones (58.9%

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for girls, 72.9% for boys). A survey of eighth and ninth grade students found boys playing about 13 hours a week and girls about 5 hours a week (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004). Data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP, 1998, 1999), which surveys entering college freshmen from more than 600 two- and four-year colleges, reveal that older students also are playing a lot of video games and that their time with such games is also increasing. In 1998 13.3% of the young men reported playing video games at least 6 hours per week during their senior year in high school. By 1999 that figure had increased to 14.8%. Increases are also occurring at the high end of the game playing distribution. In 1998, 2% of the young men reported playing video games more than 20 hours per week. By 1999, that figure had increased to 2.5%. Another troubling aspect involves the lack of parental or societal oversight. A recent survey of teens in grades 8 through 12 (Walsh, 2000) found that 90% of their parents never check the ratings of video games before allowing a purchase, and only 1% reported that their parents had ever kept them from getting a game based on its rating. Furthermore, ratings provided by the video game industry do not match those provided by other adults and game-playing youngsters. Specifically, many games involving violence by cartoon-like characters are classified by the industry as being appropriate for general audiences, a classification with which adults and youngsters disagree (Funk, Flores, Buchman, & Germann, 1999). Also, 89% of the teens in Walsh’s survey (2000) reported that their parents never limit the amount of time they are allowed to play video games. Finally, many of the most violent games have ‘‘demo’’ versions on the Internet that can be downloaded for free by anyone. Of the boys in the sample who play video games, 32% reported downloading them from the Internet (Walsh, 2000).

C. MEDIA VIOLENCE RESEARCH Concern over video game violence would be misplaced if playing such games had little impact on aggression. Decades of research have revealed that viewing television and movie violence can cause short-term increases in aggression and long-term changes in trait aggressiveness (e.g., Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Bushman & Huesmann, 2001; Hearold, 1986; Huesmann & Miller, 1994; Paik & Comstock, 1994; Wood, Wong, & Chachere, 1991). The research literature on video games is smaller and less complete. Despite its relatively small size and the methodological diYculties inherent in the first studies of any ‘‘new’’ phenomenon, a consensus is emerging that violent video games can cause increases in aggressive behavior in children and in young adults (Anderson, 2000; Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Dill & Dill, 1998; Sherry, 2001; Walsh, 2000). We review this literature after considering theoretical issues.

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II. The General Aggression Model Good theoretical reasons support the belief that exposure to violent video games will increase aggressive behavior (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Dill & Dill, 1998). The General Aggression Model (GAM) integrates existing theory and data concerning the learning, development, instigation, and expression of human aggression (Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Anderson & Carnagey, 2004; Anderson & Huesmann, 2003). It does so by noting that the enactment of aggression is based largely on knowledge structures, such as scripts or schemas, created by social learning processes. In brief, GAM describes a multistage process by which two kinds of input variables lead to aggressive (or nonaggressive) behavior. Figure 1 shows a simplified version of the single-episode portion of GAM. Both personological (e.g., trait hostility) and situational (e.g., recent violent video game play) variables influence behavior by aVecting the person’s present internal state, represented by cognitive, aVective, and arousal variables. Playing a violent video game may influence aggression by means of the cognitive route, for example, if it primes aggressive thoughts or scripts, leading to hostile perception, expectation, and attributional biases (e.g., Bushman & Anderson, 2002; Calvert & Tan, 1994; Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dill, Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1997; Kirsh, 1998). The three aspects of present internal state are themselves interrelated, as indicated by the dashed lines connecting them. For example, priming aggressive thoughts might subsequently increase feelings of anger and a desire for revenge if the person is provoked. In such a

Fig. 1. The general aggression model: single episode cycle. Source: Anderson and Bushman, 2002.

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case the cognitive eVect is regarded as the primary route of impact and the aVective eVect as a secondary route of impact. The present internal state influences how a person perceives events, interprets their meaning, and chooses behavioral responses. Whatever action the person takes (e.g., aggressive or nonaggressive) influences the present social encounter. This sets the stage for the next round in the social interaction cycle. Of particular relevance to the present article is the fact that finding significant links between exposure to violent video games and aggression does not by itself reveal the primary route of the obtained eVect; it could have occurred via cognition, aVect, or arousal, or some combination. However, such fine distinctions are crucial to theoretical development and to the public policy debate over whether parents should be given tools to help them control their children’s access to violent games. In both the theory and the public policy domains, the precise route(s) of primary impact are important because of the developmental aspects of GAM. Long-term eVects of media violence involve learning processes, such as learning how to perceive, interpret, judge, and respond to events in the physical and social environment. Various types of knowledge structures (e.g., perception, interpretation, judgment, and action) develop over time and are based on day-to-day observations of and interactions with other people, real (e.g., family) and imagined (e.g., media). Each violent episode, as outlined in Fig. 1, is essentially one more learning trial. Short-term eVects become ingrained through the development of aggression-related knowledge structures, which persistently color the person’s expectations and perceptions concerning social interactions, especially those with conflictual content. In a very real sense, a person’s set of chronically accessible knowledge structures defines that person’s personality. Figure 2 displays this developmental aspect of GAM and identifies five types of variables that contribute to the development of an aggressive personality—aggressive beliefs and attitudes, aggressive perceptual schemata, aggressive expectation schemata, aggressive behavior scripts, and aggression desensitization. Four of these variables involve aggressive cognitions. For this reason, short-term eVects of violent media on aggression via the cognitive route are particularly important. Temporary mood states and arousal dissipate over time, but rehearsal of aggressive cognitions can lead to long-term changes in multiple aspects of aggressive personality. Furthermore, the literature on the development of behavioral scripts suggests that even a few rehearsals can change a person’s expectations and intentions involving important social behaviors (Anderson, 1983; Anderson & Godfrey, 1987; Marsh, Hicks, & Bink, 1998). Figure 3 illustrates the dynamic aspects of the episodic and developmental portions of GAM. Exposure to violent video games can serve as a proximate situational cause, increasing the likelihood that an aggressive behavior will occur

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Fig. 2. The general aggression model: developmental/personality processes. Source: Anderson and Carnagey, 2004.

shortly after the exposure, but it also can serve as a distal environmental modifier, influencing the development of aggression-related knowledge structures and hence, aggressive personality.

III. GAM and Violent Video Games A. BASIC ISSUES Two levels of questions emerge from consideration of GAM and violent video games. First, can violent video games cause increases in aggression? Answering this question does not require a careful analysis of the multiple processes by which input variables can influence the expression of aggressive behavior. It merely requires a body of research in which the eVects of violent games are compared to nonviolent games or other appropriate control

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The general aggression model: overall view. Source: Anderson and Carnagey, 2004.

conditions. Much of the existing video game literature is of exactly this nature, and it is at this level that a review of the literature reveals considerable support for the hypothesis that playing violent video games can increase aggression (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). Both experimental and correlational studies, on average, yield significant positive relations between exposure to violent video games and aggressive behavior, with average eVect sizes in the r þ ¼ 0.20 range (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). The experimental studies demonstrate that a brief exposure to violent video games causes an immediate (and presumably short-lived) increase in aggressive behavior. The correlational studies link repeated exposure to violent video games with a variety of types of real-world aggressive behavior, including violent criminal behavior. In sum, despite its relatively small size and recent history, the research literature has demonstrated that violent video games can increase aggression. The second level of questions to emerge concerns specificity of violent content eVects on aggression via the cognitive route. Nonviolent games can

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also increase aggressive feelings if, for example, they produce high levels of frustration. They also can increase arousal, if they are suYciently demanding and engaging. Thus, both violent and nonviolent games may influence aggression in the immediate situation if they increase aggressive feelings or arousal. The real crux of the debate over eVects of violent video games lies in their unique ability to directly increase aggressive cognitions, cognitions that can have a much longer lasting impact if their repeated instantiation (by repeated violent video game play, for instance) leads to persistent changes in key knowledge structures, such as more positive attitudes toward aggression.

B. KEY QUESTIONS Three key second-level questions remain unanswered by existing research on violent video games. First, do violent video games generally increase aggressive cognitions? Several studies have found significant increases in aggressive thoughts as a function of exposure to violent video games (see Anderson & Bushman, 2001), but most have not explicitly controlled for other potential diVerences between the target video games, such as diVerences in aVective or arousal properties. In fact, only one published experimental study has successfully controlled for both arousal and aVective features (Anderson & Dill, 2000, Study 2); the violent game yielded higher aggressive cognition scores. Second, does violent video game content by itself cause short-term increases in aggressive behavior tendencies? As GAM makes clear, to cleanly test this specific violent content question in an experimental setting the comparison violent and nonviolent video games should be equated on arousal level and aVective factors such as enjoyment, frustration, and state hostility. Such controls can be done by selecting violent and nonviolent games that do not diVer on these factors, or by including measures of arousal and aVect and using them as statistical controls. Only two published experimental studies meet these criteria. Graybill, Strawniak, Hunter, and O’Leary (1987) pretested several video games and equated them on diYculty, excitement, and enjoyment. Interestingly, this is one of the few experimental studies that failed to find a significant eVect of video game violence on aggressive behavior. One potential problem with this study is that the pretest ratings of the various games were done by graduate students, whereas the participant population was second through sixth graders. In other words, the ‘‘equating’’ process was somewhat less than optimal. The other experimental study meeting these control criteria was Study 2 of Anderson and Dill (2000), which found a significant increase in aggression attributable to diVerential violent content. Third, is repeated exposure to violent video games associated with higher aggression levels, and is this mediated by persistently elevated levels of

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aggressive thoughts? To show such an eVect, significant positive associations between violent video game exposure, aggressive behavior, and persistent aggressive thoughts would have to be found. Furthermore, the link between video game violence exposure and aggression must be significantly weakened when the persistent aggressive thoughts measure is statistically controlled. As of this writing, there are no published correlational studies of this type.

IV. Overview of the Present Studies Experiment 1 used 10 video games to examine the eVects of violent content on the accessibility of aggressive thoughts, physiological arousal, and aggressive aVect. The results of Experiment 1 were used to select a pair of violent and nonviolent video games matched on arousal and aVective dimensions but diVering in violent content for use in Experiments 2 and 3. Experiment 2 tested whether these two games produce diVerent levels of short-term aggressive behavior. Experiment 3 used two violent and two nonviolent games and a diVerent aggression paradigm in an attempt to replicate the specific violent video game content eVect on aggression. It also provided our first test of one factor that might increase or decrease the violent video game eVect, specifically the realism of the video game targets of aggression. Experiments 2 and 3 also examined trait hostility and revenge motivation eVects on aggression. Correlation Study 1 assessed violent video game exposure, self-reported aggressive behavior, Big five personality factors, and attitudes toward violence. It tested a basic-personality-as-artifact hypothesis as well as an aggressive-cognition-mediation hypothesis. The final new study was an updated meta-analysis of violent video game eVects on aggressive behavior, thoughts, and aVect; physiological arousal; and prosocial behavior. This analysis also compared average eVect sizes of the methodologically best studies to those with significant weaknesses.

V. Experiment 1 A. METHOD 1. Participants Participants were 61 male and 69 female undergraduate students who participated in partial fulfillment of an introductory psychology research requirement. Participants were asked to refrain from alcohol, caVeine,

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tobacco products, and exercise for 12 hours prior to the study start time. Participants were randomly assigned to play one of 10 video games. 2. Materials a. Video Games. Ten video games were selected through a review of video game sites on the World Wide Web, popular magazines, and retail outlets. The five violent games were: Dark Forces, Marathon 2, Speed Demon, Street Fighter, and Wolfenstein 3-D. The five nonviolent games were: 3-D Ultra Pinball, Glider Pro, Indy Car II, Jewel Box, and Myst (see the Appendix for a description of the 10 games). We attempted to find games that did not require extensive practice to achieve at least marginal proficiency and that were relatively involving for a college student population. Street Fighter was played on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, using a 19-inch Sony color television. All other games were played on a Macintosh computer. b. Video Game Experience. Participants estimated the average number of hours per week spent playing video games in the past few months. Each participant also rated his or her experience with the 10 video games used in this study and an additional four games (SimCity, You Don’t Know Jack, Computer Cribbage, A10 Attack) using a 7-point unipolar scale anchored at 1 (Never have played), 4 (Have played some), and 7 (Have played often). c. Video Game Ratings. After playing the assigned video game, participants completed a 6-item rating scale about the game, rating how diYcult the game was to learn, how enjoyable the game was to play, how much action the game had, how violent the game graphics were, how violent the game content was, and how frustrating the game was (Anderson & Ford, 1986). For all items, a response of 1 indicated ‘‘low’’ and a response of 7 indicated ‘‘high’’ on the adjective of interest. Preliminary analyses revealed that the two items measuring the violence of video game content and graphics were highly correlated, so they were averaged to form a composite measure of perceived video game violence. d. Word Completion Task. The word completion task (Anderson, Carnagey, & Eubanks, 2003; Roediger, Weldon, Stadler, & Riegler, 1992) involves examining a list of 98 words with one or more letters missing, and filling in the missing letters. The missing letters are strategic, such that each item can make more than one word. For instance, one item is ‘‘explo_e,’’ which may be completed as ‘‘explore’’ or ‘‘explode.’’ Participants were told that their task was to fill in the blanks to make complete words. Participants were given 3 minutes to complete as much of the task as they could. An accessibility of aggressive thoughts score was calculated for each participant by dividing the number of aggressive word completions by the total number

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of completions. Forty-nine of the items can yield an aggressive word when completed. e. Cardiovascular Measures. Heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured with an A & D Medical automatic digital blood pressure monitor (model UA-751). The blood pressure cuV was attached to each participant’s nondominant upper arm, approximately 1 inch above the elbow. All measurements were obtained while the participants were seated. At each of three measurement periods, HR, SBP, and DBP were collected twice, with approximately 1 minute elapsing between the end of the first measurement and the beginning of the second. The first measurement period (baseline) was after signing the consent form but before game play began. The second measurement was during video game play, and the third was after the video game task. 3. Procedure Participants were told that the study concerned the ways people learn diVerent types of computer tasks. They were informed that we were interested in possible diVerences between simple and complex tasks. After completing consent procedures, participants entered a cubicle and completed the Video Game Experience questionnaire. Participants then read directions for the assigned game. The experimenter started the game for the participants. Participants played for approximately 20 minutes. Physiological measures were collected before the start of the game, approximately 10 minutes into game play, and immediately after the game. Participants next performed the word completion task and the Video Game Ratings measure. Participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

B. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This study had two main goals. One was to compare violent and nonviolent video games on key dimensions so that a pair of games, matched on all dimensions except for violence, could be selected for further in-depth research. The second was to test the hypothesis that playing violent video games primes aggressive thoughts. For all analyses we tested a planned contrast that compared the mean score of participants who had played one of the violent games to the corresponding mean of those who had played one of the nonviolent games. Sex eVects were expected to occur on some measures (e.g., cardiovascular measures, enjoyment of the games) and not on others. When preliminary analyses revealed no sex eVects, sex was dropped from the statistical model.

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1. Cardiovascular Measures a. Blood Pressure. A 10 (Video game) 2 (Sex: female vs. male) 2 (Type: diastolic vs. systolic) 3 (Time of assessment: before video game vs. during video game vs. after video game) ANOVA, with type and time as repeated factors, revealed several interesting eVects. First, there were significant main eVects of sex [F(1, 86) ¼ 26.11, P < .001, d ¼ 0.43], time [F(2, 172) ¼ 9.82, P < .001], and type [F(1, 86) ¼ 2312.64, P < .001, d ¼ 4.02]. Males had higher blood pressure than females (Ms ¼ 93.46 and 86.27).1 Blood pressure increased from the baseline period (before playing the video game, M ¼ 89.92) to the video game play period (M ¼ 91.73) and then decreased after game play was complete (M ¼ 87.94). Of course, SBP was greater than DBP (Ms ¼ 110.52 and 69.21, respectively). There was no main eVect of which game was played [F(9, 86) ¼ 1.67, P > .10], nor was there any hint of a violent vs. nonviolent game eVect [F(1, 86) ¼ 0.02, diVerence not significant]. However, the sex, time, and type main eVects were all moderated by various two-way interactions. The type X sex interaction [F(1, 86) ¼ 18.33, P < .001, d ¼ 0.32] resulted from the fact that the sex eVect was larger for SBP (Mmales ¼ 115.95 vs. Mfemales ¼ 105.8) than for DBP (Mmales ¼ 70.97 vs. Mfemales ¼ 67.45). The type X time interaction [F(2, 172) ¼ 11.88, P < .001] resulted from the fact that SBP remained relatively constant across the three time periods (Mbefore ¼ 111.64 vs. Mduring ¼ 111.09 vs. Mafter ¼ 108.83), whereas DBP was highest during video game play (Mbefore ¼ 68.21 vs. Mduring ¼ 72.37 vs. Mafter ¼ 67.06). The omnibus time X game interaction [F(18, 172) ¼ 1.93, P < .02] is a bit diYcult to comprehend. However, the more specific contrast testing the time violent vs. nonviolent game interaction was also significant [F(2, 172) ¼ 5.37, P < .01] and accounted for much of the omnibus interaction.2 On average, participants who played one of the nonviolent games showed a decline in blood pressure across the three time periods (Mbefore ¼ 91.41 vs. Mduring ¼ 90.41 vs. Mafter ¼ 88.07). However, those who played one of the violent games showed an increase in blood pressure during video game play, followed by a decrease (Mbefore ¼ 88.44 vs. Mduring ¼ 93.04 vs. Mafter ¼ 87.81). In other words, within the present sample of 10 games the violent ones increased arousal, as measured by blood pressure, whereas the nonviolent ones did not. This point is especially important to remember when 1 All reported means are the appropriate adjusted means. All P-levels are based on two-tailed tests. Sample sizes diVer somewhat in diVerent analyses as the result of occasional missing values. This occurred most frequently for the cardiovascular measures because of occasional equipment malfunctions. 2 In fact, the residual omnibus time game interaction was nonsignificant [F(16, 172) ¼ 1.50, P > .10].

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selecting pairs of games for more in-depth research on the relation between violent content and aggressive behavior. It is also important to note, however, that the postgame assessment of blood pressure showed nearly identical means for the violent and nonviolent games. Therefore, the potential problem of arousal being confounded with violent vs. nonviolent content may not be as severe as many might assume. b. Heart Rate. Preliminary analyses yielded no sex eVects. A 10 (Video game) X 3 (Time of assessment) ANOVA with time as a repeated factor yielded only one marginally significant eVect, the time main eVect [F(2, 190) ¼ 2.82, P < .07]. HR was highest when assessed during game play (M ¼ 77.50), and was at about the same relatively low level before (M ¼ 74.73) and after (M ¼ 74.28) game play. Indeed, a specific contrast comparing HR during game play to the average HR before and after game play was statistically significant [F(1, 95) ¼ 4.43, P < .04, d ¼ 0.30]. None of the video game eVects (omnibus or violent vs. nonviolent contrast) approached significance (all P values > .40). 2. Video Game Ratings The mean ratings of the games on diYculty, enjoyment, action, frustration, and violence are shown in Table I. There was considerable variability on all five dimensions, which made selection of a pair of games diVering primarily on violent content possible. Ratings of game diYculty were aVected by game [F(9, 120) ¼ 7.86, P < .001]. The specific contrast comparing violent to nonviolent games was also significant and revealed the violent games to be more diYcult (M ¼ 3.60) than the nonviolent games (M ¼ 2.80) [F(1, 120) ¼ 8.67, P < .01, d ¼ 0.52]. However, there was considerable variability within each game type and considerable overlap between the violent and nonviolent games. The violent game diYculty means ranged from 2.09 (Wolfenstein 3D) to 4.38 (Street Fighter). The nonviolent game diYculty means ranged from 1.54 (Ultra Pinball) to 4.83 (Myst). Participants’ enjoyment ratings were also aVected by game [F (9, 110) ¼ 2.23, P < .05]. However, the comparison between violent and nonviolent games showed that participants enjoyed the violent and nonviolent games equally (F < 1). In fact, the nonviolent games were enjoyed slightly more than the violent games. The game sex interaction was also significant [F(9, 110) ¼ 1.97, P < .05]. However, the specific contrast testing the sex game violence interaction was only marginally significant [F(1, 110) ¼ 3.33, P < .08]. The slight preference for the nonviolent games was marginally greater for females (Mnonviolent ¼ 3.81, Mviolent ¼ 3.53) than for males (Mnonviolent ¼ 4.23, Mviolent ¼ 4.11). Ratings of game action were significantly aVected by game [F(9, 120) ¼ 8.35, P < .001]. As shown in Table I, participants found the violent games to

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TABLE I Mean Rating of Video Game Difficulty, Enjoyment, Action, Frustration, and Violence as a Function of Game, and Averages for Nonviolent and Violent Games Nonviolent games

DiYculty

Enjoyment*

Action

Frustration

Violence*

Myst

4.83

3.06

1.67

5.33

1.25

Jewel Box

1.77

4.38

2.62

3.69

1.00

Indy Car II

2.21

3.31

2.71

3.79

1.43

3-D Ultra Pinball

1.54

5.40

4.08

2.69

1.62

Glider Pro

3.62

3.94

2.31

4.75

1.41

Average

2.80

4.02

2.68

4.05

1.34

Violent games

DiYculty

Enjoyment

Action

Frustration

Violence

Speed Demon

4.00

3.86

3.42

5.33

3.27

Dark Forces

3.27

4.10

3.18

4.27

4.35

Wolfenstein 3D

2.09

3.70

5.36

3.82

5.92

Marathon 2

4.25

3.69

3.67

4.25

4.86

Street Fighter

4.38

3.74

4.81

4.31

4.94

Average

3.60

3.82

4.09

4.40

4.67

Mean square error

2.37

2.35

2.01

2.38

.97

*Adjusted for sex eVects. Possible range of ratings was 1 to 7.

contain more action (M ¼ 4.09) than the nonviolent games (M ¼ 2.68) [F(1, 120) ¼ 31.67, P < .001, d ¼ 0.99]. Participants’ ratings of frustration showed a significant game eVect [F(9, 120) ¼ 3.40, P < .001]. However, the contrast between violent and nonviolent video games was nonsignificant, suggesting that participants found the violent games (M ¼ 4.40) and nonviolent games (M ¼ 4.05) equally frustrating [F(1, 120) ¼ 1.61, P > .20, d ¼ 0.23]. Ratings of the violence of game content showed a significant sex eVect [F(1, 110) ¼ 4.82, P < .05, d ¼ 0.40]. Females rated the games as more violent than did males (Ms ¼ 3.20 & 2.81, respectively). More importantly, the violence ratings also yielded a significant game eVect [F(9, 110) ¼ 45.81, P < .001]. As expected, most of this omnibus game eVect (87%) was due to the much higher violence ratings given for the violent games than for the nonviolent games (Ms ¼ 4.68 & 1.35, respectively,) [F(1, 110) ¼ 350.75, P < .001, d ¼ 3.38]. Furthermore, the sex by game type interaction was not significant [F(1, 110) ¼ 0.92, P > .3], indicating that the sex eVect did not systematically vary as a function of whether the game was violent or nonviolent.

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3. Selection of a Matched Pair We conducted a number of additional analyses to select a violent/nonviolent game pair most closely matched on irrelevant dimensions (i.e., diYculty, enjoyment, action, and frustration) and diVering greatly on violence. Although several pairings appeared to meet our criteria fairly well, we ultimately chose Glider Pro and Marathon 2. We conducted a 2 (game) 2 (sex) 4 (rating dimension) ANOVA on ratings of these two games, treating the four ‘‘irrelevant’’ rating dimensions (diYculty, enjoyment, action, frustration) as a repeated measures factor. DiVerential eVects of game would show up either as a game main eVect or a game rating dimension interaction. The only eVect that approached statistical significance was the main eVect of rating dimension [F(3, 72) ¼ 3.93, P < .05]. The adjusted means for diYculty, enjoyment, action, and frustration were 3.96, 3.81, 2.98, and 4.51, respectively. This eVect, of course, is irrelevant to the issue of game selection. All other eVects had P values > .15. We also compared cardiovascular eVects of these two games. DiVerential game eVects would appear as an interaction involving the game and time of assessment variables. None of the game time interactions (2-way or higher) were significant. Finally, we compared these two games on the violence ratings. The only significant eVect was a large eVect of game on the violence rating [F(1, 24) ¼ 53.81, P < .001, d ¼ 2.82]. Marathon 2 was rated as considerably more violent than Glider Pro [Ms ¼ 4.86 and 1.41, respectively]. The sex main eVect approached significance [F(1, 24) ¼ 4.24, P < .06, d ¼ 0.79], with females rating the games as more violent than males [Ms ¼ 3.62 and 2.65, respectively]. The sex game interaction did not approach significance [F(1, 24) ¼ 0.11, P > .70]. Thus, Glider Pro and Marathon 2 were well matched on the irrelevant dimensions and diVered greatly on the desired dimension of violence. Of note, these specific game comparisons were based on a relatively small sample size. Therefore, in Experiment 2 on aggressive behavior (which used these two games), we measured these same rating dimensions, as well as blood pressure and HR, as additional statistical controls. 4. Accessibility of Aggressive Thoughts The second major goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that playing a violent video game can increase the relative accessibility of aggressive thoughts. A series of analyses was conducted to compare the percentage of aggressive word completions after violent versus nonviolent video game play. Each analysis included a specific contrast comparing the average of the nonviolent game conditions to the average of the violent game conditions.

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Preliminary analyses indicated that sex of participant did not have any significant impact on the accessibility of aggressive thoughts measure. a. All 10 Games. Participants produced a significantly higher percentage of aggressive words after violent games (M ¼ 14.7) than after nonviolent games (M ¼ 12.5) [F(1, 120) ¼ 4.26, P < .05, d ¼ 0.37]. Thus, as predicted by GAM, playing violent games increased accessibility of aggressive thoughts, relative to playing nonviolent games. We conducted several similar analyses with various covariates added to the model. When we controlled for the rating dimensions of diYculty, enjoyment, action, and frustration in this way, the violent vs. nonviolent contrast was still significant [F(1, 116) ¼ 5.29, P < .05]. Similarly, the game violence eVect was still significant when we controlled for video game experience (hours per week and average experience with 10 specific games) [F(1, 110) ¼ 4.54, P < .05]. When physiological arousal changes were statistically controlled (baseline to after video game play), the game violence eVect was still significant [F(1, 103) ¼ 5.74, P < .05]. However, when we controlled for rated violence of the games, the game violence eVect became nonsignificant [F(1, 119) ¼ 2.35, P > .12], as expected. In fact, controlling for the rated violence of the games reduced the game violence eVect on aggressive thoughts by 45%. Finally, we performed an analysis that treated the specific games chosen to represent the violent and nonviolent types as random eVects, rather than fixed (Winer, 1971). This entails using the between groups sums of squares, within each of the violent and nonviolent game types, to estimate measurement error, with 8 degrees of freedom. This tests the generalizability of the video game violence eVect across specific games (Wells & Windschitl, 1999). It also yielded a significant game violence eVect [F(1, 8) ¼ 8.96, P < .05]. These results strongly support the hypothesis that violent content in video games causes increases in the accessibility of aggressive thoughts, independent of arousal and aVective influences. This is the first study to conclusively demonstrate this specific eVect of violent video game content. b. Glider Pro vs. Marathon 2. We further examined the violent video game eVect on aggressive thoughts by using only the two matched games Glider Pro and Marathon 2. Sex eVects did not approach significance, so sex was dropped. Despite the small sample size, Marathon 2 participants produced a significantly higher percentage of aggressive words (M ¼ 15.4) than did Glider Pro (M ¼ 10.8) [F(1, 26) ¼ 6.03, P < .05, d ¼ 0.95]. A similar statistical model that included changes in physiological arousal (baseline to after video game play) as covariates yielded similar results. The eVect of game was significant [F(1, 21) ¼ 10.96, P < .01]. We then ran a series of analyses in which each of the video game rating dimensions were entered as covariates. The analyses with diYculty, enjoyment,

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action, and frustration each yielded a significant game eVect on aggressive thoughts [Fs(1, 25) > 5.00, P values < .05]. As expected, when rated violence of the game was entered as a covariate the game eVect became nonsignificant [F(1, 25) ¼ 2.42, P > .10], again demonstrating the specificity of violent content eVects.

VI. Experiment 2 A. METHOD 1. Participants Ninety-seven female and 93 male undergraduates participated, selected on the basis of their responses to the Trait Hostility (TH) scale, administered at the beginning of the semester as part of a battery of questionnaires. Half of the males and half of the females were selected from the top and bottom thirds of the TH distribution. All participated in return for partial course credit for their introductory psychology class.3 2. Design The experiment can be conceived as a 2 (TH: high vs. low) 2 (Video game: violent vs. nonviolent) 2 (Provocation pattern: increasing vs. ambiguous) 2 (Sex: male vs. female) between subjects design. However, TH was used as a continuous variable in all analyses, rather than a two-level categorical variable. This regression approach is statistically more appropriate and more powerful. For all analyses that included a covariate (e.g., TH), we also tested all possible interaction terms involving the covariate. None of these interactions were statistically reliable, so they were dropped from the final statistical models reported in this article. For dependent variables that

3 Six participants were dropped because they reported unusually high levels of video game experience or number of hours per week spent playing video games. Our concern was that participants who had extensive video game experience might respond somewhat diVerently than the normal population. We used the standard procedures described by Tukey (1971) for identifying outliers and ‘‘far outliers.’’ Six far outliers were identified, two on the basis of the video game experience scale, four on the hours per week measure. For example, the far outliers on the latter measure reported playing video games from 18 to 24 hours per week in recent months. Five of the six far outliers were males. Supplemental analyses that included these participants yielded the same patterns of aggression as those reported in the Results section, albeit the eVect sizes were slightly smaller.

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were not significantly influenced by sex of participant, the reported results are based on analyses that dropped sex from the statistical model. 3. Materials a. Trait Hostility. The Trait Hostility Scale is a 30-item self-report inventory designed to measure chronic individual diVerences in aggressiveness or irritability, adapted from the irritability scale developed by Caprara, Cinanni, D’Imperio, Passerini, Renzi, and Travaglia (1985) (see Anderson, 1997; Dill et al., 1997). Sample items include (1) Whoever insults me or my family is looking for trouble, (2) Sometimes I shout, hit and kick and let oV steam. The internal reliability of this scale is generally high; in the present sample coeYcient alpha ¼ .86. b. Video Games. As described earlier, Marathon 2 (violent) and GliderPro (nonviolent) were selected because they were similar on a variety of dimensions in Experiment 1. c. Competitive Reaction Time Task. A modified version of the Taylor Competitive Reaction Time (CRT) task was used to assess aggressive behavior. The CRT is a widely used and externally valid measure of aggressive behavior (Anderson & Bushman, 1997; Anderson, Lindsay, & Bushman, 1999; Carlson, Marcus-Newhall, & Miller, 1989; Giancola & Chermack, 1998). Participants believe they are competing with another person to see who can respond first upon presentation of a tone. In the standard version of the game, after each trial the ‘‘loser’’ receives an aversive punishment (e.g., loud noise), the intensity of which is supposedly set by the opponent. Prior to each trial, each participant sets the punishment level that supposedly will be delivered to the opponent, if the participant wins the trial. The possible settings range from 0 (no noise) to 10 (100 db). These settings constitute the measure of aggressive behavior. In the present experiment we used a two-phase version of the task (Anderson, Anderson, Dorr, DeNeve, & Flanagan, 2000; Bartholow & Anderson, 2002; Lindsay & Anderson, 2000). In Phase 1 participants were told that their opponent would set the intensity of the noise blast that the participant would receive as ‘‘punishment’’ on ‘‘lose’’ trials, but that the opponent would not be punished on trials that the participant won. It was further explained that in Phase 2, the roles would be reversed so that the participant would set the intensity of the noise blasts for the opponent, but the participant would not receive punishments on ‘‘lose’’ trials. In actuality, a computer program determined wins and losses as well as the noise intensities and durations delivered to participants in Phase 1. After each trial the participant also saw what noise level was ‘‘set’’ by the opponent, displayed on the computer

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screen. All participants were given sample noise blasts of level ‘‘2’’ (60 db) and ‘‘8’’ (90 db) before beginning Phase 1 of the task. d. Provocation Pattern Manipulation. In Phase 1 of the CRT task, all participants received the same randomly ordered series of 13 wins and 12 losses determined by the computer program. They also received blasts of noise on the ‘‘lose’’ trials. The pattern of noise blasts was either an ambiguous or an increasing provocation pattern (Anderson et al., 2000). Participants in both provocation conditions saw exactly the same punishment settings—8 in the low range, 9 in the middle range, and 8 in the high range, and actually received the same punishments (4 in each range). In the ambiguous provocation condition the pattern of noise intensities was random, whereas the increasing provocation pattern consisted of mostly low noise intensities on the early trials, middle intensities on the middle trials, and high intensities on later trials. On completion of Phase 1, the experimenter reminded participants that in Phase 2 they would set noise intensities to be delivered to their opponent, and that they would not receive noise blasts on any trial in this phase. 4. Procedure Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions (video game provocation), with the constraint that equal proportions of males and females and that equal proportions of high and low TH participants were run in each condition. Same-sex pairs were run in individual cubicles. On arrival, they were seated in cubicles and asked to read and sign the consent form and to then read instructions for the video game. Participants were told that the study was concerned with the ways people learn diVerent types of computer tasks. Participants were informed that we were interested in possible diVerences between simple and complex tasks, and that we would be measuring HR and blood pressure throughout the session. Participants played the assigned video game for 20 minutes. Then the CRT task was explained. All participants were told that their opponent would set the noise blasts in Phase 1 while they would set the noise blasts for their opponent to hear in Phase 2. After the CRT task, participants completed a questionnaire that included a manipulation check, some motivation and aVect items, some demographic information, and several suspicion check items. Blood pressure and pulse were measured at five diVerent points in time: (1) before playing the video game, (2) about 10 minutes into the video game, (3) after playing the video game, (4) after Phase 1 of the CRT task, and (5) after Phase 2 of the CRT task. Finally, the participants were debriefed. Care

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was taken to ensure that each participant knew it was the computer and not the other participant in the session that set the noise blasts in Phase 1 and that the noise blasts they sent in Phase 2 were received only by the computer. 5. Measures a. Aggressive Behavior. Aggressive behavior was operationalized as the noise intensity (0–10) sent by the participants to their opponents in Phase 2 of the CRT task. As is common with the CRT task, we examined four diVerent intensity measures: intensity setting on the first trial, and the average settings on trials 2–9, 10–17, and 18–25. The early trials are the most important in this two-phase version of the CRT, especially Trial 1, because it is the first opportunity the participant has to retaliate after being provoked. Note that in the standard one-phase version Trial 1 occurs prior to any provocation, provocations continue throughout the 25 trials, and therefore all trials are of theoretical interest. b. Cardiovascular Arousal. At each of the five measurement periods, blood pressure and pulse were assessed twice, with an interval of 1 minute between the completion of the first measurement and the beginning of the second.4 c. Questionnaires. After the last blood pressure and pulse measurements, participants answered a number of questions about the experiment. One item asked participants if they were ever ‘‘angry’’ during the reaction time task. Responses were on a 5-point unipolar scale anchored at 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (somewhat), 4 (quite a lot), and 5 (a lot). Also included were six items on which participants were to ‘‘indicate the extent to which this motive describes your motive when deciding on where to set the noise levels.’’ These items used the same 5-point scale described above. The six items were (1) I wanted to impair my opponent’s performance in order to win more; (2) I wanted to control my opponent’s level of responses; (3) I wanted to make my opponent mad; (4) I wanted to hurt my opponent; (5) I wanted to pay back my opponent for the noise levels he/she set; (6) I wanted to blast him/her harder than he/she blasted me. The first two items represent instrumental reasons for aggressing. Responses to these two 4 Heart rate and blood pressure were assessed for two reasons. First, it was an important part of the cover story. Second, we wanted to be able to statistically control for any eVects of the video game manipulation on aggression that might be due to changes in arousal. As expected, the video games did not produce diVerential changes in arousal. Including the cardiovascular change measures as covariates in later analyses of aggressive behavior did not alter the pattern of results in any appreciable way (but did reduce the error term and slightly increased the eVect sizes of the video game and provocation manipulations). Thus, for the sake of simplicity these arousal measures are not further discussed.

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items were positively correlated (r ¼ .57, P < .001), and were combined to form a scale labeled ‘‘Instrumental Aggressive Motivation.’’ The latter four items represent a clearly revengeful type of aggressive motive, were highly correlated, and were combined to form a scale labeled ‘‘Revenge Motivation.’’ CoeYcient alpha for this scale was .74. One question asked ‘‘Did the pattern of noise levels that you received appear to be increasing, decreasing, or random?’’ This item was coded as þ1 for increasing, 1 for decreasing, and 0 for random. We expected this manipulation check to yield smaller scores in the ‘‘ambiguous’’ than in the ‘‘increasing’’ provocation condition, because the actual pattern was random in the former and increasing in the latter. A 2 (video game) 2 (provocation pattern) analysis of variance (ANOVA) confirmed this expectation. Those in the increasing provocation conditions reported an increasing pattern of noises (M ¼ .43), whereas those in the ambiguous condition reported that the pattern seemed random [(M ¼ .05), F(1, 178) ¼ 43.91, P < .001, d ¼ 0.95]. An open-ended question asked ‘‘What do you think the purpose of this experiment was?’’ Responses to this item and to the final oral debriefing were used by the experimenter to rate each participant as either not suspicious (0), slightly suspicious (1), or suspicious (2). Fourteen participants were classified as suspicious. However, suspicion was unrelated to performance on the main dependent variables, so all were kept. Participants then completed a ‘‘Background Questionnaire’’ assessing demographic information including height, weight, age, year in school, academic major, and time since using alcohol, caVeine, and exercising. Participants also estimated how many hours per week they had spent playing video games ‘‘in recent months.’’ They then indicated ‘‘How much you have ever played each of . . . ’’ 12 specific video games, using a 5-point unipolar scale anchored at 1 (Never have played) and 5 (Have played a lot). The 12 games listed were Wolfenstein 3D, You Don’t Know Jack, Civilization II, A-10 Attack, Computer Cribbage, Street Fighter, Dark Forces, Myst, Indy Car II, Speed Demon, 3-D Ultra Pinball, and Jewelbox. Ratings on these 12 items were combined into a Video Game Experience composite, with a coeYcient alpha of .63. Finally, a thorough oral debriefing was given, with notes recorded by the experimenter.

B. RESULTS 1. Aggressive Behavior Four measures of aggressive behavior were based on the noise punishment levels that participants set for their opponents during Phase 2 of the CRT task. Recall that the key behavioral measure was noise intensity on Trial 1,

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because it was the participant’s first opportunity to retaliate for noise blasts received during Phase 1. The noise settings for the remaining 24 trials were averaged into three blocks of eight trials each. The key prediction was that exposure to the violent video game would increase aggressive behavior in the two-phase CRT task. We believed that this eVect was most likely to occur in the ambiguous provocation condition, especially on the first or early trials (a time video game provocation pattern interaction). This is based on an outburst/social justice model of aggressive behavior in the two-phase CRT first described in the Anderson et al. (2000) studies of temperature eVects. Experiment 5 of that work used a very similar two-phase CRT task with both an ambigous and an increasing provocation pattern and found that most of the interesting temperature eVects occurred in the ambiguous pattern condition, especially on the early trials. We also expected that TH would be positively related to aggression. All of these predictions were borne out. We conducted a 2 (video game) 2 (provocation pattern) 4 (time: trial 1 vs. block 1 vs. block 2 vs. block 3) ANOVA, with the last factor as a repeated measures factor, and with TH as a covariate. We then conducted a set of planned contrasts examining the violent video game eVect separately for the two provocation conditions, for each of the four aggression measures. Both the provocation and the TH main eVects were significant [Fs(1, 179) ¼ 5.81 and 4.69, respectively, Ps < .05]. Participants in the increasing provocation condition set lower noise punishments than those in the ambiguous provocation condition (Ms ¼ 5.06 and 5.51, respectively, d ¼ 0.18). Trait hostility was positively related to noise punishment level (b ¼ 0.23). This latter finding provides additional evidence that the two-phase CRT task validly assesses aggressive behavior. There was also a significant time eVect, a time provocation pattern interaction, and a time video game provocation pattern interaction [Fs(3, 537) ¼ 27.90, 19.81, and 4.06; Ps < .01]. Figure 4 illustrates both the time main eVect and the time provocation pattern interaction. A simple summary of these eVects is that participants tended to produce the same pattern of noise punishments for their opponents in Phase 2 as they had received from their opponents in Phase 1. On average, those in the ambiguous condition gave moderate punishments across the four times, whereas those in the increasing provocation condition delivered punishments that started low and increased across time. Interestingly, this same aggression pattern has occurred in the other two experiments that used the two-phase CRT and both the ambiguous and the increasing provocation pattern (Anderson et al., 2000, Experiment 5; Lindsay & Anderson, 2000, Experiment 4).

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Fig. 4. Noise punishment settings as a function of provocation pattern and time of aggression in Phase 2 of the competitive reaction time task, Experiment 2.

TABLE II Aggressive Behavior (Average Noise Punishment Settings) as a Function of Video Game, Provocation Pattern, and Time of Aggression Video game

Provocation pattern

n

Trial 1

Block 1

Block 2

Block 3

Violent

Ambiguous

44

5.93

5.64

5.52

5.66

Nonviolent

Ambiguous

46

4.86

5.55

5.48

5.47

—

1.07

0.08

0.04

0.19

Video game eVect Violent

Increasing

46

3.87

5.16

5.75

5.57

Nonviolent

Increasing

48

3.98

4.96

5.38

5.81

—

0.11

0.20

0.38

0.24

Video game eVect

To more thoroughly examine the video game eVects in the context of our main predictions as well as in context of the three-way interaction, we conducted 2 (video game) 2 (provocation pattern) ANOVAs with TH as a covariate on each measure of aggressive behavior separately, along with two planned contrasts testing separately the video game eVect in ambiguous and increasing provocation pattern conditions. Table II presents the adjusted means. Figure 5 plots the mean diVerences between the violent and nonviolent video game conditions. As can be seen, the pattern was essentially as predicted. On Trial 1, there were significant main eVects of provocation pattern and trait hostility, and a marginally significant video game provocation pattern interaction

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Fig. 5. Violent video game eVect on noise punishment settings (violent–nonviolent game conditions) as a function of provocation pattern and time of aggression, controlling for trait hostility, experiment 2.

[Fs(1, 179) ¼ 22.35, 4.03, and 3.56, Ps < .001, .05, & .07, respectively]. The ambiguous provocation pattern led to more aggression than the increasing pattern (Ms ¼ 5.39 and 3.92, d ¼ 0.70). Trait hostility was positively related to aggression (b ¼ 0.35). The specific planned contrasts testing the video game eVect separately for the ambiguous and increasing provocation pattern conditions revealed that those who played the violent video game and who had received the ambiguous provocation pattern delivered significantly higher noise punishments to their opponents than did those in the corresponding nonviolent game condition [F(1, 179) ¼ 5.72, P < .02, d ¼ 0.5]. Interestingly, those who received the increasing provocation pattern were unaVected by the video games (F < 1, d ¼ .05). In Block 1 (Trials 2–9) only the provocation and TH main eVects were even close to significant. Those in ambiguous provocation conditions delivered greater punishments to their opponents than those in the increasing provocation conditions [Ms ¼ 5.60 and 5.06, respectively; F(1, 179) ¼ 7.02, P < .01, d ¼ 0.39]. Trait hostility was again positively related to aggression [b ¼ 0.29, F(1, 179) ¼ 6.67, P < .02]. The video game eVect was not significant under either provocation condition (Fs < 1). In Blocks 2 and 3, none of the eVects of video game, provocation, or TH were significant (Ps > .10). 2. Supplementary Analyses. Table III presents the correlations among questionnaire variables. The most interesting findings involved the measure of revenge motivation. Revenge motivation correlated positively with feeling angry during the CRT task, instrumental aggressive motivation, and

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VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES TABLE III Correlations Among Questionnaire Variables

Variable Trait hostility Revenge motivation Video game experience Hours per week

Revenge motivation

Video game experience

Hours per week

Angry

Instrumental aggressive motivation

.25*

.02

.05

.06

.09

—

.15{

.08

.44*

.26*

—

.46*

.05

.15{

—

.06

.12

—

.07

Angry Hours per week indicates hours per week spent playing video games. *P < .001. NS range from 174 to 184. y P < .01. { P < .05.

experience with the 12 video games included in the questionnaire. To further explore the latter relationship we split the video game experience scale into two subscales and correlated each with revenge and instrumental aggressive motivation. Experience with the six violent video games correlated significantly with revenge motivation (r ¼ .21, P < .01), and with instrumental aggressive motivation (r ¼ .15, P < .05). Experience with the six nonviolent video games did not correlate significantly with either type of motivation (Ps > .5). Revenge motivation also correlated positively with TH, which was measured several weeks prior to the laboratory session. This suggests that the TH eVect on aggressive behavior may have been mediated by revenge motivation. To test this we ran the same regression ANOVAs on the four measures of aggression but with revenge motivation as a covariate. The TH eVect disappeared. In the repeated measures ANOVA the main eVect of revenge motivation was highly significant [F(1, 178) ¼ 52.08, P < .001], but the TH eVect did not approach significance (F < 1). Similarly, on both of the individual aggression measures that had previously yielded significant eVects of TH (Trial 1, Block 1) the revenge motivation eVect was quite strong [Fs(1, 178) ¼ 26.83 and 35.52, bs ¼ 0.89 & 0.65, respectively; Ps < .001], and the trait hostility eVects became nonsignificant (Ps > .2). These results suggest that trait hostility influenced aggression through its eVect on revenge motivation. Interestingly, revenge motivation was not aVected by the video game manipulation (F < 1). Furthermore, the violent video game eVect seen on Trial 1 aggression in the ambiguous provocation condition was not diminished by the inclusion of revenge motivation in the statistical model [F(1, 178) ¼ 6.96, p < .01]. The diVerence in adjusted means between the violent and nonviolent video game conditions was essentially the same when

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revenge motivation was in the model (Ms ¼ 5.89 vs. 4.80) as when it was not in the model (Ms ¼ 5.93 vs. 4.86). Thus, revenge motivation did not mediate the video game eVect on aggression.

C. DISCUSSION This experiment has four main findings. First and foremost, playing a violent video game for 20 minutes led to significantly more aggression than did playing a nonviolent game, in exactly the circumstances expected—on the first retaliation opportunity after an ambiguous pattern of provocations. This video game eVect on aggression was specifically due to violent content; both the aVective and arousal routes were controlled by the selection of games that do not diVer on these two dimensions. Second, TH was positively related to aggressive behavior in the CRT task. Third, this eVect was mediated by revenge motivation. Finally, the positive correlations between past experience with violent video games and both of the aggressive motive measures (revengeful and instrumental) suggest that repeated exposure to violent video games might increase the likelihood that minor provocations will elicit revengeful and instrumentally aggressive responses. It is important to note that the violent video game eVect occurred only on the first trial in the ambiguous provocation condition. This is the most critical set of circumstances for testing the violent content hypothesis in the two-phase CRT. The lack of video game eVects in the increasing provocation condition confirms earlier reports that in the two-phase CRT the ambiguous provocation pattern results in more sensitive tests of other eVects than does the increasing provocation pattern (Anderson et al., 2000; Lindsay & Anderson, 2000). Therefore, the lack of a video game eVect in the increasing provocation pattern condition should not be seen as a disconfirmation of the violent content hypothesis. Nonetheless, additional tests of the violent content hypothesis are needed. Experiment 3 was conducted in part to provide such a test.

VII. Experiment 3 One major goal was conceptual replication. We made several changes to maximize the gain from this replication test. First, we added two modified games (one violent and one nonviolent) that have not been used in previous studies, in addition to the two games used in Experiment 2 (Wells & Windschitl, 1999). Second, we used the standard one-phase version of the CRT task in which the participant and the ‘‘opponent’’ set punishment levels for each other

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on the same set of 25 trials. In this paradigm, aggressive behavior emitted during all 25 trials is relevant, unlike the later trials in the two-phase version. Two additional changes allowed for a reasonable correlational test of the hypothesis that exposure to media violence is positively associated with aggressive behavior. We used the physical aggression subscale of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992) as a measure of ‘‘trait aggressiveness.’’ We also created an overall media violence exposure variable by combining a shortened version of the violent video games measure used by Anderson and Dill (2000) with a measure of exposure to TV violence. Finally, Experiment 3 provided a first attempt to examine the eVects of varying the realism or the ‘‘humanness’’ of the targets of aggression within a game. It has often been assumed that cartoon-like characters in violent video games (as well as television and movies) would elicit less aggression than human characters, especially among participants older than 10 or 12 years (i.e., participants who can clearly distinguish between the fantasy world of cartoons and the real world). Half of the violent game participants played the original version of Marathon 2, in which the targets are humanoid aliens with green blood. The other half played the same game except that the targets were given a human appearance and spouted red blood when shot. A. METHOD 1. Participants Two hundred fourteen undergraduate female and male students enrolled in an introductory psychology class participated for course credit. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Two of the conditions involved playing a violent video game; the other two involved playing a nonviolent video game. Ten participants were dropped for a variety of reasons, including failure to complete the materials, high confusion about how to play the games, declining to play the assigned video game, and giving impossible answers to some questionnaire items. For instance, one participant reported watching 70 hours of television per week while taking a full course load. Thus, the total final sample size consisted of 134 females and 70 males. The ratio of female/male participants was approximately equal across experimental conditions. 2. Materials & Design a. Video Games. All video games were played on G3 Power Macintosh computers. The CRT task was conducted with LCIII Macintosh computers. Two of the games were essentially the same as those played in Experiment

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2 (the green-blooded alien version of Marathon 2, labeled ‘‘Alien’’ hereafter in this article, and Glider Pro). One minor change was made in the Alien version; the human allies that appeared in the opening scene were removed. The other two games were major modifications of Marathon 2. The violent modified version (labeled ‘‘Human’’) was identical to Alien except that human figures with red blood replaced the green-blooded aliens. The nonviolent version consisted of the same ‘‘world’’ as Marathon 2, but there were no enemies at which to shoot, and the player’s main task was to explore the world, find replacement oxygen cylinders, and eventually find the transporter in order to return to the ship. This game had a time element built into it, such that the player could ‘‘die’’ if he or she failed to find suYcient oxygen supplies while searching for the transporter. This was labelled the ‘‘Explore’’ condition.5 b. Aggression Paradigm. After playing the assigned video game, the participants performed a standard version of the CRT task. Participants were led to believe that they were competing against another college student, and that they would be setting punishment levels for each other prior to each trial. They were to click the mouse button as quickly as possible after hearing a tone. Participants were told, ‘‘Once you both have hit the mouse button and the winner is determined, the computer will display a sign that says either ‘YOU WON!’ or ‘YOU LOST!’ If you lose the trial, you will receive the noise your partner chose for you.’’ There were 25 such trials, the outcomes of which were actually controlled by the computer. The ambiguous win/loss and punishment patterns (described in Experiment 2) were used for all participants. The main measure of aggression was the average noise intensity level set by the participant. c. Questionnaire. A questionnaire was administered at the end of the CRT task. It contained the following measures that were used in Experiment 2: revenge motivation (coeYcient alpha ¼ .85), instrumental aggressive motivation (two items r ¼ .40), and angry feelings. Trait hostility was replaced by the nine-item Physical Aggression subscale of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (coeYcient alpha ¼ .84). The format and style of the items is very similar to the TH scale used in Experiment 2, with scores ranging from 1 to 5. Sample items are ‘‘There are people who pushed me so far that we came to blows’’ and ‘‘I get into fights a little more than the 5 We also modified the opening scenes of the Alien and Human versions to make it somewhat easier, so that novice game players didn’t ‘‘die’’ right away. We thank Brian C. Anderson for making these various changes to the Marathon 2 games. Note that to maximize the power of the comparisons of the two violent game conditions (Alien vs. Human), we set up our randomization schedule so that there would be about twice as many participants in the violent conditions as in the nonviolent conditions. The final sample sizes were: Alien ¼ 70; Human ¼ 62; Glider Pro ¼ 36; Explore ¼ 36.

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average person.’’ Although previous research has shown that this scale loads on the same general factor as the TH scale used in Experiment 2 (Dill et al., 1997), the advantage of the Buss-Perry physical aggression subscale is that all nine items involve aggressive behavior, whereas the TH scale used in Experiment 2 includes several diVerent types of items. Video game experience was replaced with a composite measure of exposure to video game and television violence. To assess exposure to violent video games, we used a shortened version of the measure reported in Anderson and Dill (2000). Participants listed up to three favorite video games, indicated how often they have played each in recent years, and rated the level of violence in the games. The video game violence exposure measure is created by multiplying the violence rating for each game by the amount of time spent playing that game, and averaging across the three games. Participants also estimated how many hours per week they watch television, and what proportion of time they watch violent television shows. The television violence measure is simply the product of those two estimates. To create the media violence exposure composite, we standardized the video game and television violence scores and summed them. d. Design. The overall design is thus a 2 (Sex: male vs. female) 2 (Content: violent vs. nonviolent) 2 (Game version: Old (Alien & Glider Pro) vs. New (Human & Explore). The Physical Aggression scale was used as a covariate.6 3. Procedure Participants were escorted into the laboratory on arrival. After being seated by the video game equipment, participants read and signed a consent form. The cover story explained that the study involved examining how people learn simple and complex computer tasks. They were also told that they would be playing two games, one a single-player game and the other a competitive two-person game. Each participant was given an explanation of how the controller worked and how to play the single-player game, followed by instructions on how to play the CRT task. They were then told that they had been randomly assigned to play the single-player game first and were instructed to play the designated game for 20 minutes. After playing for 20 6 This scale was not administered at the beginning of the session because we believed that doing so would increase suspicion about the true purpose of the study. To check on the possibility that the experimental manipulations might have systematically influenced scores on this ‘‘trait’’ measure, we conducted a 2 (Content: violent vs. nonviolent) 2 [Game version: Old (Alien & Glider Pro) vs. New (Human & Explore)] ANOVA on the trait physical aggression scores. None of the eVects approached significance [all Fs < 0.15, all Ps > .70]. Thus, using this variable as a trait physical aggression covariate seemed appropriate.

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minutes, the participant completed the CRT task. Participants were told that they would not meet, see, or learn who their opponent was, but that their opponent was the same sex. After completion of the CRT task, a questionnaire was administered to assess a number of aVective and motivational variables, as well as suspicion. During the final debriefing, the experimenter probed for suspicion, explained all procedures, answered any questions, and thanked the participant.7

B. RESULTS 1. Aggressive Behavior The main measure of aggressive behavior in this experiment was the average noise intensity level that participants set as punishments for their opponent, averaged across all 25 trials of the CRT task. Both the trait physical aggression eVect and the main eVect of video game violent content were significant, replicating the main findings of Experiment 2. Trait physical aggression was positively associated with aggression [F(1, 195) ¼ 15.32, P < .001, b ¼ .42]. More importantly, as shown in the left two columns of Fig. 6, participants who had played a violent video game set higher punishment levels than those who had played a nonviolent game [F(1, 195) ¼ 7.17, P < .01, d ¼ .38, Ms ¼ 5.41 and 4.83, respectively]. None of the other main eVects or interactions were significant [all Fs(1, 195) < 3.20, all Ps > .07].

7 As in Experiment 2, the final questionnaire included items asking participants about the true purpose of the study. In addition, the Experimenter conducted a structured interview designed to detect suspicion as well as to ease into the debriefing. The second author later examined the participants’ written comments and the Experimenters’ notes and rated each participant on a four-point suspicion scale (0–3). Twenty-two participants indicated that they knew (or strongly believed) that the study was about video games and aggression. These participants were excluded from all analyses. During the year in which this experiment was conducted, a number of stories about violent video games appaeared in national, regional, and student newspapers and in a wide array of electronic media, which may account for the increased suspicion rate. Unlike Experiment 2, in which only a few participants were so suspicious and in which suspicion was unrelated to the key dependent variables, in the present study suspicion was highly related to the key measure of aggression. Specifically, the 22 highly suspicious participants produced significantly lower levels of aggression than did the remaining participants [F(1, 238) ¼ 26.47, P < .0001, d ¼ .67]. This finding is similar to other research on suspicion in aggression studies, in which suspicious participants tend to be relatively unaVected by experimental manipulations and tend to display low levels of aggression, presumedly as a result of their deciding to not display aggressive inclinations (Berkowitz & Donnerstein, 1982; Carlson, Marcus-Newhall, & Miller, 1990; Kruglanski, 1975). Fortunately, there was no systematic relation between condition of the study and suspicion level [F(7, 238) ¼ 1.04, P > :40].

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Fig. 6. Covariate adjusted average noise intensity settings as a function of video game violence, without (unmediated) and with revenge motivation as a mediating variable, Experiment 3.

2. Supplementary Analyses a. Correlations. Table IV presents the correlations among the key questionnaire measures. The pattern of correlations was very similar to that found in Experiment 2. Revenge motivation was positively correlated with feeling angry, instrumental aggressive motivation, and trait physical aggression. The latter suggests that the trait physical aggression eVect on aggressive behavior reported earlier may have been mediated by revenge motivation, similar to the TH eVect in Experiment 2. We return to this idea shortly. One of the most interesting correlational findings concerned the relation between media violence exposure and the trait physical aggression measure. As shown in Table 4, the correlation was positive, statistically significant, and in the small to medium range. Trait physical aggression also correlated positively with the number of hours spent with electronic entertainment in general. To further test the hypothesis that violent content is most important in this relation, rather than simply number of hours spent on electronic entertainment, we conducted a simple regression analysis that included media violence exposure and number of hours per week spent on video games and television as predictors of trait physical aggression. The media violence measure remained a significant predictor [F(1, 200) ¼ 18.79, P < .001, b ¼ .43]. When sex was also added to the model, the media violence eVect remained significant [F(1, 199) ¼ 6.68, P < .02, b ¼ .27].

230

CRAIG A. ANDERSON et al. TABLE IV Correlations Among Key Questionnaire Variables

Variable Trait physical aggression

Revenge motivation

Hours per week

Angry

Instrumental aggressive motivation

Media violence

.39*

.23*

.13

.10

.36*

Revenge motivation

—

.05

.48*

.49*

.07

Hours per week

—

—

.02

.55*

Angry

—

—

—

.18y

.00

Instrumental aggressive motivation

—

—

—

—

.03

.04

Hours per week indicates hours per week spent playing video games and watching television. *P < .001. NS range from 203 to 204. y P < .01. { P < .05.

b. Mediation by Revenge. Revenge motivation was further analyzed with a 2 (Sex: male vs. female) 2 (Content: violent vs. nonviolent) 2 (Game version: Old (Alien and Glider Pro) vs. New (Human and Explore) ANCOVA, with trait physical aggression as a covariate. There was a significant main eVect of violent content on revenge motivation [F(1, 195) ¼ 8.24, P < .01, d ¼ .41]. Participants in the violent game conditions reported higher levels of revenge motives than did those in the nonviolent game conditions [Ms ¼ 1.97 and 1.63, respectively]. There was also a significant eVect of trait physical aggression [b ¼ .43, F(1, 195) ¼ 31.83, P < .001]. This suggests that both the trait physical aggression eVect and the video game eVect on aggression may have been mediated by revenge motivation. To test the mediation hypothesis, we added revenge motivation to the ANCOVA model and examined the change in aggression score variance accounted for by trait physical aggression and by the video game violence manipulation. In both cases, the proportion of unique variance attributed to the predictor dropped significantly. Revenge motivation accounted for 77% of the variance attributed to the trait physical aggression [F(1, 194) ¼ 13.27, P < .001]. Nonetheless, the unique variance accounted for by trait physical aggression still remained statistically significant [F(1, 194) ¼ 3.92, P < .05]. Thus, it appeared that revenge motivation mediated most but not all of the trait physical aggression eVect on aggression. Revenge motivation accounted for 61% of the the violent video game variance [F(1, 194) ¼ 4.89, P < .05]. However, when revenge motivation was partialled out, the video game eVect was still marginally significant [F(1, 194) ¼ 3.16, P < .08]. Revenge motivation appeared to mediate much

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but not all of the video game eVect on aggression. The two right columns of Fig. 6 show the video game violence eVect after revenge motivation is partialled out of the adjusted means. c. Alien vs. Human Targets. The two violent versions of Marathon 2 used in this experiment diVered only in whether the enemy targets were green-blooded aliens or red-blooded humans. Supplemental analyses were performed on these two violent game conditions. The first set involved ratings of the games provided by participants on the standard dimensions used to select games in Experiment 1: diYculty, enjoyment, violence of graphics and content (averaged), frustration, and action. The 2 (sex) 2 (game) ANCOVAs with trait physical aggression as a covariate yielded no significant game main or interaction eVects. Indeed, the only reliable eVects to emerge from these analyses were main eVects of sex on the enjoyment, violence, and frustration ratings [Fs(1, 127) ¼ 6.78, 8.94, and 4.06, respectively; all Ps < .05]. Males enjoyed these two violent games more than females (Ms ¼ 3.88 and 3.09). They also rated the games as less violent (Ms ¼ 4.03 and 4.87) and less frustrating (Ms ¼ 3.76 and 4.38) than females. In sum, the two violent games were essentially equal on these game dimensions, although men and women viewed them somewhat diVerently. The most important question concerning the two violent game conditions is whether the substitution of human characters with red blood increased aggression in this short-term context. It did not [F(1, 127) ¼ 0.36, P > .50], although the means were slightly in that direction (Ms ¼ 5.49 and 5.33 for the Human and Alien conditions, respectively).

C. DISCUSSION Experiment 3 replicated the main findings of Experiment 2 using two similar violent games (the Alien and Human versions of Marathon 2) versus two nonviolent games (Glider Pro and the exploration version of Marathon 2) and did so with the more standard version of the CRT task. This replication strengthens the hypothesis that violent content in a video game can increase aggressive behavior after a minor provocation, even when the arousal and aVective sequela are controlled. Furthermore, the positive association between trait physical aggression and CRT aggression further validates this noise–aggression paradigm. Finally, the trait physical aggression eVect on aggressive behavior was partially mediated by revenge motivation, similar to the TH eVect in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 also found essentially equivalent eVects of the two violent versions of Marathon 2—the green-blooded alien or red-blooded human

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enemies. This strongly contradicts conventional wisdom and some research on television violence, both of which suggest that more realistic violence would have a relatively greater impact. Of course, failure to find a statistically significant eVect is not suYcient to claim that the eVect does not exist. Two alternative explanations for the lack of a ‘‘realism’’ eVect are quite plausible. First, it may be that the realism eVect occurs in repeated exposure long-term contexts but not in a short-term context. This would be true if the realism eVect operates as a kind of systematic desensitization eVect (Carnagey, Bushman, & Anderson, under review). Second, the high realism condition in Experiment 3 (i.e., the Human-red blood version of Marathon 2) may not have been suYciently realistic. Further work (not speculation) is needed on the realism eVect. Finally, Experiment 3 found additional correlational support for the link between exposure to media violence and general level of trait physical aggression. By themselves, such correlational data are not conclusive regarding causality, but they lend support for the hypothesis that repeated exposure to violent media leads to relatively high levels of trait aggressiveness.

VIII. Correlation Study 1 A. OVERVIEW The primary purpose was to test the hypothesis that repeated exposure to violent video games would be positively associated with aggressive behavior and persistent aggressive cognitions (e.g., attitudes toward aggression), and that these persistent aggressive cognitions would at least partially mediate the violent video game exposure–aggression link. A secondary purpose was to examine associations between violent video game exposure and several key personality indicators. Specifically, we included Goldberg’s Big Five scales, the Narcissism scale, and Caprara’s Emotional Susceptibility scale. If repeated exposure to violent video games does influence basic personality development, then associations should be found between such exposure and personality indicators known to be related to habitual aggressive behavior tendencies, such as Goldberg’s agreeableness and conscientiousness factors, narcissism, and emotional susceptibility. Of course, such associations could reflect the opposite causal direction. That is, basic personality factors favoring aggressiveness might well predispose some individuals to enjoying and playing violent video games. A cross-sectional correlation study of this type cannot, by itself, conclusively rule out this alternative. However, this alternative further implies that any significant correlations between violent video

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game exposure and aggression should become nonsignificant when basic personality factors are statistically controlled. In sum, strong support for the hypothesis that repeated exposure to violent video games increases aggressive behavior tendencies and does so through changes in persistent aggressive cognitions would consist of three parts. First, there must be significant associations between violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior tendencies. Second, these associations should persist even when basic personality factors are statistically controlled. Third, these associations should be substantially reduced when persistent aggressive cognitions are statistically controlled. Adequate testing of these ideas requires a large sample size, so that lack of statistical power does not lead to type I inferential errors.

B. METHOD 1. Participants Three hundred seventeen male and 489 female college students at a large midwestern university participated in a large mass testing questionnaire session for partial credit toward introductory psychology course requirements.

2. Measures a. Video Game Violence Exposure. Video game violence exposure (VGV) was assessed using the same shortened version of the Anderson and Dill (2000) measure described earlier in Experiment 3. Across the three video game items, coeYcient alpha was .83, only slightly lower than the .86 alpha reported by Anderson and Dill (2000) for their five-game version of this measure. b. Basic Personality. We measured seven basic personality factors, the Big Five as well as two more specific factors that have been theoretically and empirically related to aggression (narcissism and emotional susceptibility). Goldberg’s (1992) Big Five measure of basic personality structure consists of 20 items for each factor. CoeYcient alphas were: surgency (extraversion) ¼ .87; agreeableness ¼ .91; conscientiousness ¼ .89; emotional stability (neuroticism) ¼ .80; intellect (openness) ¼ .85. The 40-item Narcissism scale (Raskin & Terry, 1988) yielded an alpha of .84. The 27-item Emotional Susceptibility scale (Caprara et al., 1985) yielded an alpha of .91. c. Attitudes towards Violence. Two measures of attitudes toward violence were used. One was the recently revised 39-item Attitudes towards Violence scale (ATVS; Anderson, Benjamin, Wood, & Bonacci, in press),

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with an alpha of .92. The other was the 15-item Adolescent Attitudes towards Violence scale (AATVS; Funk, Elliott, Urman, Flores, & Mock, 1999), with an alpha of .76. d. Aggressive Behavior. Three measures of trait aggressive behavior were used. The nine-item physical and the five-item verbal aggression subscales of the Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992) yielded alphas of .85 and .79, respectively. We also used the same standardized 10 physical aggression items used by Anderson and Dill (2000) from the National Youth Survey (Elliot, Huizinga, & Ageton, 1985), which includes behaviors that would be considered criminal if known to police (e.g., assault, robbery). For ease of exposition, the Buss-Perry physical aggression measure will be referred to as mild physical aggression, whereas the National Youth Survey measure will be referred to as severe physical aggression.

C. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 1. Zero-order Correlations As expected, VGV was positively related to each of the three aggression measures and to both attitudes towards violence measures, as can be seen in Table V. VGV was also negatively associated with the Big Five factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness, as expected. VGV was also slightly positively correlated with the Big Five factor of emotional stability. Finally, VGV was positively correlated with narcissism and negatively correlated with emotional susceptibility. There are a number of additional interesting correlations in Table V, but because they are less central to the main hypotheses we leave them for the reader to discover. 2. VGV–Aggression Link and Basic Personality If the strong correlation between VGV and aggression is due solely to spurious relationships with basic personality factors, such that aggressive people also happen to like violent video games, then statistically controlling for basic personality factors should eliminate the VGV–aggression relationship. We used the destructive testing approach to assess this question (Anderson & Anderson, 1996; Anderson & Dill, 2000). In this approach, one first determines whether a specific predicted relationship exists (e.g., the VGV–aggression correlation). If so, then theoretically meaningful competitor variables (e.g., Big Five) are entered into the regression mode to determine whether these competitors break the target relation. Of primary interest is not whether the initial target link can be broken (i.e., made

235

VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES TABLE V Correlations Among Key Questionnaire Variables Variable MPA VGV MPA

VA

SPA ATVS AATV

.312* .196* .166* .237* —

.438* .315* .478* .131* .209*

B5Su

B5Ag

B5Co

B5ES

.321*

.012

.161*

.121*

.076y

.696*

.012

.319*

.202*

.080y

y

.091

y

B5In

NPI

ES

.029

.159*

.170*

.043

.197*

.070y

VA

—

—

.358*

.180*

.223*

.078

.055

.296*

.068

SPA

—

—

—

.250*

.322*

.003

.187*

.130*

.021

.100y

.112y

.039

ATVS

—

—

—

—

.527*

.097y

.307*

.137*

.009

.220*

.132*

.007

AATV

—

—

—

—

—

.068

.357*

.235*

.026

.108y

.167*

.045

B5Su

—

—

—

—

—

—

.320*

.198*

.137*

.380*

.499*

.098y

B5Ag

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

.607*

.205*

.489*

.048

.066

B5Co

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

.222*

.415*

.087y

.146*

B5ES

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

.055

.056

.566*

B5In

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

.262*

.050

NPI

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

.212*

VGV, Video game violence exposure; MPA, mild physical aggression; VA, verbal aggression; SPA, severe physical aggression; ATVS, Attitudes towards Violence scale; AATV, Adolescent Attitudes towards Violence scale; B5Su, surgency; B5Ag, agreeableness; B5Co, conscientiousness; B5ES, emotional stability; B5In, intellect; NPI, narcissism; ES, emotional susceptibility. *P < .001. y P < .05. n ¼ 806.

nonsignificant), because even strong causal links between measured variables can eventually be broken by adding more correlated competitors into the model. Instead, the focus is the durability of the link, with consideration given to the theoretical and empirical strength of the competitor variables. Table VI presents the results of this destructive testing procedure, displaying the raw slopes linking VGV to each of the three aggression measures, when only VGV is in the model (first column of slopes) and when other competitor variables are partialled out (columns 2–5). We first added sex to the model. The slopes decreased in magnitude but remained statistically significant.8 In turn, we added the Big Five factors, then the narcissism measure, and finally the emotional susceptibility measure. As shown in Table VI, the VGV–aggression link survived all of these competitor variables. These

8

Because sex is highly correlated with exposure to violent video games, partialling out sex eVects likely overcorrects for gender diVerences. Thus, the resulting estimate of the VGV– aggression relation is an extremely conservative one.

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CRAIG A. ANDERSON et al. TABLE VI Destructive Testing Results on the VGV/Aggression Relation VGV slopes with various predictor variables in the model

Aggression measure

VGV

þSex

þBig 5

þNPI

þES

Mild physical aggression

.0286*

.0098y

.0082y

.0078{

.0081y

Verbal aggression

.0182*

.0098y

.0075{

.0068{

.0071{

Severe physical aggression

.0097*

{

.0058

{

.0056

{

.0053

.0055{

df for F test of VGV eVect

1, 804

1, 803

1, 798

1, 797

1, 796

VGV, Video game violence exposure; Big Five, five basic personality factors; NPI, narcissism personality inventory; ES, emotional susceptibility. *P < .001. y P < .01. { P < .05. n ¼ 806.

results support the view that the VGV–aggression link is not a spurious artifact of basic personality structure. 3. Persistent Aggressive Thoughts as a Mediator Our next analysis used the same destructive testing approach, but here the meaning is considerably diVerent because the ‘‘competitor’’ variables are potential mediators of the long-term VGV eVect on aggressive tendencies. Our application of GAM to the video game domain explicitly states that the content of violent video games can create long-term changes in a host of aggression-related knowledge structures, many of which can be indexed by measures of general attitudes toward violence. Thus, we expected that adding such attitude measures to the statistical model would result in substantial reductions in the VGV–aggression relation. Once again, we began with a model having only VGV as the predictor, and then added sex to the model (see columns 1 and 2 of Table VI). Next, we added both attitudes toward violence measures to the model (instead of the personality factors). As anticipated, the VGV aggression slope decreased substantially for each of the three aggression measures. For mild physical aggression the VGV slope dropped from a significant .0098 (P < .005) to a nonsignificant .0013 [F(1, 801) ¼ 0.28], an 87% decrease in the slope [(.0098 - .0013)/ .0098]. For verbal aggression the VGV slope dropped from a significant .0098 (P < .01) to a nonsignificant .0055 [F(1, 801) ¼ 2.44], a 44% decrease. For severe physical aggression the VGV slope dropped from a significant .0058 (P < .02) to a nonsignificant .0031 [F (1, 801)1.96], a 47% decrease.

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In sum, these results support the hypothesis that long-term eVects of repeated exposure to violent video games on aggressive behavior tendencies are at least partially mediated by changes in persistent aggressive cognitions. Of course, as noted earlier the correlational nature of these results warrants some interpretative caution and further integrative research.

IX. Updated Meta-Analysis A number of new studies have become available since Anderson and Bushman’s (2001) meta-analysis of violent video game eVects. We added all of the new studies we could locate to our database and made a few procedural changes to address two specific questions. One question concerned the possibility (frequently oVered by media representatives and other critics) that the average eVect sizes reported in prior meta-analyses might be inflated by the inclusion of studies with potentially important methodological weaknesses. In the present meta-analytic study, we identified nine methodological weaknesses found in at least some violent video game studies, and we categorized each sample as having none of them (the ‘‘Best Practices’’ studies) or at least one (‘‘Not Best Practices’’ studies). We compared the average eVect size results of this distinction. The second question concerned potential diVerences between experimental studies (which allow stronger causal statements on the basis of even a few studies) and correlational studies (which typically involve more serious and realistic forms of aggression, and address the long-term eVect issue).

A. METHODS 1. Study Sample A complete list of included studies can be found at the following web page: http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2000–2004/04AESPref.pdf. We included all studies that we could locate that had data testing a possible link between exposure to violent video games and one of five types of outcome variables: aggressive behavior (defined as behavior intended to harm another person), aggressive cognition, aggressive aVect, helping behavior, and physiological arousal. A given ‘‘study’’ might contain more than one independent ‘‘sample’’ of research participants. For example, some studies reported results separately for male and female participants. We used one eVect size for each sample for each of the available five dependent

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variables. For example, if a sample had three diVerent (and valid) measures of aggressive behavior and a composite of the three, we used the composite measure. If a composite could not be obtained, we used the average of the three separate eVect sizes.

2. Best Practices Coding The following potential methodological problems were examined for each sample: 1. Nonviolent video game condition contained violence, and there was no suitable nonviolent control condition. 2. Violent video game condition contained little or no violence. 3. In a correlational study, the measure of video game exposure was not specifically tied to violent video games (e.g., the amount of time spent on any kind of video game was measured instead of time spent on violent video games). 4. Evidence that the violent and nonviolent conditions diVered significantly in ways that could contaminate the conditions, such as the nonviolent condition being more diYcult, boring, or frustrating than the violent condition. 5. A pre-post design was used, but only the average of the pre- and postmanipulation measures was reported. 6. Each research session involved both a video game player and an observer, but only the average of the player-observer measures was reported. 7. The aggressive behavior measure was not aggression against another person (e.g., aggression against a non-human character, or against objects). 8. The outcome variable was physiological arousal, but arousal diVerences between the violent and nonviolent video game conditions were already controlled by pretesting, game selection, or both (i.e., equally arousing violent and nonviolent games were intentionally chosen by the researchers to control for potential arousal eVects on other outcome measures such as aggressive behavior). 9. The outcome variable was aggressive aVect, but aVective diVerences between the violent and nonviolent video game conditions were already controlled by pretesting, game selection, or both (i.e., violent and nonviolent games were intentionally chosen by the researchers to have the same aVective impact, to control for potential aVective influences on other outcome measures such as aggressive behavior). Some of these ‘‘weaknesses’’ are actually strengths for other aspects of the same research. For example, if one wants to study whether violent video game

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content (relative to a nonviolent video game) can increase aggressive behavior even when there are no arousal diVerences between the games, pretesting and selecting violent and nonviolent video games that produce equivalent levels of arousal is an excellent methodological feature (as in our Experiments 1–3). However, that same sample does not allow a good test of whether violent video games on average increase arousal. Thus, for aggressive behavior this sample would be coded as a ‘‘best practice’’ one, whereas it would be coded as a ‘‘not best practice’’ sample for physiological arousal. For several samples it was possible to get eVect sizes for both a best practices procedure and a not best practices procedure on the same outcome variable. For example, several correlational studies reported both a best practices measure of time spent on violent video games and a not best practices measure of time spent on any type of video game. B. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 1. Best vs. Not Best Practices Figure 7 presents the best vs. not best practices results. In each case the methodologically best samples yielded average eVect sizes that were larger than methodologically weaker samples. This was especially pronounced for aggressive behavior and aggressive aVect, wherein the 95% confidence intervals for the best and not best samples did not overlap. These results suggest that eVect size estimates that include methodologically weaker studies (e.g., Anderson & Bushman, 2001) underestimate the true eVect sizes of exposure to violent video games. 2. Best Practices Samples: Experimental vs. Correlational Figure 8 presents the average eVect sizes of the best practices samples categorized by type of study. There are no consistent diVerences in eVect sizes for the experimental versus correlational samples. Correlational studies yielded a slightly larger average eVect on aggressive and helping behavior than did experimental studies, whereas the opposite was true for aggressive cognition and aVect. In all four of these cases the experimental and correlational 95% confidence intervals overlap. Furthermore, both the experimental and correlational eVect sizes were significantly diVerent from zero for each outcome variable except physiological arousal, and that was because there are no best practices correlational studies of this type. In sum, despite the relatively small size of this research domain, there is considerable correlational and experimental evidence linking exposure to violent video games with increases in aggressive behavior and to several aggression-related variables.

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Fig. 7. EVects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive aVect, helping behavior, and physiological arousal by best practices methodology. rþ, average eVect size; K, number of independent samples; N, total number of participants. Vertical capped bars are the upper and lower 95% confidence intervals.

X. General Discussion These five studies (three experiments, one correlational study, one metaanalytic study) contribute to our understanding of human aggression from both a personality processes and a situational eVects perspective. We believe these results can best be understood within the GAM theoretical framework described earlier. A. SITUATIONAL EFFECTS The main situational finding was that brief exposure to violent video games increased aggressive behavior relative to nonviolent video games matched on arousal and aVective dimensions. This occurred in both experiments that measured aggression, regardless of whether the violent game had

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Fig. 8. EVects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive aVect, helping behavior, and physiological arousal by type of study for best practices samples. r+, average eVect size; K, number of independent samples; N, total number of participants. Vertical capped bars are the upper and lower 95% confidence intervals.

green-blooded aliens or red-blooded humans as the enemy targets, and occurred in both versions of the CRT task. The lack of reliable sex X game violence interactions suggests that the eVect was similar in men and women. A second situational finding concerns the cognitive eVects of violent video games. Experiment 1 demonstrated that violent games in general produce increases in the relative accessibility of aggressive thoughts. The present findings make a very strong case for the hypothesis that violent video games can (and do) cause increases in aggression because of the violent content of such games, not just because of their arousal or aVective properties. The present empirical results in combination with our theoretical analysis also lend support to the concern that repeated exposure to violent video games (or other violent media) might lead to development of an increasingly aggressive personality, and that much of this developmental eVect may be the direct result of the violent content. In short, repeatedly thinking

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about violent characters, choosing to be aggressive, enacting that aggressive choice, and being rewarded for it can be conceived as a series of learning trials influencing a variety of types of aggressive knowledge structures. Violent video games may well teach players to become more aggressive people. One interesting diVerence between the results of Experiments 2 and 3 concerns revenge motivation. There was little evidence that the video game eVect in Experiment 2 was mediated by an increase in desire for revenge, but there was considerable evidence that much of the video game eVect was mediated by revenge motivation in Experiment 3. The various procedural diVerences between the two studies may account for these diVerences, particularly the timing of various measurements in the two-phase versus the standard one-phase CRT task. In any case, it may be useful in future research to explore the possibility that the violent content of violent video games may increase aggression by first priming aggressive cognitions, which in turn increase desire for revenge when mildly provoked.

B. PERSONALITY EFFECTS Experiments 2 and 3 yielded several findings of general interest from a personality perspective. First, trait hostility (Experiment 2) and trait physical aggression (Experiment 3) were positively related to aggression in the CRT task. This further validates these trait measures and the two versions of the CRT task. Second, both of these eVects were largely mediated by revenge motivation. Thus, it appears that one way in which highly hostile people are predisposed to be aggressive against others is through increased revenge motives that are aroused when mildly provoked. We believe that this is the first demonstration that such trait eVects on aggressive behavior operate through increases in desire for revenge. A third finding concerns the question of who is most susceptible to violent video game eVects. There is some evidence from the television/movie violence literature that highly aggressive people tend to be more strongly influenced by exposure to violent media than nonaggressive people (e.g., Bushman & Huesmann, 2001). Such person situation interactions do not always occur in the media violence literature; sometimes the opposite pattern occurs (e.g., Anderson, 1997). Also, even when this pattern occurs, it is not the case that nonaggressive people are entirely unaVected. A common claim of skeptics and media industry representatives is that only a very few disturbed individuals might be aVected at all. In the present studies neither trait hostility (Experiment 2) nor trait physical aggressiveness (Experiment 3) interacted with the violent video game manipulation. That is, the violent video game eVect on aggression was not reliably bigger (or smaller) for those

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participants who scored high on these traits than for those who scored low. Along these same lines, we did not obtain significant sex video game violence interactions on aggressive behavior. We suspect that with larger sample sizes such person situation interactions will emerge in some contexts. Nonetheless, the lack of such interactions in the present studies suggests that violent video games influence a sizeable proportion of people. A fourth finding of interest, from Experiment 2, was that experience with violent video games correlated positively (and significantly) with both revenge motivation and instrumental aggressive motivation, whereas experience with nonviolent video games did not. Although Experiment 2 was not explicitly designed to test these relations, it is interesting that this pattern fits exactly what would be expected if repeated exposure to violent video games does create more aggressive individuals. It also fits with prior research designed to test such eVects (e.g., Anderson & Dill, Study 1, 2000). Fifth, the correlational findings of Experiment 3 that general media violence exposure is positively associated with trait physical aggression, even when time spent on electronic entertainment and sex were statistically controlled, support a long and increasingly strong line of research on media violence eVects (e.g., Bushman & Anderson, 2001). The correlational study provided support for the hypothesized link between repeated exposure to violent video games and increased aggressive tendencies, and did so for three types of aggression: mild physical, verbal, and severe physical aggression. This study also provided the first correlational support for the contention that such long-term eVects on aggressive behavior are mediated by persistent aggressive thoughts, here indexed by two diVerent attitudes toward violence measures. Furthermore, this study provided the first correlational evidence that the violent video game exposure link to aggression persists even when a host of basic personality factors are statistically controlled. Finally, the meta-analysis further revealed consistent eVects of violent video game exposure on aggressive behavior, cognition, and aVect, as well as on arousal and prosocial behavior. The fact that these eVects were stronger in the methodologically strongest studies, and occurred in both experimental and correlation designs (with the exception of arousal), lends further support for our application of GAM to both long- and short-term media violence eVects.

C. IMPLICATIONS There are many questions requiring additional empirical work. One is the need to identify specific features of violent video games that increase or decrease their impact on aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Experiment 3

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provided one test of the hypothesis that the realism or ‘‘humanness’’ of the game target might exacerbate the eVect. It yielded no support for that hypothesis. Further tests using more extremely realistic and gory graphics are needed. A second question concerns the long-term eVects of repeated exposure to violent video games, especially on children and teens. Based on over 40 years of research on television and movie violence, one reasonable expectation is that repeatedly exposing youth to violent video games over a period of years will have a sizeable negative impact on their development. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the video game violence eVect will be larger than television violence eVects because of the highly engaging and active nature of video games compared with the relatively passive nature of watching TV. Nonetheless, longitudinal research is badly needed to test this prediction and to delineate protective and exacerbating factors. A third set of questions concerns possible positive eVects of games designed to promote prosocial behaviors. Do such games increase prosocial and decrease antisocial behavior? Virtually no research exists on this topic. However, video games are going to remain a major source of entertainment. Therefore we believe it is important to oVer empirical evidence and quality theory on which types of features promote a prosocial gaming experience, as well as highlighting the potential antisocial eVects of games with violent themes.

XI. Appendix A. VIOLENT GAME DESCRIPTIONS Dark Forces. This is a standard first-person shooter. The player assumes the role of a special ops guy in the Rebellion with the objectives of stealing the Death Star plans and getting out alive. This game has a fairly high level of violence, with weapons like a blaster rifle and laser pistol to kill enemy guards and stormtroopers. Marathon 2. This is a standard first-person shooter, in which the player assumes the role of a space marine trapped in a base that has been taken over by aliens. Your main goal is to retake it and not die. This game has a high violence level, with the basic, underlying premise of the game being to shoot anything that moves and kill or be killed. The targets are mainly aliens, with some ‘‘compilers’’ or robots that the aliens use as slaves. Speed Demon. This is a 3D combat driving game. The player drives a heavily armed vehicle in a race with other similarly armed vehicles,

VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

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shooting at and crashing into them as they do likewise. One gets points for destroying other vehicles. Street Fighter. This is a third-person fighting game, similar in many ways to Mortal Kombat. The player chooses a character and then engages in a series of fights with other characters. Each character has specific strengths and weaknesses. Wolfenstein 3D. This is a first-person shooter. The player assumes the role of B. J. Blascowitz, an American soldier caught and taken prisoner trying to infiltrate a top-secret Nazi experimentation lab. The goal is to shoot your way out of the prison and kill everything that moves. You can pick up various weapons, including various guns. There is a very high violence rate, with you shooting dogs and Nazi guards, with gory bullet hits and ‘‘death poses.’’ B. NONVIOLENT GAME DESCRIPTIONS 3D Ultra Pinball. This is simply an electronic version of a pinball game, complete with flippers, buzzers, bells, and various visual and auditory eVects. Glider Pro. Players of this game control the forward and backward motion of paper airplanes through a house. By flying over air ducts one can gain lift. The glider can turn various items on and oV (such as light switches, computers). One can earn points by flying over certain objects. If the glider hits the floor or certain other items, it crumples and is replaced by another glider. Indy Car 2. The player assumes the role of driver in an Indy car race with the goal of winning the race. If you bump other cars or drive too fast on turns, you crash. This game can be played from the keyboard, but is much easier with a steering wheel and pedals. Jewel Box. This game is a colorful version of Tetris. Variously colored shapes drop from the top of the screen. The player manipulates the objects as they fall, trying to create filled rows. When a row is completely filled, it disappears and the player receives points. Myst. This is a nonviolent exploration/mystery/adventure game with a first-person perspective. It begins on the Island of Myst. Players begin by appearing on the island with no knowledge of how or why they ended up there, or how to proceed. In an ancient library, players discover two mysterious books, which lay out the basic mystery. Players must then travel to several diVerent worlds (‘‘ages’’) to unravel the mystery.

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Acknowledgments We thank Mary Ballard, Brad Bushman, and Jeanne Funk for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this work.

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SURVIVAL AND CHANGE IN JUDGMENTS: A MODEL OF ACTIVATION AND COMPARISON

Dolores Albarracı´n Harry M. Wallace Laura R. Glasman

A model of judgment maintenance and change is proposed that specifies the various processes that take place at the time of making a judgment on the basis of memory-based and online information. This model proposes that attitude maintenance and change depend on three processes: recalling a prior attitude, recalling or receiving other attitude-related information, and comparing the prior attitude with attitude-related information. Unlike prior models, the activation/comparison model assumes that all three processes can elicit attitude change and maintenance under diVerent conditions. For instance, the mere activation of attitude-related information that is consistent with a prior attitude will favor stability, whereas activation accompanied with comparison with a prior attitude will result in polarization of the prior attitude. Furthermore, even when prior attitude accessibility will elicit attitude maintenance in the absence of comparative processes, prior attitude accessibility can accelerate comparison and therefore change when comparative cues are present. Finally, people who are motivated to compare their prior attitudes with new information should by necessity first activate their prior attitude before comparison can take place. Consequently, attitude comparison cues may induce attitude survival if subsequent processing stops at the point of attitude activation and does not proceed to the stage of attitude comparison. Comparative principles are identified and the implications of this model are discussed in relation to prior theorizing on change in attitudes and nonevaluative judgments. 251 ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 36

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I. Introduction Social psychologists’ current understanding of attitude change and maintenance faces two primary problems. One problem is fragmentation of the literature. Several bodies of research and theory identify mechanisms or thought processes that have diVerent implications for the change and maintenance of attitudes over time. These mechanisms involve recalling a prior attitude about an object, considering online attitude-related information, and evaluating the prior attitude in light of the attitude-related information. However, past research has typically considered these processes at a molecular level, taking into account only one process at a time (for an exception, see Festinger, 1957; Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). To our knowledge, no prior model of attitude change has attempted to explicate the complex consequences of these rather basic mechanisms for attitude change and survival. The fragmentation of the attitude change literature contributes to a second problem. The predictions that can be made from isolated mechanisms are not the same as those that an integrative view allows. Our model emphasizes that understanding and predicting attitude change requires examination of three processes: (1) activating the prior attitude (retrieving it from memory), (2) activating information related to the prior attitude (which can be from memory or external), and (3) comparing the prior attitude with the related information (Fig. 1).1 None of the processes in Fig. 1 is inevitable, and each process can have diVerent implications for attitude change and maintenance. On one hand, the sole activation of either attitude-consistent information or the prior attitude itself will lead to attitude maintenance. On the other hand, online reconstruction of an attitude based on the sole activation of attitude-inconsistent information, as well as comparison of the prior attitude with attitude-consistent or inconsistent information, should generally produce attitude change. Nevertheless, these two processes do not always occur independently of each other, and better understanding of attitude change emerges from a joint consideration of the 1 We define attitudes as evaluative judgments that are typically generated covertly, and may or may not be expressed to others. Both current and prior attitudes in this case represent the judgment component of attitudes, which is distinct from the representation of this judgment in memory or the representations of attitude-related information in memory (for treatments of the nature of attitude representations in memory, see Bassili & Brown, in press; Fazio, 1986; Wyer & Srull, 1989). We conceptualize change as a diVerence between a present attitude judgment about a topic and an attitudinal judgment about the same topic generated at an earlier time, even when this change results from seemingly fluid and temporary contextual factors (see e.g., Schwarz & Bohner, 2001; Tourangeau & Rasinski, 1988).

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Fig. 1.

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Processes underlying attitude survival and change. Boxes represent processes.

two. Although the processes themselves are not counterintuitive, their joint implications elaborated in our model often contrast with prior assumptions and predictions. Conceptualizing attitude activation and comparison as a sequential process implies that activating a prior attitude will often facilitate comparison. That is, the comparison process requires activation of both the prior attitude and attitude-related information, so spontaneous or externally induced attitude activation (step 1) will foster comparison (step 2) simply because such activation is a prerequisite for comparison. However, activation of both the prior attitude and attitude-related information does not guarantee comparison; attitude activation may not stimulate comparison if situational or individual factors discourage comparison. Just as attitude activation facilitates comparison, comparison cues facilitate activation. When people are motivated to compare their prior attitude with attitude-related information, they may first need to activate the elements required for comparison if these elements were not already available before starting to compare. However, comparison cues do not guarantee comparison even if these cues lead to the activation of the elements required for comparison. The individual may not be suYciently motivated or able to proceed from step 1 (activating attitudes) to step 2 (comparative validation). An example may illustrate the need to investigate attitude activation and comparison in a concurrent fashion. For instance, considering only the activation of a prior attitude leads to the well-supported prediction that highly accessible prior attitudes survive or last longer than prior attitudes with low accessibility (Fazio, 1986). A woman who can easily recall her prior favorable attitude toward COPA airlines is more likely to sustain favorable attitudes than a person who can barely remember that ‘‘COPA’’

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is a Panamanian company, let alone an evaluation of the service provided by this airline. However, if attitude activation is considered in the context of comparative processes, it is easy to see how activating a prior attitude could lead to attitude change, rather than attitude maintenance. For instance, a woman who clearly remembers having a prior favorable evaluation of COPA airlines and is politely greeted by a COPA flight attendant may reassess the validity of her prior attitude in relation to the new information (comparative validation process). In doing this, the subjective validity of her prior attitude and the new information may increase due to the perceived fit between each cognition and prior knowledge (Wyer & Srull, 1989), her mood (Schwarz & Clore, 1983), or the sheer convenience of holding a given attitude (Festinger, 1964). Furthermore, when compared, her positive prior attitude and the new, also positive information should be mutually validating and combine to increase the positivity of the prior attitude (corroboration). Polarization following subjective confirmation of an earlier conclusion, however, should not occur when people form a current attitude on the spot, ignoring a past attitude. For instance, the woman in our example may fail to retrieve her earlier favorable attitude toward COPA airlines at the time when she is greeted by the polite flight attendant. In this case, failure to retrieve the prior attitude should prevent the comparative validation process we described, leading to the online formation of a current attitude that is equally positive to the prior one. In conclusion, attitude survival may occur in a relatively incidental way even if the prior attitude is inaccessible, provided people consider attitude-relevant information that supports the prior attitude. Attitude maintenance may also emerge from failed attempts to compare new information with a prior attitude. In our example, the woman who is politely greeted by the flight attendant may be asked to complete a consumer survey. In filling out the survey, she may try to recall an evaluation of the airline that she developed years ago and to integrate that attitude with the new information she gathered. However, she might become distracted in the middle of completing the survey and default to the prior attitude she recalled to perform a comparison. With such interruptions, motivation to perform a comparison will increase stability instead of change. Because ability and motivation to think about an issue often are necessary to perform the processes in Fig. 1, our model has implications for the eVects of these variables on attitude change. We argue that a prior attitude is most likely to survive when people activate the prior attitude but do not use evaluatively inconsistent information for either comparisons or online constructions. Therefore, people must have suYcient ability and motivation to retrieve the prior attitude, but not enough ability and motivation to process

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relevant but inconsistent material.2 Consider the influence of ability and motivation to think about an issue when the attitude-relevant information has the same evaluative implications as the prior attitude. Whereas comparison of a prior attitude with attitude-consistent information should lead to change (polarization), either recycling the old accessible attitude or forming an attitude on the go should lead to attitude survival. Thus, lower and moderate levels of processing ability and motivation should promote attitude survival more than high levels of these variables. This chapter is organized in three sections. The next section (Section II) defines basic concepts pertinent to the model. The predictions described in Section III include an extended presentation of the potential forms of attitude change (e.g., polarization of prior attitudes, boomerang types of eVects, and compromise between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information) based on the evaluative category or implication (good vs. bad) of the judgment and the relevant information, as well as the processing stages that develop (Part A of Section III). The chapter then reviews the influences of attitude activation and comparison (Part B of Section III) and the predicted eVects of general processing ability and motivation on attitude change (Part C of Section III). In Section IV, we contrast the predictions of our model with prior models of attitudes, including algebraic models, such as information-integration theory (Anderson, 1974), Sherif and Hovland’s (1961) social judgment theory, and more recent models of communication and persuasion. II. Attitude Change and Survival: Preliminary Definitions People form attitudes when they link an object to an evaluative category in the process of evaluating the object (good vs. bad, positive vs. negative; see Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980, 2001; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Fazio, 1986; Wyer & Srull, 1989; Zanna & Rempel, 1988). The attitude object can be a concrete target, a behavior, an abstract entity, a person, or an event (e.g., Fishbein & Ajzen, 1974). For example, individuals form evaluations of social groups 2 Prior research has shown that people’s ability and motivation to think about an object can induce diVerent inferences about the validity of a given type of information (Chaiken, 1980; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). For instance, people use their mood as information when they think about their mood to a moderate extent (Albarracı´n & Kumkale, 2003) but not when ability and motivation are either high or low. Moreover, individuals may correct for the influence of mood when they have high ability and motivation, resulting in reverse eVects of mood on judgment (see Ottati & Isbell, 1996). These eVects are orthogonal to the eVects of concern in this chapter, as they aVect the actual validity of the prior attitude and the attitude-related information but not the processes that guide attitude change and maintenance.

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(e.g., prejudice), their own behaviors (attitude toward the behavior; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), their personal attributes (attitudes toward the self, including self-esteem), and other people (person impressions). Moreover, individuals form these attitudes on the basis of diVerent types of information. For instance, Eagly and Chaiken (1993; see also Ajzen, 2001; Albarracı´n, 2002; Petty & Wegener, 1999) maintain that attitudes can be based on cognitive, aVective, and behavioral information. A person who values health and believes that smoking poses health risks is likely to develop a negative attitude toward smoking (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). People who experience positive mood may favorably evaluate their lives or conclude that a political candidate is desirable (Clore & Parrott, 1994; Isbell & Wyer, 1999; Schwarz & Clore, 1983, 1996). Moreover, according to Bem (1965, 1972; Bem & McConnell, 1970), individuals often consider their past behavior and infer their attitudes from that behavior, particularly when they lack a firm prior attitude about the object being considered (for relevant evidence, see Chaiken & Baldwin, 1981). Although aVective and behavioral information often gives way to attitudes, attitudes are neither aVective nor behavioral in nature: They are evaluations (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Zanna & Rempel, 1988). Three attitude dimensions are relevant to the model’s predictions. Attitudes are first characterized by their evaluative category or implication stemming from people’s classifications of objects as good or bad (e.g., Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, & Pratto, 1992). Moreover, attitudes vary in the extremity or the polarity of the value assigned to the evaluative category (Thurstone, 1959). For example, an individual may moderately or strongly dislike former President Clinton or may be weakly or extremely prejudiced against a societal group. Finally, people’s attitudes are associated with diVerent degrees of confidence or subjective certainty (see Abelson, 1988; Petty, Brin˜ol, & Tormala, 2002). A woman may be very confident that Clinton was a good president, but decrease confidence in this attitude as a result of new information that derogates Clinton’s image.3 This chapter is concerned with stability and changes in the evaluations of an object as time passes. Attitude change denotes a transformation of at least one of the aforementioned attitude dimensions over two diVerent (and arbitrarily defined) time points. Some attitudes change in evaluative category or implication. For instance, individuals who initially favor a president may later receive information that leads them to disapprove of this president. Attitudes also change in extremity and confidence. For example, people with negative attitudes toward smoking may disapprove of smoking even more after making 3

It is important to note that properties such as extremity and confidence are often termed attitude strength. We believe that conceptualizing attitude change requires understanding change in all of these dimensions.

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new friends who also disapprove of smoking (attitude polarization following corroboration). As an example of change in confidence, people may become more confident in their stereotypes about a minority group if training designed to decrease stereotypes backfires (boomerang type of eVect). In contrast to attitude change, attitude survival (also denoted maintenance and persistence) denotes continuity in the three dimensions of evaluative category, extremity, and confidence. For example, people can automatically access their prior evaluations of political parties and maintain the same exact attitudes over many years (e.g., Fazio, 1990; Fazio, Powell, & Herr, 1983). Attitudes also survive when individuals form an attitude that is identical to a prior one on the basis of relevant information that is available online, even when they did not retrieve their prior attitude from permanent memory. As described by Bem (1965; see also Albarracı´n & Wyer, 2000), people may repeatedly infer an attitude on the basis of their past behavior that happens to be salient at the time (for a review of conditions that facilitate selfperception, see Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). When this behavior is the same over time, the attitude individuals generate is also likely to be stable (for discussions of how chronic accessibility of information can lead to attitudes that are identical to attitudes people formed at an earlier time, see Schwarz & Bohner, 2001; Wilson & Hodges, 1992). We will discuss these diVerent phenomena and their facilitating conditions in the context of empirical evidence relevant to our model. Although attitude extremity and confidence are distinct attitude dimensions, they often go hand in hand. Consider the case in which people recall a general, dichotomous categorization of an object as good or bad. For instance, people may recall that they previously thought that a war against Iraq was a bad idea. Those who become more or less confident in their category assignment should express a more or less extreme judgment, provided that there are enough verbal labels in the context of a broader judgmental scale (e.g., ‘‘very’’ or ‘‘slightly’’ bad). In the example, people who become more confident that the Iraq war is a bad idea are likely to describe the war as ‘‘very bad,’’ whereas people who hesitate with respect to their prior judgment may characterize it as ‘‘slightly bad.’’ However, very diVerent eVects might emerge for changes in confidence and extremity when people start with a more specific judgment, such as ‘‘very’’ bad on a semantic diVerential scale. Under those conditions, becoming more confident in one’s judgment could imply reendorsing ‘‘very bad’’ as one’s judgment rather than changing the extremity of one’s attitude. In addition to ceiling eVects, implicit theories about change may further complicate the situation. If a person’s initial attitude changes in valence, confidence may increase or decrease depending on the circumstances being considered. For example, a person who is initially against the Iraq war may

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receive information about the advantages of the war, leading that person to manifest a neutral or even positive position. If the person focuses on his or her having changed the earlier attitude in light of more comprehensive information, his or her attitude confidence should increase as extremity decreases. In contrast, if the person focuses on his or her having changed the prior attitude, he or she may conclude that attitudes in this domain are short-lived and decrease his or her confidence in them. In sum, the model discussed in this chapter predicts changes in extremity and confidence in the case of attitude polarization, but it makes no assumptions about confidence in the case of a compromise between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information.

III. Activation/Comparison Model The activation/comparison model stipulates that attitude maintenance and change are a function of (1) prior attitude activation, (2) activation of information related to the prior attitude, and (3) comparison between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information. According to this activation/comparison model, none of these three components is inevitable. People may activate their prior attitude without activating related information. For example, a man planning to vote in an upcoming political election may recall his prior favorable attitude toward the candidate without recalling specific information about the candidate or attending to media portrayals of the candidate. Moreover, concurrent activation of a prior attitude and information related to that attitude does not guarantee comparison between these two components. The man might read a newspaper article describing the behavior of the candidate without considering how the implications of the information in the article fit with his attitude toward the candidate. We describe the nature and predicted eVects of attitude activation and information comparison on attitude change and maintenance below. Figure 2 shows the outcomes of these processes on change and survival, and Table I summarizes the model postulates. A. PROPOSED PROCESSES 1. Activation of Prior Attitude People activate a prior attitude if they retrieve an association between an object and a category that they previously stored in memory (see Fazio, 1986). For instance, a person may recall that a person is ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘bad,’’

Fig. 2. Influence of processes of activation and comparison on attitudinal outcomes. Boxes indicate processes and diamonds indicate decision points. A and B represent diVerent implications or categories (e.g., bad versus good). V and I denote subjectively valid and invalid information, respectively. AA and BB represent attitudes of the same A and B evaluation with increased confidence, extremity, or both.

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TABLE I Postulates about the Processes and Conditions Underlying Attitude Survival and Change Number

Postulate/principle Independent EVects of Attitude and Attitude-Related Information on Attitude Survival and Change

Postulate 1

Attitude activation without comparison. When comparison processes do not occur, attitude activation alone can lead to attitude survival.

Postulate 2

Entirely online reconstruction. When people do not activate a prior attitude but they activate attitude-related information, they are likely to form a new attitude on the basis of the attitude-related information. In this situation, the prior attitude survives when the attitude-related information is consistent with the prior attitude, but changes when the attitude-related information is inconsistent with the prior attitude. Principles and EVects of Comparison on Attitude Survival and Change

Principle 1

Corroboration principle of comparison. People increase the confidence and extremity of their subjectively valid prior attitudes when the evaluative implications of subjectively valid attitude-related information corroborate their prior attitudes. Correspondingly, they maintain the confidence or extremity of their prior attitudes when the prior attitudes and the attitude-related information are both evaluatively consistent but only one is valid.

Principle 2

Defensive-confidence principle of comparison. People increase the confidence and extremity of a given evaluation (prior attitude or evaluative implication of attitude-related information) when they perceive that evaluation as valid but invalidate the other, incongruent evaluation. In contrast, comparing a prior attitude with inconsistent but valid attitude-related information results in a compromise between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information.

Postulate 3

General eVects of comparison. Comparative processes will generally induce attitude change. Thus, ability (e.g., use of comparative formats for presenting the information) and motivation (e.g., use of comparison instructions) to compare are likely to result in attitude change.

Reciprocal Influences of Attitude Activation and Comparison on Each Other and Their EVects on Attitude Survival and Change Postulate 4

EVects of prior attitude activation in the presence of comparative motivation. Although prior attitude activation (e.g., accessibility) will increase survival in the absence of comparative motivation (Postulate 1), attitude activation may accelerate change in the presence of such motivation.

Postulate 5

EVects of comparative motivation in the absence of attitude activation. Comparative motivation in the absence of attitude activation will facilitate attitude activation and stability but may be insuYcient to produce comparison and the corresponding attitude change. continues

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TABLE I continued Number

Postulate/principle

EVects of General Processing Ability and Motivation on Attitude Survival and Change Postulate 6

EVects of ability and motivation in the presence of attitude-inconsistent information. When attitude- relevant information conflicts with a prior attitude, high and low levels of ability and motivation to think about the issue should induce more change than moderate levels of general ability and motivation.

Postulate 7

EVects of ability and motivation in the presence of attitude-consistent information. When attitude-relevant information corroborates a prior attitude, high ability and motivation to think about the issue should induce more change than both moderate and low levels of general ability and motivation.

an event is ‘‘desirable’’ or ‘‘undesirable,’’ or an object is ‘‘attractive’’ or ‘‘unattractive’’ (for the processes underlying categorization, see Bargh, 1994, 1997; Markman & Gentner, 2000; Medin & Coley, 1998; Smith, Fazio, & Cejka, 1996; Wyer, 1973; Wyer & Srull, 1989). Attitude retrieval from memory can occur automatically or follow the application of eVortful recall strategies (see Lingle & Ostrom, 1981).4 For example, teachers have less diYculty retrieving their evaluations of a student currently in their class than they do retrieving their evaluations of a student in their class four years ago (for a discussion of goal-directed recall, see Koriat, 2000). Compelling evidence indicates that activation of prior attitudes is important for attitude maintenance, specifically from studies on the attitudebehavior relation. Strong attitude- behavior correlations can be interpreted as manifestations of survival of attitudes over time. For instance, Fazio, Powell, and Williams (1989; Fazio, Chen, McDonel, & Sherman, 1982; Fazio & Williams, 1986) showed that the probability that people will use a given attitude as a basis for their future behavior is a function of the accessibility of the attitude. In this research, participants first reported their attitudes toward food products and then were allowed to take products home. As shown in Fig. 3, the correlation between participants’ attitudes and their later selection of products was higher when attitudes were initially more accessible than when they were initially less accessible. That is, attitudes guided behavioral decisions to a greater extent when at the time of selecting the products, participants could quickly recall the attitudes they reported at the beginning of the experiment than when they could not.

4 Although the model we propose can be applied to online initial attitudes, this chapter concentrates on initial attitudes that people retrieve from permanent memory.

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Fig. 3. Influence of attitude accessibility on the attitude-behavior relation. Numbers are correlations. Data are from Fazio, Powell, and Williams (1989).

Fig. 4. Path analysis from Glasman and Albarracı´n’s (2003) meta-analysis. The analysis is based on the within-study correlations among each of the three variables in the model. ***p <0.01.

The positive eVects of attitude accessibility on the attitude-behavior association were recently confirmed on a meta-analysis of the behavioral implications of newly formed attitudes. In this work, Glasman and Albarracı´n (2003) first obtained correlations among number of attitude expressions, measures of attitude latency, and attitude-behavior (Pearson) correlations across the diVerent conditions within each available research report. These within-study correlations were then summarized to represent the extent to which repeating an attitude increases its accessibility and therefore its impact on behavior. Figure 4 displays a summary of the relevant path analysis, which was entirely supportive of Fazio’s (1989) hypothesis. As can be seen, the eVect of repeatedly expressing an attitude on the attitude-behavior relation was mediated by a facilitating eVect of the speed with which the attitude was reported. Attitude activation without comparison (Postulate 1). When comparison processes do not occur, attitude activation alone can lead to attitude survival. 2. Activation of Attitude-Related Information People may eVortfully or eVortlessly access attitude-consistent or -inconsistent memories about the object, or they might consider the attitudeconsistent or -inconsistent implications of external stimuli (i.e., activation

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of attitude-related information). For example, during election time, people who recall their prior attitudes toward political candidates may also recall prior knowledge about the candidates (internal attitude-related information) and analyze political propaganda available in their environment (external attitude-related information). People may also consider feelings of familiarity (Krosnick, Betz, Jussim, & Lynn, 1992), the mood they experience at the time (Schwarz & Clore, 1983; see also Adaval, 2001; DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000; Forgas, 1995; Forgas & Bower, 1987; Isbell & Wyer, 1999; Ottati & Isbell, 1996), the credibility or attractiveness of the communication source (Chaiken, 1979; Hovland & Weiss, 1951), their past behavioral decisions (see e.g., Albarracı´n & Wyer, 2000; Janis & King, 1954; Triandis, 1994), or the threat posed by attitude-inconsistent information (Festinger, 1957; for a proposal of modes of resolution of belief conflict, see Abelson, 1959). Importantly, people who do not recall a prior attitude about an object can presumably construct responses online provided that they activate attitude-related information (Schwarz & Bohner, 2001; see also Bem, 1965; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Taylor, Fiske, EtcoV, & Ruderman, 1978). When individuals base their current attitude about an object on information that is diVerent from the information on which they based their prior attitude, the attitude is likely to change. In contrast, people may maintain a prior attitude on the basis of online information even when they do not retrieve that attitude from memory, as long as the online information has identical implications as the prior attitude. Entirely online reconstruction (Postulate 2). When people do not activate a prior attitude but they activate attitude-related information, they are likely to form a new attitude on the basis of the attitude-related information. In this situation, the prior attitude survives when the attitude-related information is consistent with the prior attitude, but changes when the attituderelated information is inconsistent with the prior attitude.

Although the possibility of online reconstruction leading to attitude formation and change has been hypothesized previously (Bem, 1965; Schwarz & Bohner, 2001; Sengupta, Goodstein, & Bonninger, 1997; Wyer & Albarracı´n, in press; Wyer & Srull, 1989), conclusive data became available only recently. In three experiments, Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003) induced undergraduate participants to form an initial attitude toward a proposal to institute comprehensive exams. Participants always received uniformly pro-exam information before they reported their initial exam attitude. Later, after reporting their initial attitude, participants received additional information about comprehensive exams before reporting their attitude toward the exams for a second time. The data relevant to this

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analysis come from participants whose prior attitudes were diYcult to access. We used individual diVerences in need to evaluate (Jarvis & Petty, 1996), which in an independent sample correlated negatively with attitude response latencies (lower need to evaluate ¼ slower attitude responses), to estimate prior attitude accessibility (low need to evaluate ¼ low attitude accessibility). In Experiments 1 and 2, the second set of information was pro-exam (consistent with the first set of information), whereas the second set of information in Experiment 3 was anti-exam (inconsistent with the first set of information). We expected that participants who were not induced to compare the second set of information with their initial attitude would recall and recycle their initial attitude when reporting their attitude again if their initial attitude was accessible (i.e., if they had high need to evaluate), but would form an online attitude based on the second information set if their initial attitude was not accessible (i.e., if they had low need to evaluate). In Experiments 1 and 2, when the second information set was consistent with the first information set, both online and memory-based outcome judgments were expected to yield the same outcome of attitude maintenance. In Experiment 3, because the second information set was inconsistent with the first information set, online judgments were expected to yield attitude change in the direction of the new information, whereas memory based judgments were expected to reflect attitude maintenance. Scores representing attitude change from the first to the second attitude measures in Experiments 1, 2, and 3 appear in Fig. 5. As predicted, whenever need to evaluate was high, participants’ attitudes survived regardless of the valence of the second set of information they received. Also as predicted, attitudes that presumably were diYcult to recall survived when the second set of information was consistent with the first (second bar in panels A and B) but changed when this set conflicted with them (second bar of panel C ).

Fig. 5. Attitude change as a function of need to evaluate and consistency of the attituderelated information with the prior attitude. Data calculated from Wallace and Albarracacı´n (2003; Experiments 1 and 3; no activation/no comparison conditions).

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These findings thus indicate that retrieving the prior attitude or constructing it online for the second time led to the same result when the new information confirmed the old (panels A and B). However, diYcult to access prior attitudes changed (become more negative) when the second information set contradicted the first (panel C ). Wallace and Albarracı´n’s (2003) Experiment 3 is particularly helpful in clarifying the moderating role of attitude accessibility in attitude survival and change. In addition to measuring need to evaluate, this study also assessed initial attitude accessibility more directly by measuring initial attitude response latencies (speedy attitude judgments were interpreted as an indicator of subsequent accessibility). Furthermore, Experiment 3 manipulated prior attitude accessibility by reminding half of participants of their initial attitude judgment (i.e., simply flashing their earlier numerical response to an attitude item) before they read the second information set. We expected that participants with low attitude accessibility would show negative attitude change as a result of forming attitudes online based on the second (negative) information set, whereas those who spontaneously activated or were induced to activate their prior attitudes would maintain their initial attitude. Figure 6 represents conditions in which the researchers did and did not remind participants of the initial attitudes, as well as the likelihood of spontaneously retrieving the prior attitude (high accessibility ¼ low response latency). As the figure clearly shows, the attitude

Fig. 6. Attitude change as a function of accessibility of prior attitudes and presence or absence of an attitude reminder. Data calculated from Wallace and Albarracacı´n (2003; Experiment 3; no comparison conditions).

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reminder reestablished attitude stability when the prior attitudes were not spontaneously accessible (fourth versus third bars). When attitudes were highly accessible initially, however, the reminder had no eVect (second versus first bars).

3. Comparative Validation of Prior Attitudes and Attitude-Related Information People validate their attitudes by applying ‘‘if-then’’ types of rules (Kruglanski, Thomson, & Spiegel, 1999; Smith, 1994; Thomson, Kruglanksi, & Spiegel, 2000; Wyer & Srull, 1989), in which the premise consists of a validation criterion and the conclusion asserts the validity or invalidity of the evaluation under consideration. We refer to validity in a broad sense, including both logical and factual validity (logical and referential criteria), as well as the functionality or convenience of accepting a given conclusion (pragmatic criterion). If people conclude that a valid criterion supports their prior attitude or the implication of the attitude-related information, they are likely to judge that this particular evaluation is valid (McGuire, 1960; Wyer, 1974). Consider individuals who encounter a communicator who has the explicit intent of changing their attitudes. These individuals are likely to establish the validity of their activated prior attitude and that of the advocacy with reference to their chronic goals of preserving personal freedom and self-esteem (Baumeister, 1997; Brown, 1993; Kunda, 1987, 1990). If the recipients have attitudes that conflict with the message advocacy, these recipients are likely to perceive the counterattitudinal message as a threat to their freedom and may in turn respond with reactance (Brehm, 1966). Consequently, they are likely to conclude that their prior attitudes are more valid than the attitude-related information.5 Correspondingly, if people conclude that invalid criteria support their prior attitudes or the implications of the attitude-related information, they are likely to conclude that the evaluation is invalid. For instance, recipients of a persuasive message can judge the validity of the information they examine by applying cognitive heuristics (Chaiken, 1980; Chen & Chaiken, 1999; Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982). Recipients who believe that expert sources are more frequently correct than nonexperts should be less persuaded when the source of the message lacks expertise than when it does not (Chaiken, 1980; see also, Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953; Raven, 1965). Experiencing negative aVect also can prompt the rejection of a persuasive communication (e.g., 5 Our model does not exclude ‘‘hot’’ processes, but instead assumes that minimizing negative aVect is an important criterion for judgment.

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Albarracı´n & Kumkale, 2003). Regardless of the subjective criterion used in validation, people’s validation of information permits them to associate attitudes with an assessment of confidence (see Haddock, Rothman, & Schwarz, 1996; Haddock, Rothman, Reber, & Schwarz, 1999; Kruglanski, 1989; Nelson, Kruglanski, & Jost, 1998). Of particular interest, people who consider their prior attitudes in light of other information must weigh their prior attitude and the attituderelated information (see Anderson, 1974, 1981). These weights imply that individuals decide whether their prior attitudes and the attitude-related information are each subjectively valid or invalid. Sometimes individuals who activate a current attitude may validate their prior attitudes and attitude-related information in an eVortless fashion when activation occurs. For example, individuals may assess the validity of information in an automatic way and validate all information by default before they proceed to question it more carefully (Gilbert, 1991; for a theory that accounts for these findings, see Wyer & Radvansky, 1999). At other times people may eVortfully validate information on the basis of multiple criteria or on the basis of criteria that are relatively demanding of cognitive resources. For instance, whereas a default imputation of validity to a written statement may be performed automatically (Gilbert, 1991), deciding whether a persuasive message conflicts with one’s prior knowledge about the topic is a more cognitively demanding task (e.g., Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Independent of the eYciency of validation processes, we use the term comparative validation to refer to the joint, relative assessment of the validity of attitude-related information and prior attitudes. Two principles are proposed as driving the outcomes of comparative validation (see Fig. 2 and Table II), one concerning corroboration and the other defensive confidence. a. Corroboration Principle. Consider the situation in which people compare a prior attitude with attitude-related information of identical evaluative implications. In our model, the corroboration principle implies that the corroboration between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information should increase confidence in the validity of both elements (Treadwell & Nelson, 1996) and may increase the extremity of the prior attitude. This principle also implies that attitude-consistent but subjectively invalid information should not produce this confirmation or the resulting polarization. Corroboration principle of comparison. People increase the confidence and extremity of their subjectively-valid prior attitudes when the evaluative implications of subjectively valid attitude-related information corroborate their prior attitudes. Correspondingly, they maintain the confidence

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TABLE II Predictions about Attitude-Change Outcomes from Different Models

Model and validity of the prior attitude and the attitude-related information

Consistency of prior attitude and attitude-related information Evaluatively consistent

Evaluatively inconsistent

AA

AB

A

AA/BB

Activation/comparison model Both valid Only one valid Additive integration model Both valid Only one valid

AA

AB

A

A/B

Averaging integration model Both valid

A

AB

Only one valid

A

A/B

Both valid

A/AA

AB/BB/AA

Only one valid

A/AA

AB/BB/AA

Social judgment theory

A and B represent diVerent implications or categories (e.g., bad versus good). AA and BB represent attitudes of the same A and B evaluation with increased confidence, extremity, or both.

and extremity of their prior attitudes when the prior attitudes and the attitude-related information are both evaluatively consistent but only one is valid.

i. Increase in confidence and extremity of the activated prior attitude. People who receive information that supports their earlier attitude are likely to become more confident and extreme in their position, provided that they perceive the two elements as valid (Treadwell & Nelson, 1996). For example, one’s prior attitude toward a political candidate may agree with the attitude of one’s close friends. As a result of this attitude-confirming comparison, one may view one’s attitude as ‘‘twice as valid’’ and increase its extremity and confidence. Several studies support the polarization eVects of corroboration. For example, female participants who evaluate pictures of male models increase the confidence and extremity of their evaluations of the models when their ratings are corroborated by other raters (Baron, Hoppe, Kao, & Brunsman, 1996). Further, corroborating evidence appears to derive not only from

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external sources but also from internal ones that become active when people spontaneously think about an issue. Tesser (1978) argued that merely thinking about an issue results in attitude polarization because people normally produce ideas that are consistent with their prior attitudes. Moreover, people who are more knowledgeable about an issue appear to produce more thoughts in line with their attitudes than people who have little knowledge about the issue. Consistent with this possibility, Tesser and Leone (1977) found that when men and women reflected about football plays and women’s fashion, polarization was greater when men thought about football and women thought about fashion than in the other two conditions. Presumably, polarization occurs because people have knowledge that is consistent with their prior attitudes, and this knowledge serves to increase the subjective validity of the attitude. There is also considerable research on the factors that may prevent corroborating evidence from increasing the confidence and extremity of an earlier attitude. For instance, belief confidence increases when one receives information from a source that is dissimilar from (rather than similar to) oneself (Goethals & Nelson, 1973). Similarly, receiving new information about a person’s traits changes attitudes to a greater extent when the new traits do not imply traits that were considered beforehand (Kaplan, 1971; for a more precise treatment of novelty, see Wyer, 1970). However, individuals do not change their attitudes when the later information is redundant with the prior information. To this extent, information that is highly redundant with the bases for the prior attitude may not be compared with that attitude beyond establishing the redundancy. After all, engaging in comparative validation implies having distinct pieces of information to compare. Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003) provided important evidence that comparative processes are essential to induce polarization of prior attitudes. In Experiments 1 and 2 of their series, participants received a first persuasive message advocating comprehensive exams, followed by another that contained new arguments but also supported comprehensive exams. Attitudes were measured after the presentation of each message. In Experiment 1, activation and comparison were elicited by presenting the first message that served as a basis for the first attitude at the time of presenting the second message. In Experiment 2, the comparison manipulation entailed explicit instructions to compare the implications of the second message with participants’ attitudes based on the first message. The data from each experiment appear in Fig. 7. As the figure shows, attitudes polarized when participants were induced to compare the new message with their earlier attitude but showed greater stability when no comparison induction was in place. Attitude confidence followed the pattern of attitude extremity, suggesting that these two factors are similarly influenced by corroboration.

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Fig. 7. Attitude polarization as a function of comparison manipulation. Data calculated from Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003; Experiments 1 and 2). In Experiment 1, the Y axis represents change. Due to the use of diVerent attitude scales in Experiment 2, the Y axis represents Time 2 attitudes adjusted for Time 1 attitudes.

ii. Survival of prior attitude. The corroboration principle predicts no polarization when either (but not both) the prior attitude or the attituderelated information is valid and the implications of the information are consistent (see Fig. 2 and Table II). Students who consider their writing abilities strong may receive compliments on their writing from a fellow student who is particularly weak at writing. In this situation, students may discount their peer’s feedback as invalid and form an attitude that is no more (or less) confident than their activated prior attitude. Similarly, one may recall that one was once a Democrat without recalling the reasons for that aYliation. Unable to find arguments in support of this prior attitude, one may conclude that one’s earlier favorable attitude toward the Democratic party was invalid. Nevertheless, if one has recently learned that Democrats support beneficial social policies, one may use this attitude-related information as a basis for a current attitude that is identical to the prior one, even though one has discounted the prior attitude. Both of these examples suggest that in the course of analyzing the activated prior attitude along with other, attitude-confirming information, people may conclude that one of the two elements is invalid. Under these conditions, the category, confidence, and extremity of the current attitude and the initial attitude should be the same. b. Defensive Confidence Principle. The other validation principle applies to situations in which people compare a prior attitude and evaluatively inconsistent attitude-related information. In this case, people are likely to hold more confident and even extreme attitudes after counterarguing valid

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information of conflicting implications than before they consider any attitude-related information (Albarracı´n & Mitchell, in press; McGuire, 1964; McGuire & Papageorgis, 1961; Tormala & Petty, 2002). Our model’s defensive confidence principle asserts that when people consider the validity of two conflicting pieces of information, they establish the validity of each piece on the basis of perceived defensive success. Thus, people may more strongly endorse evaluations they have successfully defended from challenge than evaluations that did not undergo such defense. The associated polarization in either the prior attitude or the implications of the attitude-related information, however, should not occur when the prior attitudes and the attitude-related information are both subjectively valid. Instead, these situations should stimulate a compromise between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information. Defensive-confidence principle of comparison. People increase the confidence and extremity of a given evaluation (prior attitude or evaluative implication of attitude-related information) when they perceive that evaluation as valid but invalidate the other, incongruent evaluation. In contrast, comparing a prior attitude with inconsistent but valid attitude-related information results in a compromise between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information.

i. Polarization of confidence in and extremity of the activated prior attitude. People are likely to increase their confidence in their prior attitude when they consider the prior A attitude valid and the B attitude-related information invalid. That is, people who trust their prior attitude after (and despite) having confronted attitude-conflicting information may endorse their prior position more strongly than before exposure to that information. In this situation, the presence of the conflicting attitude-related information elicits a ‘‘boomerang’’ eVect, leading to greater confidence or extremity of A (i.e., attitude AA) after the invalidation of B than before consideration of B (see Albarracı´n, Cohen, & Kumkale, 2003; McGuire, 1964; Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Tormala & Petty, 2002). One example of this form of change comes from McGuire and Papageorgis’s (1961; McGuire, 1964) research on beliefs that are deeply held but weakly supported (i.e., ‘‘truism;’’ e.g., brushing one’s teeth frequently is beneficial). In this research, participants received a communication that contained arguments attacking a truism after having defended the truism from a mild attack or after receiving no such communication. Findings indicated that participants who received an attack after being immunized by the earlier although mild attack were better able to maintain their belief in the truism than people who were not previously inoculated. One interpretation of this finding is that realizing that one’s prior attitude has survived attack

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strengthens one’s confidence in that attitude (McGuire, 1964; Tormala & Petty, 2002).6 Recent research by Tormala and Petty (2002) is also relevant to the defensive-confidence principle. In one of their studies, participants in experimental conditions were asked to resist messages that were described as strong or weak. (Participants in control conditions received no information about the strength of the communication.) Findings indicated that participants had equally extreme attitudes regardless of the supposed strength of the message they resisted. However, participants were more certain about their attitudes after resisting an ostensibly strong message than after both resisting an ostensibly weak message and after resisting arguments of undetermined normative strength. Tormala and Petty concluded that people interpret their personal success in protecting their attitudes from a strong attack as evidence of the correctness of their attitude (thus increasing attitude certainty). ii. Increase in confidence in and extremity of the current attitude beyond the attitude-related information. When people compare their activated prior attitudes with conflicting, attitude-related information and judge the attitude-related information as the only valid element, their current attitudes will be in line with the attitude-related information. Moreover, individuals in these situations are likely to form more confident and extreme attitudes than their attitudes would have been if they had based them solely on the attituderelated information (see defensive confidence principle). This form of polarization is hypothesized to occur when people compare their prior attitude with attitude-related information and conclude that only the attitude-related 6

Our model assumes that people may polarize their prior attitudes either by receiving valid supporting information or by refuting inconsistent information. However, McGuire and Papageorgis (1961) demonstrated that receiving refutational defenses increases resistance to future persuasion to a greater extent than simply receiving information that supports one’s attitude, although receiving supportive arguments is better than receiving no arguments at all. In the context of our model, it may be that people engage in more comparison when the information they receive disagrees with their attitudes, and so polarization may in fact be more frequent when the attitude-related information is inconsistent with the prior attitude. However, given the same degree of comparison, our model predicts polarization regardless of the direction of the information. Unfortunately, McGuire’s (1964) research did not clarify the processes that induce resistance following the reception of attitude refutation. Most likely, as he argued, participants in his research became more confident in their defensive abilities when they gained practice refuting counterarguments, thus being able to counterargue more eVortfully the next time their attitudes come under attack. Alternatively, practice with refutation may increase the salience of potential criteria (e.g., formal principles) for the invalidity of a message. Once accessible, these criteria may well guide the estimation of (in) validity of any incoming message (for a treatment of the importance of accessible concepts, see Higgins, 1996; Srull & Wyer, 1979).

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information is valid. Presumably, people who invalidate their prior attitude in light of valid attitude-related information are likely to perceive that the information was strong enough to defeat the prior attitude, a conclusion that may strengthen the confidence and extremity of the current attitude. Consider the case of incoming freshmen who are prejudiced against African Americans but learn that the group to which they aspire to belong despises racism. In those situations, students may judge both pieces of information vis-a`-vis their current goal to be accepted by the ingroup. Consequently, they may judge the ingroup’s opinion to be valid and the prior attitude to be invalid. In comparing their assessments of each element, however, students may conclude that the ingroup opinion ought to be particularly sound to convince them despite their prior attitudes. As a result, they may endorse an egalitarian position that is more confident and extreme (BB) than the one produced by contact with the aspiration group in the absence of prior conflicting attitudes (for a related analysis, see Aronson & Mills, 1959). Recent evidence is also illustrative of this outcome. Rucker and Petty (2004) presented participants with a strong ad promoting a pharmaceutical product and instructed some of these participants either to list negative thoughts (for an introduction to the technique to induce biased thoughts, see Killeya & Johnson, 1998) or to simply list their thoughts about the message. Presumably, participants who listed only negative thoughts attempted to resist the communication to a greater extent than those who were free to list positive, negative, and neutral thoughts. Findings indicated that participants were persuaded regardless of what thoughts they listed, probably because the ad was diYcult to refute. However, participants who attempted to resist the message (and failed) were more confident in their favorable attitude toward the product than those who did not make an eVort to resist persuasion. Although the researchers examined attitude formation rather than change, these data suggest that failure to invalidate attitudeinconsistent information often reassures individuals of the validity of the information. To this extent, one may become more convinced of a counterattitudinal advocacy than one would be if one had no prior position on the topic being considered. iii. Compromise between prior attitude and attitude-related information. People who activate both a subjectively valid prior attitude and subjectively valid attitude-related information with conflicting implications are likely to develop a current attitude that falls somewhere between a position based solely on the activated prior attitude and one based solely on the attituderelated information (see Fig. 2). In these situations, people should present a current attitude that is less extreme than at least one of the two elements. (As we have previously explained, this reduction in extremity may or may not be accompanied by a change in evaluative implications or confidence.)

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Change from a prior attitude to a position that lies between the prior attitude and the implications of other information about the object is probably the most frequent and straightforward outcome of attempts to persuade an audience. Demonstrating the outcome, however, requires estimating the eVect of a given set of information when people have a prior attitude that conflicts with that information and comparing this eVect with the impact of the same information when people had no prior attitude on the topic. As an illustration, consider the influence of the persuasive arguments and the credibility of the source contained in communications used to test the sleeper eVect (for a meta-analysis, see Kumkale & Albarracı´n, 2004). A metaanalysis of the influence of each type of information was conducted for studies in which the audience possessed prior attitudes and for studies using novel, experimental issues. If communication recipients frequently reach a compromise between their prior attitudes and the implications of the information contained in the communication, the eVect of the arguments and the source should be weaker when participants have a (conflicting) prior attitude than when they do not. The eVect of the arguments was estimated by subtracting attitudes when participants did not receive a message from attitudes after participants received the message; the eVect of the source credibility was estimated by subtracting attitudes when the source lacked credibility from attitudes when the source was credible. As shown in Fig. 8, both of these eVects were stronger when participants had no prior attitudes on the topic, implying that (as few would doubt) participants with

Fig. 8. The influence of the message arguments and the credibility of the source in a metaanalysis on the sleeper eVect. Message eVects are mean weighted ds, calculated by subtracting attitudes in control conditions from attitudes immediately after the message was presented. Source eVects are mean weighted ds, calculated by subtracting attitudes immediately after the message when the source was not credible from the same measure when the source was credible. Data reanalyzed from Kumkale and Albarracı´n’s (2004) data.

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prior attitudes combined them with the new information and reached an intermediate position in that fashion. iv. Corollary of comparison influences on attitude change. Activating attitude-related information is likely to stimulate attitude change when people engage in comparative validation processes. As shown in Table II, of the four diVerent outcomes of comparison predicted by the activation / comparison model, one entails changes in the valence and/or extremity of prior attitudes (compromise, which may involve attenuation or polarization relative to the extremity of the prior attitude), one entails changes in the valence and extremity of prior attitudes (polarization beyond the sole implications of attitude-related information), and one involves modifications in extremity without changes in valence (polarization beyond the extremity prior attitudes). Thus, comparing activated attitude-related information with one’s prior attitudes leads to a hypothetical .75 probability of change based on the application of the corroboration and defensive confidence principles (assuming that each of these four outcomes is equally likely). Comparison only results in attitude survival when neither the corroboration nor the defensive confidence principles are applicable. That is, comparison leads to maintenance of prior attitudes when the attitude-related information is of the same valence as the prior attitude but its low subjective validity prevents it from corroborating a prior attitude, or when the prior attitude is currently judged invalid, thus failing to corroborate subjectively valid attitude-related information. General eVects of comparison (Postulate 3). Comparative processes will generally induce attitude change. Thus, ability (e.g., use of comparative formats for presenting the information) and motivation (e.g., use of comparison instructions) to compare are likely to result in attitude change.

Evidence about the eVects of attitude comparison comes from findings that the reception of comparable information across diVerent time points elicits attitude change in response to information that counters a prior attitude. Consistent with this possibility, Fabrigar and Petty (1999; Experiment 1) found that participants who initially formed an attitude toward a beverage on the basis of its taste (aVective attitude basis) were more likely to change this attitude when they later smelled the product (aVective persuasion) than when they later read information about the eVects of temperature on beverage taste (cognitive persuasion). Similarly, participants who initially read that the product yielded a desirable taste (cognitive attitude basis) changed their attitudes to a greater extent when they read about the eVects of temperature on taste than when they smelled the product. Figure 9 presents the mean postexperiment attitudes (which represent change in line

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Fig. 9. Influence of match of attitude and persuasion basis (match: both aVective or both cognitive; mismatch: one cognitive, the other aVective) on attitude change. Data calculated from Fabrigar and Petty (1999).

with the second message assuming similar attitudes at baseline) when the attitude basis and the persuasion strategy matched and mismatched. These results suggest that a criterion that can be applied to validate the prior attitude and the attitude-related information can increase ability to compare the two elements and consequently, attitude change. Consistent with the idea that information comparability increases attitude change, people appear to change their prior attitudes to a greater extent when they confront information that is at the same level of abstraction as the information that served as a basis for that judgment. Pham and Muthukrishnan (2002; Experiment 1) presented participants with an initial specific persuasive message and then with a second, general or specific countermessage that challenged the claims of the first one. The mean amount of change in line with the second message (attitudes at Time 2 subtracted from attitudes at Time 1) as a function of match versus mismatch in the two messages appears in Fig. 10. Their findings suggest that participants changed their attitudes to a greater extent when they received the specific challenge, which matched the initial ad, relative to when they received the general challenge, which did not match the first ad. The research by Pham and Muthukrishnan (2002) presents a case in which people compare their prior attitude with attitude-related information and realize that the same validation criterion applies to both elements (bottom-up comparison). Other times, however, people may have a standard of comparison in mind and search for information to which the standard applies (topdown comparison). Arguably, because activating the standard at the outset

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Fig. 10. Influence of match of initial and later persuasion (match: both specific; mismatch: initial was specific but later was abstract) on attitude change. Data calculated from Pham and Muthukrishnan (2002; Experiment 1).

increases the probability of activating prior attitudes and attitude-related information that are both associated with the standard (alignable; Markman & Medin, 1995), top-down comparison of conflicting elements should lead to greater attitude change than analyzing information in a bottom-up fashion. Thus, people who think about their prior attitudes in ways that induce comparative validation with attitude-related information should be more likely to change their prior attitudes than people who use noncomparative procedures. Evidence that top-down comparison can increase attitude change was provided by Muthukrishnan, Pham, and Mungale´’s (1999; see also Muthukrishnan, Pham, & Mungale´, 2001) research on the eVect of two ads presented sequentially. The first ad promoted a product from a target brand; the second ad either highlighted the superiority of a competitor brand relative to the target brand (comparative format) or simply presented arguments in support of the competitor brand (noncomparative format). The results from this experiment indicated that participants who received the second ad in the comparative format became more negative toward the target brand than those who received the counter ad in a noncomparative format. The researchers provided additional evidence that the comparative format induced greater processing of the second ad. They presented another group of participants with comparative and noncomparative ads that contained either five or two arguments against a target brand, after having presented a first ad promoting the target brand. Overall, participants’ attitudes toward the target became more negative when the

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comparative ad presented more arguments than when it did not. However, the number of arguments contained in the second ad did not influence attitudes toward the target brand when the second ad promoted the competitor brand using the noncomparative format. Essentially, comparative formats stimulated greater consideration of the available information (comparison) and consequently more attitude change than formats that prevented attitude comparison. An even more direct manipulation of comparative validation on attitude change in line with information that challenges prior attitudes was implemented by Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003). In their third experiment, participants received two persuasive arguments advocating the institution of comprehensive exams at the university and reported their attitudes for the first time. Following a filler task, participants received two new arguments that were antagonistic toward comprehensive exams. Some of the participants were instructed to compare the new arguments with their attitudes toward the issue formed on the basis of the first message (comparison induction); other participants did not receive this instruction (no comparison induction). The findings when participants’ initial attitudes were highly accessible confirmed our predictions (Fig. 11). That is, participants who received comparison instructions changed their prior attitudes, becoming more negative toward the policy than they were immediately after the first message. In contrast, participants who received no comparison instructions showed no significant attitude change. Furthermore, whereas attitude confidence and extremity covaried when attitude change followed corroboration, in Experiment 3 attitude confidence did not change as a function of the comparison manipulation.

Fig. 11. EVects of attitude reminder and comparison instructions on attitude change for participants with easy to access prior attitudes. Data calculated from Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003; Experiment 3).

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B. RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES ON ATTITUDE ACTIVATION AND COMPARATIVE MOTIVATION: EFFECTS ON ATTITUDE SURVIVAL AND CHANGE Other models have assumed that people maintain their prior attitudes when they activate these attitudes with relative ease (Fazio, 1989). Moreover, it has been assumed that people change their attitudes when the nature of the information facilitates comparison with a prior attitude (for an example of suggestive findings, see Pham & Muthukrishnan, 2002). Our model, however, establishes the boundary conditions for these predictions, highlighting situations under which attitude activation and comparison inducements each increase attitude change and survival. 1. When Attitude Activation Can Induce Attitude Change Like Fazio (1989; see also Fazio, Ledbetter, & Towles-Schwen, 2000), our model highlights that activating prior attitudes frequently perpetuates these attitudes. However, because attitude activation is a prerequisite for attitude comparison, the attitude activation should mostly facilitate attitude maintenance (i.e., no attenuation or polarization) when no comparison motivation exists. Clearly, attitude activation ought to increase survival when there is no other information with which the attitude could be compared. In addition, attitude activation should increase survival when there is other information in memory or in the environment but people are unlikely to spontaneously compare that information with the prior attitude. In contrast, when people are motivated to compare their prior attitudes with attituderelated information, increases in attitude activation will only accelerate comparison, thus increasing attitude change. EVects of prior attitude activation in the presence of comparative motivation (Postulate 4). Although prior attitude activation (e.g., accessibility) will increase survival in the absence of comparative motivation (Postulate 1), attitude activation may accelerate change in the presence of such motivation.

Two experiments by Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003) support the nonintuitive conclusion that greater prior attitude activation can facilitate comparison and, consequently, attitude change. The researchers first presented participants with a message advocating the institution of comprehensive exams. Participants then reported their attitude for the first time. After a delay, they received a second message that either supported (Experiment 2) or opposed the exams (Experiment 3). Before reading the message, half of the participants were instructed to compare their reactions to the second

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message, whereas the other half received no such instructions. Orthogonal to the comparison manipulation, half of the participants received a reminder of the attitudes they reported previously, whereas the other half did not. If prior attitude activation accelerates change in the presence of cues leading to comparative validation (comparison conditions) of those prior attitudes, then the reminder manipulation should increase change relative to lack of a reminder when participants’ prior attitudes are not initially easy to access (participants with low accessible prior attitudes). The data reported by Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003) are consistent with these predictions. Figure 12 shows the results of Experiment 2, in which easy and diYcult to access prior attitudes were inferred from self-reported need to evaluate. Figure 13 shows the results of Experiment 3, in which attitude accessibility was inferred from prior attitude latencies (Fig. 13). As shown in these figures, participants with accessible prior attitudes (i.e., those with high need to evaluate or low prior attitude response latencies) changed their prior attitudes when they received the comparison instructions regardless of whether they also received the attitude reminder. In contrast, when participants had relatively inaccessible attitudes, the attitude reminder facilitated attitude change when participants were also instructed to compare their

Fig. 12. EVects of level of need to evaluate, attitude reminder, and comparison instructions on attitude change. Data were calculated from Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003; Experiment 2).

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Fig. 13. EVects of spontaneous prior attitude accessibility, attitude reminder, and comparison instructions on attitude change. Data calculated from Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003; Experiment 3).

prior attitudes with the new message. In Experiment 2, the actual change observed consisted of prior attitude polarization because the old and new messages were consistent. In Experiment 3, attitudes change was negative because the implications of the new message conflicted with those of the old, pro-exam message. Like those of Fazio (1989), these findings show that highly accessible attitudes impede the online formation of new inconsistent attitudes. Nevertheless, when people are motivated to compare their prior attitudes with new information, the findings of Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003) confirm our prediction that having a highly accessible prior attitude can serve to promote attitude change. 2. When Comparative Motivation Can Induce Attitude Survival We have reviewed research showing that inductions to compare prior attitudes with other information (e.g., persuasive message) increase the probability of change when prior attitudes are accessible. However, in contrast to prior hypotheses that comparability increases attitude change (e.g., Fabrigar & Petty, 1999; Muthukrishnan, Pham, & Mungale´, 1999; see

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also Muthukrishnan, Pham, & Mungale´, 2001), the model in Fig. 1 also implies that attempts to engage in comparative validation will trigger a retrieval of the prior attitude to make the comparison possible. Therefore, it seems plausible that being motivated to compare a prior attitude with other information could initiate the process of recruiting a prior attitude, but the process could nevertheless stop at the point of the attitude retrieval. If such an interruption occurred, comparison would lead to attitude survival rather than change. EVects of comparative motivation in the absence of attitude activation (Postulate 5). Comparative motivation in the absence of attitude activation will facilitate attitude activation and stability but may be insuYcient to produce comparison and the corresponding attitude change.

As shown in Fig. 1, people need to activate an attitude to compare this attitude with other information. Suppose that people are induced to compare a new persuasive message with their prior attitude but had not previously retrieved that attitude. In this situation, the comparison motivation elicited by the experimental induction should promote the activation of the prior attitude, a process that necessarily precedes the process of attitude comparison. However, the comparison motivation may only be suYcient to inspire the first step of attitude activation, but not the second step of comparative validation. In this case, people should simply readopt the attitude they were encouraged to recall. In sum, if the two-stage process is interrupted after the attitude-activation stage but before the comparison stage, the comparison motivation will increase attitude survival rather than change. Because having to activate and compare one’s attitudes is presumably more eVortful and time consuming than simply activating a prior attitude, people may quit halfway unless their motivation and ability to compare are very strong. The evidence presented in Fig. 13 (Wallace & Albarracı´n, 2003) is consistent with the possibility that comparison inductions may sometimes provoke activation and survival of a prior attitude. Participants with relatively low prior attitude accessibility who did not receive an attitude reminder showed high negative attitude change when they did not receive a comparison inducement, suggesting that they formed attitudes online on the basis of the second message alone. However, when participants with hard to access prior attitudes received the comparison inducement, their subsequent attitudes were relatively similar to their initial attitudes, which suggests that the comparison inducement may have led to attitude activation but the sequence of information processing stopped short of the comparison stage needed for attitude change.

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If a given comparison inducement is suYcient to provoke the activation of the prior attitude but falls short of inducing actual comparison, an even stronger comparison inducement might achieve both. Relevant to this prediction are data on attitude change among participants who previously received information that a product was either positive or negative (Muthukrishnan, 2003). After reporting their attitude for the first time, participants received an ad that challenged the consumer information they received previously. The ad was presented in either a comparative or a noncomparative format and contained information that concerned either the same or diVerent dimensions as the first information set. Thus, these four combinations of format and dimension alignability provide three levels of comparison induction, namely (1) high (both comparative format and same dimensions), (2) moderate (either comparative format or same dimensions), and (3) low (neither comparative format or same dimensions). One would expect that if prior attitudes are diYcult to access, the moderate comparison induction might be suYcient to instill attitude activation but not comparison, leading to maintenance of the recalled attitude. In contrast, the highest comparison induction might successfully promote attitude comparison as well as activation when initial attitudes are diYcult to recall. To examine Muthukrishnan (2003) data in light of our predictions, one must rely on their finding that negative initial attitudes were more diYcult to access than positive initial attitudes. Given this diVerence in attitude accessibility, the moderate level of comparison induction may only increase activation and maintenance of initially negative attitudes, but elicit comparison and change of positive (and spontaneously active) prior attitudes. However, a stronger inducement may be successful at producing comparison and therefore change regardless of the accessibility of prior attitudes. As can be seen from Fig. 14, these predictions received support. On the one hand, when prior attitudes were easier to access, participants were able to recall and maintain them more when the comparison induction was low than when it was moderate or high. Moreover, participants with easier to access prior attitudes changed these attitudes more when the comparison inducement was either moderate or high, presumably because having an attitude ‘‘close to the surface’’ increased their likelihood of comparing these attitudes with the new information when motivated to do so. On the other hand, participants with diYcult to access attitudes changed their attitudes the most when the comparison induction was either low or high. When the induction was weak, participants were probably forced to form an attitude online, managing to do so on the basis of information that contradicted their prior attitudes. When the induction was moderate, participants were more likely to recall a prior attitude, but the induction was not always strong enough to promote comparison. As expected, however, the strongest induction

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Fig. 14. EVects of diVerent levels of comparison inductions as a function of the spontaneous accessibility of the prior attitude. Data calculated from Muthukrishnan (2003). Panels A and B include participants with positive and negative initial attitudes, respectively.

succeeded at inducing both activation and comparison and therefore elicited greater attitude change than the moderate comparison induction. 3. Summary DiVerent studies address the possibility that people maintain their prior attitudes when they activate these attitudes (Postulate 1). For instance, Fazio, Powell, and Williams (1989) demonstrated that accessible attitudes are more predictive of future behavior than attitudes that people recall with less ease. Our model complements these prior findings in suggesting that accessibility can facilitate change when the right conditions are met. Specifically, attitudes that people access spontaneously or as a result of an external reminder increase the probability of change in response to comparison inductions, presumably because the accessibility of the prior attitude accelerates comparative processes (Postulate 4). In contrast, the presence of comparative cues when prior attitudes are not easily accessible facilitates attitude activation and therefore maintenance but can be insuYcient to

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achieve comparison and therefore change (Postulate 5). In achieving this understanding, our model provides new insights concerning the use of comparative persuasion formats, which previously were assumed to always increase attitude change (Muthukrishnan, Pham, & Mungale´, 1999, 2001; Pham & Muthukrishnan, 2002).

C. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INFLUENCE OF GENERAL ABILITY AND MOTIVATION ON ATTITUDE CHANGE AND MAINTENANCE Two conceptualizations of attitudes have addressed the influence of processing ability and motivation to think about an issue on attitude change. McGuire (1968) and Wyer (1974) proposed that a (counterattitudinal) communication has an impact when recipients of a persuasive message receive but do not counterargue the message. Consequently, situational or personal variables (e.g., intelligence, concentration) that simultaneously increase reception and counterarguing should elicit most message impact when they are moderate than when they are either high or low. Another model that has dealt with the impact of processing ability and motivation is the elaboration likelihood model. Incorporating Craik and Lockhart’s (1973) views on memory, Petty and Cacioppo (1986) assumed that attitudes formed on the basis of a thorough analysis of information are easier to recall than attitudes based on the use of simple cues to persuasion. Arguably then, attitudes that are more accessible in memory should last longer than less accessible attitudes (Fazio, 1989). Furthermore, because careful analysis of information is only possible when individuals are highly motivated and able to think about the information, Petty and Cacioppo predicted that increases in general ability and motivation should stimulate attitude maintenance. One diVerence between our model and the models of McGuire (1968) and Petty and Cacioppo (1986) is our consideration of both attitude comparison and activation. McGuire’s (1964) model implicitly assumes that prior attitudes are readily available for counterarguing the communication, a premise that is not always true. Similarly, Petty and Cacioppo (1986) presumed that easily accessible attitudes produce attitude stability without taking into account the influence of attitude accessibility on comparison processes and the associated attitude change. However, when both attitude activation and comparison are considered, the predictions about the role of general ability and motivation diVer from the earlier conceptualizations. We describe these predictions below, in relation to the processing of information that either supports or contradicts prior attitudes.

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1. Evidence About the Effects of General Processing Ability and Motivation on Change in Response to Attitude-Inconsistent Information The evidence reviewed in the previous section has important implications for predictions of attitude survival and change when the attitude-related information contradicts prior attitudes. One such critical situation occurs when an external persuasive message attacks a previously held attitude, which has been examined under the general level of attitude resistance (see Zanna, 1993). Our model suggests that in this case, attitude survival should be most likely when ability and motivation to think about the issue are suYciently high to induce attitude activation but insuYciently high to induce attitude comparison. We propose that people are most likely to maintain their attitudes when they have moderate ability and motivation to think about the issues at hand, but they are most likely to change their attitudes when they have either low or high ability or motivation to think about a topic. EVects of general ability and motivation in the presence of attitude-inconsistent information (Postulate 6). When attitude-relevant information conflicts with a prior attitude, high and low levels of ability and motivation to think about the issue should induce more change than moderate levels of general ability and motivation.

Important evidence in support of Postulate 6 comes from Gilbert and Hixon’s (1991) research on stereotypical judgments. According to these researchers, individuals require ability to both activate a stereotype and to not apply it in a given situation. If this prediction is plausible, distracting people from activating a stereotype in relation to a person and distracting people from applying the stereotype for judgment should both decrease the probability that individuals will generate stereotypic responses. To make their case, Gilbert and Hixon (1991; Experiment 2) presented participants with a videotape in which the experimenter flashed cards with words for participants to complete. The experimenter was Asian- or EuropeanAmerican, and some of the words could be completed in ways consistent or inconsistent with the Asian-American stereotype (e.g., S_Y ¼ SHY or SPY). Some participants were instructed to recall digits while they saw the videotape of the experimenter flashing cards (busy during activation phase), whereas others were not (not busy during activation phase). In addition, after viewing the video, participants heard an audio recording ostensibly containing the experimenter’s description of daily life events she experienced and were instructed to form an impression of the experimenter. Half of the participants used a hand clicker to count the number of times the letter T

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Fig. 15. Influence of early and late cognitive busyness on stereotyping. Data from Gilbert and Hixon (1991; Experiment 2).

appeared on the screen during the presentation of the audio recording (busy during application phase); the other half of the participants did not perform this visual task and simply looked at a black computer screen (not busy during application phase). The results from Gilbert and Hixon’s (1991) Experiment 2 appear in Fig. 15, which presents degree of stereotypic judgments for each experimental condition. (Degree of stereotyping was calculated by subtracting perceptions that the experimenter had stereotypic Asian traits when the experimenter was Caucasian from perceptions that the experimenter had stereotypic Asian traits when the experimenter was Asian.) As shown, only participants who could concentrate at the time of activating the stereotype but were busy at the time of applying the stereotype used the Asian stereotype as a basis for their impression of the experimenter. In contrast, participants who were distracted at the time of stereotype activation did not stereotype the experimenter, presumably because the distraction manipulation prevented them from initially activating the stereotype. Participants who were not distracted at any time did not stereotype the experimenter either, presumably because they activated the stereotype but were careful to use individualized information. Although this research did not measure judgment change, it implies that over multiple judgment occasions, people should be most likely to rely on a past stereotype when they are suYciently able to activate the stereotype but unable to compare it with other information, such as target-individuating material or goals to make egalitarian social judgments. Research on persuasion also provides support for the nonmonotonic prediction of change in response to attitude-inconsistent information.

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Albarracı´n (2002) provided participants with either a persuasive message or behavior feedback. Some participants received a strong persuasive message that advocated the institution of comprehensive exams at the university. A diVerent group of participants received feedback that outside of awareness, they had supported the institution of comprehensive exams at the university. All participants reported their attitudes immediately after receiving the information (immediate follow-up) and then a week later (delayed follow-up), thus allowing for an estimation of change over time. They also reported the degree to which the comprehensive exams were relevant to them personally, a measure used as an indicant of motivation to think about comprehensive exams. In addition, some participants were asked questions that contradicted the messages, allowing for analysis of change when attitude-inconsistent information is available. It is first important to examine whether the relevance of the information influenced the initial scrutiny of the information as reflected in attitudes measured immediately after receiving the information. Findings indicated that immediately after receiving the message, participants were more favorable toward the policy when they received information in support of the policy than when they received information attacking the policy (MdiV ¼ 2.06). Moreover, consistent with Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) predictions, the diVerence in the impact of the information direction was significantly greater when the topic was more rather than less relevant to participants (MdiV ¼ 0.73, 2.91, and 3.99 for low, moderate, and high relevance, respectively). That is, participants were more likely to form initial attitudes on the basis of the information they received when the issue was more relevant (higher motivation) rather than less relevant (lower motivation). In other words, the relation between relevance and attitude formation was linear. In contrast to models that are interested in the role of ability and motivation at the time people first receive a persuasive communication, our model has implications for the role of these factors at later points of time.7 Specifically, Postulate 6 suggests that after individuals form and store an initial attitude, they are more likely to maintain this attitude when they are moderately able or motivated to think about the issue than when their ability and motivation are very high or very low. This hypothesis implies that change (not first-time formation) in participants’ attitudes from the immediate to 7 Clearly, the level of ability and motivation at the time of first forming an attitude toward an object may not be the same as the level of ability and motivation at the time of reevaluating the object. Thus, temporary distractions at the time of forming an attitude may not be present later, when one reconsiders the object. However, the chronic personal relevance of an issue or the need for cognition of an individual (see Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) may be relatively stable over time, and so research on the influence of these factors on initial attitude formation can illuminate processes that occur at the time of reevaluating the object.

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TABLE III Attitude Change in Response to Attitude Consistent and Inconsistent Attitude as a Function of Motivation and Ability Motivation or ability level Measure Attitude inconsistent Attitude consistent

Low 0.92a,* a

0.75

Moderate

High

0.43b

2.03a,*

a

1.15b,*

0.21

The evidence on attitude-consistent information comes from a study by Albarracin (2002). The evidence on attitude-inconsistent information comes from a study by Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003). Motivation and ability were trichotomized to achieve approximately equal number of participants in each level. DiVerent alphabet letter superscripts indicate statistically significant diVerences across change scores within each study. *Change significantly different from a zero standard.

the delayed follow-up should be greater when the issue is low or high in relevance (high vs. low motivation) than when the issue is moderately relevant (moderate motivation). The first row of Table III presents change scores from participants’ attitudes at the immediate and delayed follow-ups as a function of reported motivation to think about the issue. As shown, a nonmonotonic relation existed between motivation to think about the topic and the change in participants’ attitudes toward that topic. That is, participants were more likely to maintain their initial postmessage attitudes when they were moderately motivated to think about comprehensive exams than when their motivation was either high or low (Postulate 6). 2. Effects of Processing Ability and Motivation on Change in Response to Attitude-Consistent Information Consider what happens when attitude-relevant information corroborates a prior attitude. When this occurs, lower levels of ability and motivation to think about an issue should induce an online construction of an attitude that is similar to the prior attitude. Moderate levels of processing ability and motivation should also facilitate attitude maintenance because these moderate levels are likely to induce the activation and use of the prior attitude without inducing comparative validation. The eVects of low and moderate ability and motivation to think about an issue, however, should diVer from the eVects associated with high levels of these variables. Presumably, high general ability and motivation should increase comparison-based attitude

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polarization when the attitude-relevant information corroborates the prior attitude. EVects of ability and motivation in the presence of attitude-consistent information (Postulate 7). When attitude-relevant information corroborates a prior attitude, high ability and motivation to think about the issue should induce more change than both moderate and low levels of general ability and motivation.

We examined the viability of the predicted step-shaped eVect of motivation to think about an issue when new consistent information is contained in a persuasive communication. For this purpose, we reanalyzed Wallace and Albarracı´n’s (2003) control conditions of Experiment 1 using the level of the topic personal relevance and the reported processing eVort as a predictor. The analysis involved averaging participants’ reports that the message was personally relevant and that they thought about it (processing ability and motivation), and calculating diVerence scores to represent change from the pretest to the posttest. As shown in the second row of Table III, attitudes were more stable when participants had low and moderate processing ability and motivation, but changed in line with the second message (polarization of initially positive attitudes) in conditions of high processing ability and motivation.8 3. Summary Postulate 6 states that when other things are equal, attitude change should be greatest when people have information that questions their prior attitudes and possess either low or high ability and motivation to think about an issue. Correspondingly, attitude change in these situations should be smallest when individuals have moderate ability and motivation to think about the issue. Research by Gilbert and Hixon (1991; but see Devine, 1989) is consistent with this possibility. Their work specifically suggests that people are most likely to perpetuate stereotypes when distraction prevents them from ignoring (not applying) the stereotype but does not prevent them from initially activating the stereotype. In contrast, people use information other than stereotypes from memory when distraction disrupts both stereotype activation and application and when distraction disrupts neither process. Similar conclusions can be drawn from data reported by Albarracı´n (2002), which showed that reported processing motivation has a nonmonotonic influence 8

These analyses could not be conducted in Experiment 2 of the series because the pretests and posttests were on diVerent scales, nor could they then be conducted in Experiment 3 due to the low number of subjects in the condition without attitude reminder and comparison instructions.

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on attitude change over time when attitude-inconsistent information is available. In this research, recipients of information were more likely to maintain the attitudes they formed initially when the issue was moderately relevant to them than when it was either highly relevant or highly irrelevant. Presumably, recipients of moderately relevant information activated their attitudes but did not compare them with other, attitude-inconsistent information. In contrast, recipients of irrelevant material formed attitudes online (they neither activated nor compared their initial attitudes with attitude related information), and recipients of highly relevant information activated their attitudes but changed them as a result of comparison processes. Finally, the predictions from our model are supported by data from Wallace and Albarracı´n’s (2003) research. The control data from the first experiment of that series showed that when people possess attitudeconfirming information, low and moderate processing ability and motivation result in attitude maintenance. That is, people can reconstruct the prior attitude on the basis of the new consistent information or simply retrieve and use their past judgment. Change, however, appears to occur when people have high ability and motivation to consider the issue. In these situations, comparing a prior positive attitude with equally valid but new positive attitude increases corroboration and polarization beyond the extremity of the prior attitude.

IV. Conclusion The proposed model is the first to generate predictions concerning how the activation of prior attitudes, the activation of attitude-related information, and the comparison of the attitude with the other information jointly determine the change and maintenance of prior attitudes, and how conditions that influence these processes jointly determine attitude survival. In providing this understanding, the model has benefited from a large amount of past and contemporary work on attitude change. For instance, the favorable eVects of attitude accessibility on attitude maintenance were proposed and verified by Fazio (1989). Moreover, Schwarz and Bohner (2001), Wilson and Hodges (1992), and Wyer and Srull (1989) called attention to how online constructions can lead to attitude stability, a phenomenon that our model also considers. Despite the important contributions of these researchers, none of them specified how activating a prior attitude can lead to change or how motivation to compare a prior attitude with other information can lead to attitude stability. Nor can prior models predict the

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diVerent forms of attitude change we propose, or the hypothesized shape of the function when one attempts to predict attitude change from indicants of ability and motivation to think about an issue. Because the activation of alternative information can result from retrieval of material from memory and reception of external information, our model’s predictions apply equally to persistence of judgments in light of internal information and survival of these judgments in light of external pressures (i.e., persistence and resistance, see Petty & Krosnick, 1995). This aspect of our model is important because as Zanna (1993) nicely characterized it, most research on persuasion represents attempts to convince message recipients of rather trivial issues as opposed to producing change, with respect to hard to change attitudes, about real issues. As our model suggests, a prior attitude about an issue can dramatically alter the impact of a persuasive message depending on whether or not recipients can recall that attitude and whether that activation promotes attitude change or resistance to persuasion.

A. INTEGRATION OF MEMORY-BASED AND CONSTRUAL PROCESSES According to Schwarz and Bohner (2001), individuals generally form attitudes online solely on the basis of information that is available at the time, without retrieving an attitude from permanent memory. For example, individuals may use the aVective reactions they momentarily experience to determine their responses to objects they encounter without bothering to recall a prior attitude about these objects (Schwarz & Clore, 1983), or they may consider the anchors of a scale in a survey to establish the prior frequency of a given behavior they have performed instead of recalling their past behavior (Schwarz, 1994). Like Schwarz and Bohner’s formulation, our model implies that online information is critical and often leads to attitude survival over time. Unlike Schwarz and Bohner’s (2001) views, however, our conceptualization allows for predictions of the conditions in which people form attitudes on the basis of both online and memory-based information. For instance, our conceptualization predicts that people will construct and reconstruct their attitudes online when their ability or motivation to think about the information is either very low or very high. In contrast, people may retrieve and use a prior attitude when they have moderate ability and motivation to recall their prior attitude but not enough to compare that attitude with attitude-related information. Explicating the conditions for online attitude formation and for retrieval of a prior attitude appears fundamental for understanding attitude change.

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Furthermore, our model makes predictions that may permit researchers to distinguish memory-based and online attitudes in some conditions. All things equal, when people form a new attitude based on online information, they are likely to have a current attitude that is as confident and extreme as a prior attitude they simply retrieve (Postulate 2). However, when people form a new attitude based on online information and on a prior attitude (comparison process), they may develop an attitude that is less or more confident and extreme than if they had only retrieved their prior attitude or if their attitude was formed entirely online (i.e., Principles 1 and 2; see Table II). For example, individuals may conclude that their prior belief in the benefits of tax paying is even stronger when they learn new, subjectively valid information indicating that taxes fund desirable social programs (corroboration principle). They may also find taxes more desirable if they maintain their point of view despite new evidence of government mismanagement of tax dollars (defensive-confidence principle). In contrast to these outcomes, people who manifest identical attitudes at diVerent time points may be construing attitudes online on the basis of chronically accessible information, as Schwarz and Bohner (2001) proposed. These competing predictions about the extremity and confidence of partly online/ partly memory-based attitudes versus purely memory-based or online attitudes may help to resolve the memory-based versus construal debate in the future. Finally, whether or not using a prior attitudinal response implies construction is probably a matter of semantics (Wyer & Albarracı´n, in press). All goal-directed judgments imply the selection of an informational basis as well as a response generation: In this sense, all judgments are ‘‘reconstructions.’’ However, the key problem appears to be whether individuals ever use prior relevant judgments from memory, or whether they ignore those judgments and instead construct new ones on the basis of more specific information about the object that is available at the time. Our research in no way implies that people do not use their prior attitude to construct the new attitudinal response. Nevertheless, it identifies the conditions in which the use of a prior attitude versus other information is more likely.

B. DIFFERENCES FROM POSSIBLE PREDICTIONS ABOUT FORMS OF CHANGE IN OTHER MODELS OF ATTITUDE CHANGE To summarize, two principles may underlie comparative processes, producing outcomes that no other prior model can simultaneously predict. A relative consideration of these predictions is possible from Table II,

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organized according to hypotheses derived from the activation/comparison model, the additive and averaging models of information-integration theory, and social judgment theory. According to Anderson’s information-integration theory, if a person receives n items of information, the response (R) to the set of items (s, i . . . n) is given by: R ¼ w0 s0 þ w1 s1 þ w2 s2 þ . . . þ wn sn

ð1Þ

where wi are the weights and si are the scale values of each item. Because Anderson (1959, 1974) has argued that averaging rather than adding best represents the way in which people combine information, the sum of the weights is typically set to 1. However, Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) have argued that an additive model is more plausible. The main source of controversy between the additive and averaging models is their ability to account for the set size eVect. Whereas additive models naturally account for increases in extremity as new elements of the same value are incorporated, the averaging model needs to assume an initial moderate attitude to account for the set-size eVect (Anderson, 1981). Regardless of whether Anderson’s (1974) model involves additive or averaging combination rules, his model diVers from our formulation in that Anderson’s functional measurement assumes constant weights (c, i . . . n) regardless of the values being combined. This linear assumption is not the case in our model, which suggests that the implications and validity of the individual pieces of information mutually drive the validation of each element (corroboration and defensive-confidence principles). Both versions of information-integration theory thus make predictions that present diVerences from our model. As shown in the table, the additive model can predict polarization through corroboration, compromise between the prior attitude and the attitude-related information, and survival. However, the additive model does not predict the necessary update in weights that would predict polarization beyond the extremity of the attitude-related information via the defensive-confidence principle. Similarly, the averaging model eVectively accommodates attitude compromise and survival, but it cannot account for any case of polarization beyond the extremity of either the prior attitude or the attitude-related information. Social judgment theory undoubtedly comes to mind when one thinks of comparative processes, because it was proposed to understand attitude change as opposed to mere formation. However, Sherif and Hovland (1961) only took into account perceptions of the evaluative direction of information, under the premise that people map their prior attitudes onto the perceived extremity of the attitude-related information (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; but see Eiser, 1973; Eiser & Mower White, 1974; for an

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excellent review, see Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). When the position of the communication is close to the recipients’ attitude, people ‘‘assimilate’’ their own attitude to the advocacy and thus become closer to the position advocated in the communication. In contrast, when the communication is subjectively distant from their attitudes, a ‘‘contrast’’ eVect or perception exists that one’s attitude is more discrepant from the communication than it actually is. Because social judgment theory does not specify the role of the perceived validity of either one’s prior attitude or of attitude-relevant information, the predictions for evaluatively consistent and inconsistent cases should be the same regardless of whether both elements are valid. Generally, more assimilation, leading to greater survival, should be observed when the information is evaluatively consistent with and similarly extreme to the prior attitude. Similarly, attenuation or polarization could be observed when the attitude-related information and the prior attitude are perceived as consistent yet the attituderelated information is perceived as less or more extreme than the prior attitude. In contrast, when the attitude-related information is evaluatively inconsistent with the prior attitude, boomerang or compromise types of eVects emerge depending on the perceived distance between the two positions. In the context of our model, these perceptual eVects undoubtedly could occur over and above the comparative validation outcomes we propose. However, it is also clear that the predictions of the activation/comparison model are unique with respect to the comparative outcomes it postulates.9

C. RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF ATTITUDE ACTIVATION AND COMPARISON Our model incorporates Fazio’s (1989) hypothesis that highly accessible attitudes are activated by the mere presence of the attitude object.10 The more times people evaluate an object, the faster they can make decisions 9 Models based on Bayes’ theorem are also relevant to the analysis of the way in which people validate information. According to these models and our model, judgments are updated in a relatively fluid fashion as people encounter new information that is relevant to those judgments. However, applications of prior probabilistic models are silent to the processes that might elicit attitude change under diVerent conditions, or the mechanisms that elicit attitude activation and comparison. 10 Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, and Pratto (1993; see also Bargh, Chaiken, Raymond, & Hymes, 1996; Chen & Bargh, 1999) stated that any attitude, regardless of its strength and accessibility, is automatically activated in the presence of the attitude object. However, it is presently unclear whether the data that led to this conclusion reflected attitude activation or the mere activation of a good–bad concept (see Wyer, 2003).

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about the favorableness of the object, and the more automatic the decision becomes. Therefore, highly accessible prior attitudes should guide final attitudes by reducing the need to consider alternative information (see Fazio, Ledbetter, & Towles-Schwen, 2000). However, our model further specifies the applicability of this hypothesis by pointing to situations in which highly accessible attitudes facilitate change. The facilitating eVects of attitude accessibility on attitude change emerge from considering that in order to compare a prior attitude with attituderelated information, an individual should first retrieve that prior attitude from memory. As a result, when activating the prior attitude is easy (prior attitudes are highly accessible), people should reach the comparative validation stage more rapidly than they do when they struggle to recall their prior attitudes (see Figs. 12 and 13). Consistent with this prediction, participants who could spontaneously activate their prior attitudes changed their prior attitudes when they received comparison instructions regardless of whether they also received an attitude reminder. However, when prior attitude accessibility was low and participants received comparison instructions, the attitude reminder increased attitude change, whereas its absence resulted in attitude maintenance. Important evidence about the role of attitude comparison in attitude change comes from findings that the reception of comparable information across diVerent time points elicits attitude change (Muthukrishnan, Pham, & Mungale´, 1999, 2001; Pham & Muthukrishnan, 2002). What makes our proposal unique, however, is that in addition to predicting eVects of comparison on attitude change, it highlights the need to consider both activation and comparison to understand attitude change. To this extent, it is incorrect to assume that only comparison triggers change, when, in fact, no comparison without activation can also trigger change. Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003; Experiment 3) documented that when people do not activate their prior attitudes, they are likely to use whatever information is available at the time. Consequently, they change as much if not more than individuals who both activate and compare their prior attitudes if the available information is not consistent with their prior attitude. Our model also specifies situations in which comparative motivation can facilitate the activation and maintenance of prior attitudes without triggering comparison. When prior attitudes are not easy to recall, having the goal of comparing the prior attitude with the new information will first elicit the recall of the prior attitude. In the process, however, people may decide to simply use that prior attitude and give up on their attempts to compare it with other information. As shown in Fig. 13, when prior attitudes are low in accessibility, either the comparison instructions or the attitude reminder produces attitude survival. Apparently, very strong comparison

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inducements are necessary to successfully induce attitude comparison and change when prior attitudes are diYcult to recall (see Fig. 14).

D. THE INFLUENCES OF PROCESSING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION Various models of persuasion have noted that the extent to which individuals process information in an elaborative fashion has important implications for the outcomes of persuasion. Several decades ago, Petty and Cacioppo (1986) and Chaiken (1980) proposed that people who have suYcient ability or motivation to elaboratively think about a communication are much more discriminating of argument quality and become persuaded only when they receive strong arguments. In contrast, people who lack ability or motivation often use peripheral cues as a basis for their attitudes or are more influenced by heuristics if these heuristics are accessible at the time (Chaiken, 1980). These findings have relevance for our model, both with respect to the definition of elaborative processes and with respect to the role of processing ability and motivation to think about an issue in attitude change.

1. General Definitions of Elaboration and Precise Determination of Cognitive Processes Despite the valuable contributions of prior models of persuasion, more recent considerations of processing in persuasion have highlighted that a more detailed understanding of what takes places might be necessary (Albarracı´n, 2002). For instance, Albarracı´n and Wyer (2001) demonstrated that when people can concentrate at the time they receive a persuasive message, they first form beliefs about the arguments and later base their attitudes on those beliefs. When people are distracted, however, they form attitudes on the basis of irrelevant aVective reactions they experience at the time and later rationalize those attitudes by reporting beliefs that are consistent with those attitudes. Further, Albarracı´n and Kumkale (2003) demonstrated that a global consideration of elaboration is insuYcient to uncover the eVects of aVect as information in persuasion. They proposed that using aVect as information entails identifying the source of aVect and then deciding whether that aVect is relevant to the judgment to be made. Consequently, when people experience irrelevant aVect at the time they receive a message, moderate increases in ability and motivation to think about their aVect increase the use of aVect as information because they allow individuals to pay attention to their aVective reactions (identification

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stage) but prevent them from realizing that the aVect is irrelevant (discounting stage). However, increases in ability and motivation beyond that point reduce the influence of aVect altogether because they disrupt aVect identification as well as discounting. These findings suggest that elaboration is a useful broad label for a variety of cognitive activities, but that understanding these activities is indispensable to accurately predict persuasion outcomes. The present model has similar implications for the study of the eVects of elaboration on attitude change and maintenance. Activation and comparison are both forms of elaboration, just as is the case with aVect identification and discounting. However, these distinct forms of elaboration predict very diVerent outcomes. As shown in Fig. 13, activation with comparison, as well as lack of activation and comparison, can induce more attitude change than activation alone, an eVect that mere depth of processing cannot explain. Moreover, elaboration should induce greater attitude change to the extent that it induces comparison, but should induce greater stability when the elaboration consists of activating a prior attitude. Consequently, the consideration of the specific processes involved in elaborative processing, as well as ability and motivation to perform each specific process, should provide greater predictive power than merely accounting for elaboration. Consider also the possibility that attitude activation and comparison can be orthogonal to general ability and motivation, which are often used as indexes of elaboration. One may be able to induce activation and comparison even under conditions of relatively low ability and motivation. In such situations, comparative processing might be relatively peripheral and have an eVect only when easier to process information is alignable. For instance, one may introduce a highly credible source the first time and a noncredible communicator the second time. Just as was the case with the presentation of persuasive arguments, comparison instructions along with either high prior attitude accessibility or an attitude reminder should induce change after the second message. The only diVerence would be that change in this case might be initiated by the comparative application of a heuristic such as ‘‘experts know better’’ (Chaiken, 1980). 2. Hypothetical Roles of Ability and Motivation to Think About an Issue The activation/comparison model also specifies the levels of general processing ability and motivation under which people are most likely to transform or maintain their prior attitudes. When disconfirming information is activated, people with moderate ability and motivation to think about the issue should be more likely to maintain their prior attitudes than people with either high or low ability and motivation. When attitude-confirming

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information is activated, however, people with low and moderate ability to think about the issue should both maintain prior attitudes because they reconstruct their attitudes online or use the prior judgment. In contrast, people with high processing ability and motivation should change their prior attitudes to a greater extent. In brief, our model predicts an inverted-U function for attitude-inconsistent information and a step function for attitude-consistent material. These predictions, which are supported by the findings presented in Table III, slightly diVer from those made by Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) elaboration likelihood model. According to their model, a persuasive communication can stimulate recipients to generate issue-relevant thoughts and to change attitudes in line with these thoughts (central processing). However, when people do not have the ability and motivation to think about the issues discussed in the message, they may still use cues (e.g., number of arguments, their past behavior, or the aVect they experience at the time) that can help them to make a decision without having to think about the issues at hand with any depth (peripheral processing; see Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Petty and Cacioppo further hypothesized that centrally processed attitudes are likely to be more lasting and resistant to change than peripherally formed ones (see also Craik & Lockhart, 1972; for reviews, see Brown & Craik, 2000; Petty, Haugtvedt, & Smith, 1995). For instance, people who are high in need for cognition or care about the issues discussed in a communication should maintain their message-based attitudes more than people who have low chronic ability and motivation to think about an issue. Consistent with the predictions of the elaboration likelihood model with respect to attitude maintenance, Petty, Haugtvedt, Heesacker, and Cacioppo (1995) found that the initial impact of the strength of the arguments contained in a persuasive communication persisted more when participants received a highly relevant message than when they received an irrelevant communication. These findings may, at first sight, appear inconsistent with our predictions and findings. However, nonlinear eVects can go undetected unless one carefully examines the pattern of observations or has specific predictions of nonlinear eVects. Therefore, it is possible that a combination of low and moderate levels of personal relevance (rather than low levels) could have driven the decreased persistence observed by Petty et al. (1995) in that study. Future research should elucidate these ambiguities. Our predictions also diVer from a model proposed by McGuire (1960) and later formalized by Wyer (1974). According to McGuire (1968), the probability that a communication will influence its recipients is a multiplicative function of (1) the likelihood of receiving and comprehending the

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message and (2) the cognitive elaboration that follows reception and comprehension. If the communication is counterattitudinal, this elaboration should predominantly involve counterarguing, which allows the model to be stated as: PðI Þ ¼ PðRÞ½1

PðCAÞ

ð2Þ

where P(I ) is the probability that the communication has an influence, P(R) is the probability of the message being received and comprehended, and P(CA ) is the probability of the recipients eVectively counterarguing the communication (Wyer, 1974). Because reception and counterargument exert antagonistic eVects on the influence of the message, situational and individual diVerences that promote both reception and counterarguing (e.g., intelligence) should foster greater persuasion when they are moderate than when they are either high or low. Like our model, the model shared by McGuire (1968) and Wyer (1974) implies that processing ability and motivation have nonmonotonic eVects on attitude stability. The diVerence is that whereas their model suggests a U-shaped eVect, our model predicts an inverted-U eVect. The discrepancy between the two models stems from diVerences in focus. Whereas McGuire and Wyer’s predictions imply that prior attitudes and knowledge are available for counterargument, our model focuses on diVerences in the accessibility and activation of these prior attitudes. Thus, McGuire and Wyer’s predictions should be viable when prior attitudes are in fact highly accessible, and diVerences in processing ability and motivation can only alter attention to the communication and counterarguing. However, an inverted U should better represent the pattern of attitude change when prior attitudes vary in accessibility, allowing variations in ability and motivation to modify attitude activation.

E. IMPLICATIONS FOR RELATED TOPICS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 1. Generalizability to Nonevaluative Judgments Because the problem of judgment change has been primarily addressed in the area of attitudes, our chapter applied the principles of our model to the domain of evaluative judgments. However, the proposed principles also readily apply to probabilistic judgments. For instance, people may believe that members of certain social groups are lazy simply because they belong to that group. As a result, stereotype changes entail movements from beliefs that the category implies the trait to beliefs that the category does not imply

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the trait. Other than the diVerences in the type of category used in evaluative and probabilistic judgments, the structure of these two types of judgments is isomorphic (see Wyer, 1974; Wyer & Albarracı´n, in press). Therefore, activating prior probabilistic judgments and comparing them with beliefrelevant information should have the same consequences we outlined in relation to attitude change (see Table I). Future research on beliefs may uncover evidence about the applicability of the model postulates to such probabilistic social judgments.

2. Implications for the Role of Attitude Confidence In discussing our model, we considered changes in attitude extremity and confidence that evolve over time. We argued that attitude change can be reflected in changes in the extremity of a prior attitude, its certainty, or both. Attitudes that become more or less polarized should change in both extremity and confidence, whereas attitudes that change in line with attitudeinconsistent information should not necessarily change in confidence. In describing prior research in support of our model, we discussed Wallace and Albarracı´n’s (2003) finding that attitudes that become more extreme following corroboration by consistent information are also reported as more certain attitudes. However, people who compare a prior attitude with new, inconsistent information often reach a compromise between the two positions without altering their initial attitude confidence. The possibility that attitude confidence and extremity are inextricably linked was first raised by Wyer (1973). He assumed that evaluative category ratings are subjective expected values of the distribution of beliefs that an object belongs to various evaluative categories (e.g., good, very good, bad). Furthermore, attitude certainty is a reflection of the dispersion of this distribution, with greater variance resulting in less confidence. One aspect on which Wyer (1973) did not elaborate is what happens to attitude confidence when new information elements are acquired. If the variance of a distribution is the sum of the squared deviations of each observation from the mean divided by the number (N) of observations, then confidence should be an inverse function of the deviations from the mean and a direct function of N. Because adding new consistent elements guarantees an increase in N without increases in the deviation from the mean, the acquisition of new information should lead to concomitant increases in attitude confidence. However, the relation between the incorporating inconsistent elements cannot be specified unless one knows the exact number of elements being included and the exact deviation of these elements with respect to the mean of the distribution. If the N and the sum of squared deviations increase

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similarly as new elements are added, the inclusion of new inconsistent elements should not produce changes in confidence. These exact predictions were supported by Wallace and Albarracı´n (2003). Even when Wyer’s (1973) model can eVectively account for the relation between attitude extremity and confidence, people may sometimes be more willing to express changes in confidence rather than changes in extremity. Motives to achieve consistency and to avoid the appearance that one lacks serious opinions often promote attempts to side with the judgment one reported previously (Festinger, 1957). However, manifesting changes in certainty may strike a balance between a motive to be truthful and a motive to preserve a self-image, suggesting that confidence changes may be easier to detect than extremity changes (for an example of change in confidence without change in extremity, see Tormala & Petty, 2002). These motives may be further complicated by ceiling eVects that are often present in attitude research (see Cook & Campbell, 1979). Further attempts to elucidate whether attitude change is reflected in extremity and confidence should be oriented by the theoretical significance of these distinctions instead of the presence or absence of eVects on either or both confidence and extremity. For instance, Fazio and Zanna (1978a,b) reported that confident attitudes last longer, evidence that is sometimes taken as incontrovertible proof that attitude confidence is key for understanding attitude change. However, reasoning suggests that greater confidence should elicit stability not because of confidence itself, but because of diVerences in the knowledge associated with the attitude. People are generally more confident when the available information about the object adequately aligns with prior attitudes. Because the consistency of the attitude-related information and the prior attitude is undoubtedly responsible for attitude stability (see Figure 5), attitude confidence is a convenient proxy for understanding the true processes underlying stability. Similarly, attitude confidence is presumed to play an important role in resistance to persuasion. However, the actual evidence in support of this supposition is rather tenuous. For instance, McGuire (1964) showed that merely increasing confidence in one’s attitude by providing attitude-supporting evidence is less eVective than immunizing individuals to potential threats to their attitudes. But even confidence that one can eVectively counterargue challenges to one’s attitudes can have ironic eVects, leading people to confront material that ultimately defeats one’s attitudes (Albarracı´n & Mitchell, in press). To this extent, focusing on individual diVerences, including attitude confidence, is unlikely to promote a clear understanding of attitude change without an eVective explication of the cognitive and motivational processes at stake.

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F. APPLIED AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS In our illustrations of the activation/comparison model, we relied largely on laboratory research that allows for precise controls of the processes that occur. However, the implications of our model for applications in the real world are readily apparent. For example, HIV prevention programs such as those implemented at the time people obtain an HIV test often involve messages that directly counter the client’s beliefs (for a review, see Albarracı´n et al., 2003). For example, because many people refuse to use condoms because of the associated physical discomfort, campaigns try to ‘‘eroticize’’ condoms to make them appealing to reluctant audiences (see Albarracı´n et al., 2000). This strategy can certainly trigger comparison of the prior belief with the campaign’s counterargument, resulting in the successful outcomes persuaders expect. However, when such prior beliefs are not highly accessible in memory, the attempt to induce the comparison may only trigger the activation and maintenance of the earlier belief, thus decreasing the eVectiveness of the campaign. In this context, our model suggests that practitioners must establish whether their campaigns will elicit activation of a prior attitude with or without comparison before they can ensure eVectiveness for their programs.

G. OTHER REMARKS 1. Consideration of Attitude Dissolution Processes Until this point, our discussion has implied that attitude change and maintenance processes always result in an outcome attitude of one form or another. However, attitudes sometimes simply dissolve altogether. Individuals should use their prior attitudes and attitude-related information as a basis for judgment provided that at least one of the two elements is valid, but when individuals consider both the prior attitude and the attitude-related information invalid, they should generate no current judgment (for a related analysis, see Converse, 1964, 1970). In the case of political attitudes, for example, one may remember that one was a Democrat but be unable to recall solid arguments for this aYliation. If one later receives a Democratic ad one considers biased, neither the new information nor the earlier attitude may have enough subjective validity to inform a current attitude. Under those conditions, people are likely to delay judgment until they gather further information about the object they need to evaluate (e.g., Chaiken, 1980). This situation should yield an outcome that we term attitude dissolution.

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Conflicting information is also likely to lead to attitude dissolution when people conclude that neither their prior attitude nor the attitude-related information they activated is valid. In such a circumstance, individuals may delay judgment indefinitely until they can overcome their indecision through the consideration of further information. For instance, politicians and citizens often strive to reduce prejudice and stereotypes toward minority groups. They may attempt to improve the social climate for ethnic minorities by increasing social acceptance and positive intergroup attitudes. One may wish to change stereotypes that African-Americans are lazy and unintelligent or that Asian-Americans are hard-working and intelligent. The ideal change, however, is diVerent for prejudice and stereotypes. Reducing prejudice implies decreasing negative evaluations, whereas reducing stereotyping implies suspending judgment about the characteristics of stereotyped group members and concluding that no two members of the group are alike. In this regard, our model highlights that people are likely to dissolve a prior stereotype when they compare their prior stereotypes with alternative information and conclude that both are invalid. For example, individuals may conclude that they cannot make a general inference about the traits of a target group after they analyze conflicting stereotypes about that group that are prevalent across diVerent cultures. Our model can seamlessly accommodate attitude dissolution processes without altering our predictions about the eVects of activation, comparison, ability, and motivation (Fig. 16). For the sake of simplicity and because attitude dissolution has received virtually no attention in the past, we chose not to review dissolution outcomes in detail in this chapter. The lack of past research on attitude dissolution is not surprising, because researchers currently lack the methodologies to adequately assess a person’s lack of attitude. For instance, the use of ‘‘don’t know’’ responses has often been criticized as generating conditions for survey recipients to ‘‘satisfice’’ rather than provide what researchers consider meaningful responses (Krosnick, 2002; Schuman & Presser, 1981). In any case, the adequacy of using these types of options or of asking participants whether they have an opinion seems essential to better elucidate attitude-relevant processes. As the stereotyping example suggests, interventions to get recipients to suspend judgments about social groups and adequate measures of these particular changes may be essential in combating subtle and overt intergroup conflict. 2. Biases in Activation and Comparison The elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) and the heuristic systematic model (Chaiken, 1980) both assume that people process information in either objective or biased ways. For example,

Fig. 16. Influence of processes of activation and comparison on attitudinal outcomes, including attitude dissolution. Boxes indicate processes and diamonds indicate decision points. A and B represent diVerent implications or categories (e.g., bad versus good). V and I denote subjectively valid and invalid information, respectively. AA and BB represent attitudes of the same A and B evaluation with increased confidence, extremity, or both.

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objective processing entails being persuaded by strong factual information contained in a communication but remaining unconvinced by weak arguments. Alternatively, people may interpret the arguments contained in a communication as less supportive of a given point of view when they are in a bad mood than when they feel happy, a phenomenon that reflects an aVective bias. In our model, validation is an entirely subjective process. The selection of an aVective heuristic (a formal criterion) leads to a bias of aVect, whereas the use of referential criteria can lead to more objective assessments if and only if the referents from prior knowledge are objectively correct.

3. Limitations For some time, the literature on attitude change has lacked a comprehensive interpretation of the mechanisms underlying judgment survival and change. The model we presented is an attempt to fill this gap. Nevertheless, important areas of our knowledge on attitude change remain outside the model. One such area was highlighted by Wilson, Lindsey, and Schooler (2000), who argued that an attitude that changes does not perish. In fact, when people change a prior attitude, the prior attitude can persist at the implicit level and reemerge under some conditions. Because our model does not concern storage processes, readers should consult Wilson et al.’s work for a treatment of how diVerent attitudes can coexist in memory (but see Fazio & Olson, 2003). In presenting our conceptualization of attitude survival, we considered the possibility that people can activate up to two cognitive elements (i.e., the prior attitude and attitude-relevant information) at a time. Without a doubt, however, individuals spend their lives in environments with large amounts of information. As a result, they must often make decisions after considering multiple elements that have the potential to guide their future attitudes. The presence of multiple prior attitudes or multiple pieces of attitude-relevant information should have important implications for the processes we postulate. For instance, if one retrieves multiple pieces of information, comparing each piece with each other may not be cost eVective. In this situation, people may arbitrarily select whatever piece is most salient at the time and operate as if they had a single piece of available information. Alternatively, the prospect of performing so many comparisons may be so daunting that people may reendorse a prior attitude they happen to recall, or parcel the information out in more or less simplified ways. Future research should address the processes elicited by information of greater complexity than we examined.

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4. Closing Comment Many studies have investigated the predictors and consequences of attitude survival and change. As a result of these studies, researchers now have a decent understanding of parts of the many diVerent processes that govern the evolution of attitudes over time. Unfortunately, the existing attitude change literature has lacked comprehensive, theoretical integration, which is not surprising considering the diYculties inherent in achieving such integration. In view of this situation, enhanced integration and theoretical development in attitude research is a worthwhile goal given the important societal consequences of attitude survival and change. Our integrative model makes new predictions that have the potential to guide the development of programs to improve judgments and behaviors that are important for individuals in society. We hope that our model will stimulate such eVorts in the future.

Acknowledgments Supported by NIH grants No. K01-MH01861 and No. R01-NR08325-01. We thank Robert S. Wyer and the attitudes group at the University of Florida for insightful comments at different points in the preparation of this manuscript. We also thank Timothy Brock, Blair T. Johnson, Alice H. Eagly, Ben R. Karney, Jon A. Krosnick, G. Tarcan Kumkale, Charles G. Stangor, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We also thank Patrick Del Vento and Ece Kumkale for assistance in the preparation of the manuscript.

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THE IMPLICIT VOLITION MODEL: ON THE PRECONSCIOUS REGULATION OF TEMPORARILY ADOPTED GOALS

Gordon B. Moskowitz Peizhong Li Elizabeth R. Kirk

I. Introduction Consider a common experience of mental life: When attempting to retrieve a piece of information from memory (e.g., when asking yourself ‘‘what is the name of the Michael Ondaatje book that preceded The English Patient?’’), you sometimes experience a ‘‘tip of the tongue eVect’’ (Brown & McNeill, 1966). The desired information feels as if it is knowledge you possess and is about to become known to you. Despite the feeling of fluency and familiarity (Jacoby, Kelley, & Dywan, 1989; Whittlesea, 1993) that creates the sensation that the information is about to leap out of your mouth, you cannot produce the response. After struggling for some time to access the information, you eventually disengage from the task. However, as if by magic, the desired information will often come rushing into consciousness at some later time, in an unrelated context, when you are not attempting to retrieve it (e.g., you unexpectedly say to yourself ‘‘it was In the skin of a lion!’’). The phenomenology is of some external agent delivering the information to you. The reality is one of you consciously disengaging from a goal, yet pursuing the goal without intention to or awareness that the goal is active and being regulated. Preconscious cognitive processes seem to be implementing goal pursuit despite the conscious will having been explicitly withdrawn from goal pursuit. It is a case of implicit volition. Zeigarnik (1927) provided one of the earliest social-psychological illustrations of how an unmet goal can direct cognitive activity outside of conscious awareness and intent. Research participants were asked to work on a series 317 ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 36

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of puzzles/problem sets until each set of tasks was completed. However, some of these activities were not completed but interrupted and removed from sight so participants could not continue to work on them. The participants then were given other tasks to complete. To examine whether participants continued to dedicate cognitive resources toward completing the unmet goal, at the end of the experimental session they were asked to recall the tasks they had worked on. Unfinished tasks were recalled twice as much as finished ones. The so-called Zeigarnik eVect illustrated how the cognitive system continues to engage in goal-relevant processes despite having them consciously disrupted. People continued to regulate the goal, ruminating on the disrupted tasks in the preconscious, making them more memorable. This review is not concerned, per se, with the ‘‘eureka’’ experience that brings to an end the frustration of the tip of the tongue eVect, nor is it concerned with the Zeigarnik eVect, per se. Rather its focus is on a phenomenon that lies at the heart of each: the preconscious triggering and pursuit of temporarily adopted goals. A robust finding from research on Person Memory and Social Cognition is that conscious goals have unintended (and implicit) eVects on cognition1 (for reviews, see Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, 1996; Srull & Wyer, 1986). The current concern, however, is with the somewhat opposite issue of whether unconscious goals have intended (yet implicit) eVects on cognition. We refer to this as implicit volition. The question examined herein regards a subset of processes that fall under the heading of implicit volition, those relating to temporarily adopted (as opposed to chronic and wellpracticed) goals. It asks: Do we tend to temporary goals, those adopted (perhaps implicitly triggered) within a given context, in an invisible, implicit fashion, without our ‘‘volitional responding’’ being recognized? A. THE SEEMING PARADOX OF PRECONSCIOUS CONTROL This question leads us to encounter an initial, phenomenological problem. It introduces seeming paradoxes such as the notions of ‘‘unintended intentions’’ and ‘‘uncontrolled control.’’ The possibility that motives and goals are triggered and then direct responding outside of conscious awareness ‘‘feels’’ contrariwise with our lay understanding of intentional/volitional 1

These eVects occur at both encoding and retrieval, with representative examples including goal eVects on the integration and clustering of information in memory (e.g., Srull, 1983), the formation of spontaneous inferences at encoding (e.g., Hamilton, Katz, & Leirer, 1980; Uleman & Moskowitz, 1994), the intentional forgetting (inhibition) of information that interferes with a to-be-retrieved item (Macrae & MacLeod, 1999), attention to and recall for stereotypeconsistent information (e.g., Anderson & Pitchert, 1978) and the use of accessible information such as stereotypes (e.g., Kruglanski & Freund, 1983), trait constructs (e.g., E. Thompson et al., 1994), and correspondent inferences (e.g., Tetlock, 1985) in one’s explicit judgments.

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responding. As Wegner and Bargh (1998, p. 453) stated: ‘‘most people think of control in humans as conscious control, so much so that the term ‘unconscious control’ doesn’t seem right at all.’’ This paradox is, in part, a problem of language. The lay definitions of terms such as control, volition, intention, and goals mention (or imply) conscious choice as a central feature. For example, Webster’s (1986) New World Dictionary defined volition as the exercising of the will to produce a conscious decision. This seemingly rules out the possibility of implicit volition. Intent, in the meantime, is often used to infer responsibility, and it seems unusual to hold people responsible for intended acts that happened without their awareness (e.g., Fiske, 1989). Thus, everyday usage of the language relating to volition defines the related concepts (goals, intent, motives, the will, etc.) for us in a way that implicates consciousness. This seemingly delegates the concept of unconscious motivation to the status of ‘‘not right at all.’’ First, let us dispel the notion that this is an unusual or paradoxical concept by pointing out that individuals experience it all the time. By example, one of the authors recalls spending countless hours at work, perched next to a window, deep in thought, ruminating over complex tasks that fully captured the attention. However, the individual was nonetheless inexplicably drawn to the happenings on the other side of the window whenever an acquaintance was among the crowd of people passing by outside. The goal to aYliate was directing attention to relevant cues in the environment that address this goal. The automated will allowed the person to pursue goals unrelated to work even when the individual was perfectly engaged in work, perhaps even signaling to the person that a break was needed. We have all had experiences like this where there is no conscious intent, yet we find ourselves directed to stimuli in our environment that serve our goals, with our attention being grabbed by the context when that context contains something that can facilitate the successful attainment of one of our goals. The cognitive system is finely tuned todetecting cues associated with aYliating, despite dedicating conscious attention and mental energy to pursuing a conscious goal in the context that has nothing to do with aYliation and that is not at all unpleasant (the goal to work hard and achieve). One goal is explicitly, the other implicitly, triggered, and they require opposing action tendencies. In this example action tendencies associated with implicit goals disrupt attention from the explicit goal.

B. AUTO-MOTIVES Turning away from anecdotal evidence, a suYcient literature has accumulated that can empirically dispel the paradox of the notion of implicit volition. In an extensive and influential review, Bargh (1990) described the

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preconscious control illustrated across a wide range of empirical findings as being evidence of the individual being driven by auto-motives. The concept of auto-motives specifies that self-regulation, control, volition, motivation, intent, and willfulness, terms typically associated with the deliberate decision to select a chosen course of action and to implement behavior aimed at bringing about desired ends associated with the selected goal, need not be considered as requiring the conscious mind. How can this occur? Two theoretical possibilities are highlighted in Bargh’s review. First, a goal pursuit can operate like a habit (e.g., James, 1890/1950)— reflexive, and triggered by an external force without a conscious act of willing needed for its initiation. James (p. 519) asserted that such preconscious goal regulation occurs because ‘‘often-repeated movements follow on their mental cue. An end consented to as soon as conceived innervates directly the centre of the first movement of the chain which leads to its accomplishment, and then the whole chain rattles oV quasi-reflexly.’’ Through routine pairings of goals with specific environments, and practice at pursuing the goal in the specified environment, goals were said to forge associative links with those environments (Bargh, 1990; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Bargh & Gollwitzer, 1994; Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Tro¨tschel, 2001). Repetition and practice lead to a process becoming increasingly eYcient until consciousness can desert it altogether, thus freeing the conscious mind to be dedicated to less routinized exercises (e.g., Bargh, 1997). Bargh (1990) asserted this is also true of goal pursuit. Once routinization and practice have forged associative links between internal wishes and cues embedded in the external world, the presence of the appropriate context (or cues associated with that context) immediately, in the absence of the conscious will, trigger the associated goal (see Fig. 1). Second, the repeated and habitual pursuit of some goals over other goals can lead to those goals acquiring a chronic state of heightened accessibility (e.g., Bargh, 1982; Higgins, King, & Mavin, 1982). It is not merely the case that goals can attain a state of heightened accessibility by being linked to specific contexts that then cue the goals. Goals can attain a state of heightened accessibility that persists across a variety of contexts because they are frequently pursued. These are goals associated with the individual’s long-standing interests, that are highly relevant to one’s most cherished values and motives. The constant pursuit of such goals over time and across contexts leads them to a favored status in the system’s goal hierarchy, a readiness to be used in construing the world (e.g., Bruner, 1957). This process can explain why the individual in the previous example has attention redirected from work to cues associated with aYliation goals. The chronic goal to aYliate is chronically accessible and regulated in the face of other, explicitly adopted, accessible goals.

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Automaticity and the association between stimulus features and a goal.

Readers are directed to Bargh (1990) for an excellent review of the research supporting the proposition that goals are implicitly regulated due to the great eYciency at regulation that emerges from having experience with the pursuit of the goal. Attention is focused here on the complementary notion that goals that do not benefit from chronic states of readiness or habitual pairing with specific environments can be invisibly and passively tended to. In the 15 years since the automatic pursuit of goals started (re)gaining currency within the field, the focus has recently started to shift away from goals that are chronically accessible or that have benefitted from a history of practice at being routinely paired with specific contexts. As with the Zeigarnik eVect and the tip of the tongue eVect, temporary goals are being examined as directing preconscious cognitive processing. Thus, while the unconscious pursuit of goals that are chronic and that are the beneficiary of becoming proceduralized through repeated pairings with specific contexts may now seem nonparadoxical, the ability of the cognitive system to function at this level of eYciency regarding momentary goals may leave one with the sense of paradox still intact. This review will turn next toward examining the theory and evidence that provide the rationale and support for the preconscious regulation of temporary goals. C. THE IMPLICIT VOLITION MODEL Three theoretical points provide the basis for the proposed model of implicit volition. 1. Goals are knowledge structures (e.g., Bargh, 1990; Kruglanski, 1996) that can be triggered by relevant cues in the environment without the person’s awareness that any given knowledge structure has attained a

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Fig. 2.

The automatic activation of goals.

state of heightened fluency or accessibility. Any goal that is represented could thus be triggered. This core premise of the auto-motive model is depicted in Fig. 2. Although conscious choice is obviously capable of triggering a goal, it is not necessary. 2. One explanation of how a goal can come to be automatically activated by the ‘‘situation’’ is provided by Fig. 1—through frequent and habitual pairing of specific goals with specific features (or states) of the environment. However, the associative link that pairs a goal to a cue need not be one that develops over time and with practice. Rather, it can be forged in the moment by specific plans that create concrete links between the goal and the cue (e.g., Gollwitzer, 1993, 1999). Intentions to implement a particular goal-directed response can provide the links between one’s goals and specified cues, thus forming an associative network that connects goals in the mind of the individual to cues related to those goals. This allows for the automatic triggering of the goal even without the benefit of a history of the goal being paired with a context and cues relevant to that context. The model of implementation intentions (e.g., Gollwitzer, 1999) fits perfectly within the process model depicted by Fig. 2, with the only addition being the generation of a new theoretical model stipulating why there exists an associative link between a cue and a goal. Thus, the automatization of goal-directed responding from implementation intentions requires modifying Fig. 1 as has been done in Fig. 3—by adding a second route through which a conscious choice to pursue a goal (a goal intention) may eventually be automated such that the goal can be implicitly triggered without consciousness. 3. An aversive state is experienced when a goal (a standard or criterion) has not been met (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1981; Lewin, 1935; Wicklund &

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Fig. 3. Two ways in which stimulus features automatically trigger a goal.

Gollwitzer, 1982). When experienced, regulatory processes are initiated that allow people to compensate for the detected shortcoming and alleviate its associated tension/aversive state. Behavior is initiated aimed at attaining the goal, and the cognitive system is tuned to detecting opportunities to address the shortcoming (we call this compensatory cognition). These compensatory responses continue until the goal has been addressed and the discrepancy between one’s desired level of goal attainment and one’s current level is reduced. Many models of control processes discuss this as a negative feedback loop akin to the test-operate-test-exit (TOTE) model of Miller, Gallanter, and Pribram (1960). Once a goal or standard (reference criterion) is activated, it is tested against existing perceptual input to ascertain whether the standard has been attained. If a diVerence between criterion and existing values is detected during this test phase, operations are performed in which the cognitive and behavioral systems are tuned toward reducing the discrepancy. The individual initiates responses to compensate for the shortcoming. In this manner, cognition and behavior are compensatory as one seeks to adjust an existing state so it conforms with a reference value. After operations are performed, a test is again used to monitor the state of goal pursuit. If the discrepancy still exists, operations continue (hence, the negative feedback loop). If no discrepancy is revealed, goal pursuit and its associated responses/operations halt (Fig. 4). Notably, such models rarely refer to the issue of whether the goal criterion serving as the standard must be explicitly triggered, or whether the criterion can be implicitly triggered and initiate the same set of processes. Research analyzing this model always begins with research participants being explicitly given a goal intention and explicitly alerted to their failures at goal pursuit

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Fig. 4.

The Comparison module: a Model of compensatory processes in self-regulation.

(shortcomings). It is acknowledged that a variety of ‘‘inputs’’ will determine the goal that is adopted, but implicit inputs are not discussed. We suggest the processes illustrated in Fig. 4 function identically when goals are implicitly triggered. These three theoretical points reveal several ways goal pursuit can be implicit. First, a goal can be consciously selected but trigger implicit processes regulating movement toward successfully attaining the goal (the operations in Fig. 2 and 4). Second, the goal itself can be implicitly triggered and lead to both explicit and implicit operations aimed at goal attainment. The implicit triggering of the goal from a cue can occur despite the fact the goal was initially consciously selected; habit and planning allow consciousness to be removed from the process. Combining these points yields a model of implicit volition that is illustrated in Fig. 5. A goal can be triggered by either a conscious choice or from the detection of goal-relevant cues. Thus, the goal may be activated either explicitly or implicitly, and once activated two possible paths to goal pursuit may be pursued. Operations associated with the goal may be automatically triggered, as stipulated by both the auto-motive

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The implicit triggering and regulation of goals.

model and the notion of implementation intentions. However, it may also be the case that comparison processes are first initiated to test whether the activated goal has already been attained. If the goal has been attained, one need not engage the operations that regulate pursuit of the goal, because the goal has already been deemed to be suYciently reached. If a discrepancy is detected between one’s desired and actual levels of goal attainment, then operations are triggered. With each path, once operations are triggered they must somehow be halted, and this occurs through entering the comparison module to engage in a test as to whether the desired goal has been suYciently

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attained. If not, the negative feedback loop continues until the discrepancy is successfully reduced, and the goal has been attained. It is possible to begin the analysis of implicit volition from a variety of points within the model. For example, the presence of a cue may trigger the retrieval of goal-related concepts from long-term memory and initiate operations associated with goal pursuit. However, the goal may first have been consciously selected and triggered these same processes, which then in turn would feed back in the system to allow for heightened ability to detect and selective attention to the cues that are associated with the goal. Finally, one’s goals may be triggered by detecting a discrepancy (either implicitly or explicitly) between a desired goal state and one’s current responding and initiate the operations that regulate goal pursuit. These various points of entry correspond with the three theoretical points that served as the basis for the model. We next examine the theory and evidence relating to each of these components of the model separately, beginning with the implicit triggering of a goal in the presence of a relevant cue.

II. Goals as Mental Representations: The Implicit Triggering of Goals The study of goal-directed responding has been central to psychology ever since Behaviorism focused on how stimuli associated with drives were able to direct responding of the organism (e.g., Skinner, 1953; Tolman, 1925; Watson, 1925). However, Behaviorists took exceptional measures to avoid the use of mentalistic notions in describing goal-directed behavior. For example, Tolman (1925) defined goal pursuit as follows: When a rat runs a maze, it is to be observed that his running and searching activities persist until food is reached. And it appears that his persistence is the result of the physiological condition of hunger. We do not know whether he ‘‘feels a purpose’’ (to use the terminology of the mentalists); but we do know that, given (1) the physiological condition of hunger and given (2) the objective conditions of the maze, the rat thus persists until the food is reached. It is this purely objective fact of persistence until a certain specific type of goal object is reached that we define as goal seeking.

Tolman (1932), in the preface to Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men, went so far as to apologize for using terms such as ‘‘purposes’’ and ‘‘cognitions,’’ lamenting that ‘‘most readers will persist in believing that I mean by purposes and cognitions entities ultimately subjective in character and metaphysically teleological in import. I can but hope that all such readers will

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read and reread the glossary’’ (p. xii). In eschewing mentalistic notions in defining the concept, goals were merely said to be incentives that an observer has chosen to focus on as a reference point for describing the behavior observed in an organism (rat, human, etc.). However, even Tolman’s (1932) description of purposive behavior, despite his own protestations, was not devoid of mentalism. Rather, the description of goals provided is very much akin to what modern psychology would call a mental representation. Tolman (1925) may not have permitted discussing the organism as experiencing goal pursuit as a ‘‘purpose,’’ and he might describe feelings such as striving, wanting, wishing, hoping, and any experiential aspect of goal pursuit as epiphenomenal. However, he still posited that an association between need states experienced by the organism and external cues in the environment that in the past have satisfied these need states are internally represented in the mind of the perceiving organism. Tolman (1932) labeled the representation of the actions, outcomes, and objects experienced in the past a mnemonization (a memory), and claimed they were capable of being made ready in the mind and brought to bear on a current context. It is an expectation that arises from past experience with objects that are ‘‘no longer sensorially present’’ that has been stored, and is capable of being re-stored when the appropriate context calls. The memory that is brought to bear when goal-relevant contexts are entered was said to contain (1) the valence (enjoyment) relating to past experience with a specific object that is not currently present (a distant object), (2) the valence (enjoyment) relating to past experience with a specific object that is present in one’s current environment (an immediate object), and (3) the re-presentation in the current context of the stimuli that correspond with the immediate objects. According to Tolman (1932, p. 135): . . . the learning trials function to determine and define a total complex— shall we say gestalt?—consisting of immediate discriminada and manipulanda, plus the direction—distance relations between these two sets of discriminada and manipulanda. And when the stimuli corresponding to the one feature of this total gestalt of behavior-supports are re-presented, they serve to evoke an expectation of the whole.

In essence, contexts in which goal pursuit is being initiated trigger mental representations of similar experiences that specify expectancies about what stimuli might be encountered in the new context and the value of those stimuli for the organism in terms of satisfying the goal. Tolman (1932) called the mental representations that gave rise to expectancies sign-gestalts, which were said to consist of a sign (or the immediate cues in the context), a significate (or the remembered objects from past experience that served to satisfy the goal), and the behavior route that leads from sign to significate and

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produces the desired end. The building of this set of relations is what generates expectancies that a certain cue, if responded to in a way specified by the past experience with similar cues in similar contexts, will lead to the represented end. Essential to our current discussion is that Tolman (1932) did not believe that organisms having memories of past occasions relating an object and one’s action toward it imply consciousness. Triggering of a sign-gestalt does not involve deliberate acts of willing. Tolman (p. 134) asserts that ‘‘the reader will perhaps need constantly to remind himself that the use of the terms perception, mnemonization and memory implies nothing as to consciousness.’’ From this perspective, mentalism is required in the form of learning that an association exists between a state (hunger) and an object that functions as an incentive (food). This learning allows the organism to be able to detect (even to expect) the incentives when the undesired state returns and when the context relevant to satisfying that state is entered. The organism can now know (or expect) that the incentive exists even when it is not in the immediate sensory field. But this process need not require that the triggering of the goal be consciously detected or that the organism experientially has sensations that we might label as intent or a feeling of purpose. It merely requires a knowledge structure that contains within it a representation of the need state, the objects that one’s life experience has associated with the need state, and the outcomes associated with (value/enjoyment) having pursued those objects in the past. Hull (1931) similarly proposed a mentalistic model of goal-directed behavior, one in which behavior itself was conceived of as a mental representation. Rather than behavior being evoked by an idea, the behavior itself was said to be an idea. The mere triggering of the representation of the behavior would be enough to lead to the behavior itself. James (1890/1950) had previously described this phenomenon and labeled it as ideo-motor action, or the ‘‘sequence of movement upon the mere thought of it. Wherever movement follows unhesitatingly and immediately the notion of it in the mind’’ (p. 522). James posited that nothing else is required in the mind to produce willed responses other than a ‘‘mental conception made up of memory-images of [passive movement] sensations, defining which special act it is . . . in perfectly simple voluntary acts there is nothing else in the mind but the kinaesthetic idea, thus defined, of what the act is to be’’ (James, pp. 492–493). Thus, whereas Tolman (1932) suggested goals were mental representations that could be preconsciously triggered, James (and Hull) suggested that these representations included behaviors relevant to goal pursuit that could also be preconsciously triggered and that would initiate that behavior without a conscious decision having been made.

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Hull (1931) posited that unconsciously triggered actions are not errors on the part of the individual, or useless behaviors that one finds oneself uncontrollably emitting from time to time (such as when watching a potential home run ball hit by your favorite player on your favorite team straddling the foul line, and one uncontrollably leans in the direction of fair territory—a la Carlton Fiske—as if to encourage the ball along). Rather than useless, Hull believed such behaviors prepare for goal pursuit, or are anticipatory goal reactions, and are highly functional. Thus, goal pursuit has a mentalistic component in that the behaviors elicited are said to be mentally represented and triggered by relevant cues. As summarized by Hull (1931, p. 502): . . . the view is here put forward that ideo-motor reactions and anticipatory goal reactions in general are really guiding and directing pure-stimulus acts and as such perform the enormously important functions ordinarily attributed to ideas. Considered merely as acts they are negligible; as purestimulus acts and sources of stimuli to control other action, they at once take on the very greatest importance. While indubitably physical they occupy at the same time the very citadel of the mental. The classical view was that a non-physical idea of an act preceded the act and somehow commanded the energy to evoke it, such act in consequence being called ideo-motor. In contrast to that view, the hypothesis here put forward is (1) that ideo-motor acts are in reality anticipatory goal reactions and, as such, are called into existence by ordinary physical stimulation; and (2) that these anticipatory goal reactions are pure stimulus acts and, as such, guide and direct the more explicit and instrumental activities of the organism.

A. IMPLICIT GOAL PRIMING If we accept that goals are mental representations, then goal initiation need not be conceived of as solely a matter of conscious deliberation and selection. Goal initiation can be an implicit process (e.g., Bargh, 1990; Kruglanski, 1996) that follows the rationale governing the triggering and activation of any information stored in memory (e.g., Higgins, 1996; Logan, 1989). Just as stereotypes (e.g., Devine, 1989), schemas (e.g., Baldwin, Carrell, & Lopez, 1990), traits (e.g., Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977), exemplars (e.g., Herr, 1986), and other knowledge structures can be triggered by associated features (either directly through perception of those features or via spreading activation from associated mental concepts), goals may be similarly triggered. Bargh (1990, p. 100) stated that the environment can implicitly trigger goals when one has formed ‘‘direct and automatic mental links between representations of motives and goals in memory (and consequently the goals and plans associated with them) and the representations of the social situations in which those motives have been frequently pursued in the past.’’

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Kruglanski (1996) made a similar claim in declaring that goals are knowledge structures. However, Kruglanski extends the analysis by asserting that goals not only follow the principles that govern how knowledge structures, are acquired, modified, and activated, but are unique types of structures. Goal categories are marked by a variety of unique components. Goals (1) specify directions for action (or behavior routes that lead from sign to significate), (2) have valence associated with the achievement of goal-relevant action (that determines the desirability of the goal), (3) aVect persistence along a given course of action, (4) are marked by one’s degree of eYcacy at goal-relevant tasks (and beliefs about the ‘‘attainability’’ of the goal), and (5) have associated with them one’s level of commitment to the goal. Kruglanski et al. (2002) have provided an extensive analysis of the notion that goals are knowledge structures, marked by the same structural properties (e.g., associative links that vary according to associative strength, hierarchical organization in which one subordinate concept can be linked to multiple concepts higher in the hierarchy) posited to describe mental representation more generally. Three implications immediately are derived from this review of goals as mental representations. First, goals (and the various components of the goal representation) should be capable of being implicitly primed. Second, once implicitly primed, goals should impact judgment and behavior outside of awareness. Third, primed goals should bring about behavior and consequences similar to that associated with consciously selected goals. Thus, in Figure 5, the processes that follow from goal activation are not dependent on whether the source of the activation is conscious choice or the implicit activation of the goal. A seminal illustration of precisely these three issues was provided by Chartrand and Bargh (1996). Experiment 1 was modeled on research by Hamilton, Katz, and Leirer (1980) in which a classic phenomenon in the Person Memory literature was illustrated. Hamilton et al. found that people who were explicitly asked to form an impression of a target person whom they would be reading about (people with an impression goal) actually recalled more information about the person (despite not being asked to memorize the information) than participants who were explicitly asked to try to remember the exact same information about the target person (people with a memory goal). The logic was that impression formation goals trigger cognitive processes that require integrating information (e.g., Asch, 1946), and this elaborate type of processing makes the information more memorable than if one simply tried rote memorization strategies. Chartrand and Bargh reasoned that if goals were mental representations, then priming these same goals (impression versus memory goals) outside of awareness would initiate goal pursuit in a manner similar to if one had explicitly

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selected to pursue the goal. One could prime the goal without the person being aware it had been primed and see, in response, cognitive strategies similar to those that result when the goal is consciously selected. People primed with impression goals should engage in more elaboration and integration of material they are later asked to read, resulting in superior recall relative to people who have memory goals primed. Chartrand and Bargh (1996) primed goals by having research participants complete a paper and pencil ‘‘scrambled sentence test’’ (Srull & Wyer, 1979) in which a set of words presented in a jumbled order had to be arranged in a fashion that produced a coherent English sentence. For half of the participants the sentences had embedded within them words relating to the goal of forming an impression (e.g., impression, personality, evaluate, opinion); for the other half of the participants the sentences contained words relating to the goal of memorization (e.g., memory, remember, absorb, retain). Subsequently, participants completed a task ostensibly unrelated to the scrambled sentence task. In this second task sentence predicates describing four trait categories were flashed on a monitor. Participants were told to read the sentences and try to remember as much as they could for a later test on the material. Afterward they completed a filler task and then were asked to recall the information. Replicating Hamilton et al. (1980) they found that participants primed with impression goals remembered more of the information on the subsequent task than those participants who had been primed with memory goals. In a second experiment an even more conservative test of the goal-priming hypothesis was conducted. The scrambled sentence test of experiment 1 was a priming procedure in which participants obviously were aware of the words related to the goal (since they were being used to construct the sentences). To rule out the possibility that reading these goal-relevant words led people to consciously select the goal, participants in the second experiment were subliminally primed. Subliminal priming was accomplished by flashing words parafoveally, extremely quickly (for 60 ms), and having the words immediately masked by a letter string. Half of the participants had impression formation goals primed by being presented with words relevant to this goal (impression, judgment, personality, evaluate). The remaining participants had no goal primed, and had a series of neutral words flashed. Would the goal to form an impression be primed by a cue in the environment that was never even consciously detected? To examine this question a procedure was used borrowing from another classic Person Memory experiment. A study by Hastie and Kumar (1979) examined whether people’s impressions are formed on-line (formed as they are receiving information about a person) or are memory -based (formed only after being asked for an impression and reliant on whatever one can

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recall from the information presented earlier). Hastie and Kumar (1979, see also Bargh & Thein, 1985) found that impressions seemed to be formed only when participants were asked to form them. Thus, if there was no explicit goal to form an impression before receiving the behavioral information about a target person, none was formed. One type of evidence for this was provided by the fact that when people had impression formation goals, memory for the information that had been presented was skewed in the direction of recalling those bits that were incongruent with the impression formed on-line (because the diYculty at trying to integrate this information into the impression made people process it more deeply, making it more memorable). No such preference for these bits of information was found in people with memory goals (suggesting that no impression had been formed, and hence no pieces of information were inconsistent or needed to be reconciled through deeper processing). Chartrand and Bargh (1996) predicted that participants who had been subliminally primed with impression goals would form impressions of target persons before being asked to explicitly form an impression. However, participants who had not been primed with such goals would not form an impression before being asked to. These latter individuals would need to rely on whatever information they could recall from behavioral descriptions to form their impression. For the former individuals there should be better recall for impression-incongruent information. Additionally, because the impression had been formed on-line it need only be retrieved from memory, rather than constructed from retrieved behavioral episodes. This would create the paradoxical finding that people are better able to remember incongruent information that subsequently is not used in their impression (e.g., Hastie & Kumar, 1979; unlike the memory participants, whose impressions are based almost solely on their memory for this information). Chartrand and Bargh’s (1996) participants first were subliminally primed with words relating to either impression formation goals or control words. This was followed by the presentation of behavioral descriptions that contained a mix of dishonest behaviors, honest behaviors, and words irrelevant to this dimension. The list had twice as many honest behaviors for half the participants (making the dishonest behaviors incongruent with the emerging impression), whereas for the other half of the participants it had twice as many dishonest behaviors as honest ones (making the honest behaviors incongruent with the emerging impression). Next there was a surprise memory test for the behavioral information, followed finally by an impression formation task. As predicted, participants with no goals primed produced judgments at the end of the experiment (when explicitly asked for them) that did not correlate with the information presented to them on-line (after controlling for the individual’s recall of the information presented).

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This suggests impressions were only being formed when asked for, not as the information was being received. However, for people who were subliminally primed with impression goals, impressions were correlated with the type of information that was presented on-line (after controlling for what people remembered). If a majority of honest behaviors were presented on-line, an impression of the person as honest was reported. This was not dependent on constructing this impression after recalling the original information because (1) the analysis just reported statistically controlled for recall, and (2) examining the actual recall of the participants revealed that people with impression goals actually recalled more information that was incongruent with the impression they had formed. As predicted, people subliminally primed with impression goals appeared to be expending eVort to form an impression on-line, and this led to information that was not easily integrated into the emerging impression to be better remembered. Thus, in line with the goal priming hypothesis, the goal to form impressions was being implicitly triggered and this led to volitional responding identical to that which is found when people consciously will a goal to be pursued. These findings suggest goals can be implicitly triggered and can aVect implicit cognitive processing strategies. Woike, Lavezzary, and Barsky (2001) made a similar point by using the way in which information is stored in memory as the cognitive process impacted by implicit volition. They proposed that autobiographical knowledge is stored in a self memory system, and that this system includes both semantic content as well as one’s current goals. These current goals should modulate the construction of memories. For example, Cantor and Kihlstrom (1987) proposed that ‘‘life tasks,’’ or goals associated with specific periods of one’s life where specific motives have prominence, structure autobiographical memory. In this way, memory is organized around the life tasks that were relevant when information was acquired. Woike et al. (2001) propose that while life tasks reflect chronic goal pursuits impacting on memory structure, temporary goals can be triggered as well and exert an influence on how memories are organized. Woike et al. (2001) distinguished between the processes used for organizing information in memory that is similar to the distinction between memory for information congruent with an impression versus that which is incongruent. One way information may be organized is through a process of diVerentiation, where the content of autobiographical memory is analyzed according to contrasting, opposing, and diVering aspects, where incongruencies play an integral role in organization and structure. An alternative way in which information can be organized is through processes of integration in which interrelationships, similarities, and the congruent aspects of autobiographical memory are analyzed. Woike (1994) proposed that these diVerent memory processes were associated with diVerent chronic goals, with

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diVerentiation being linked with goals of agency, and integration linked with communion goals. Chronic agency goals were said to be associated with autonomy, dominance, and instrumentality, and chronic communion goals reflect needs for interdependence and connection with others. Woike et al. (2001) posited that agency and communion goals, as mental representations, could be primed, and that once primed would alter implicit cognition through guiding how information is structured in memory. Participants performed a vivid recollection task to have agency and communion goals primed. Participants were asked to recollect a significant event from their past in which they either achieved something great and were recognized with the distinction of being the best (priming agentic goals) or feeling part of a group in a way that was very satisfying (priming communion goals). After being primed they were then asked to read a vignette that contained both integrated and diVerentiated statements describing either agentic or communal activities. The question of interest here was whether implicitly priming agentic goals would make people better able to detect and recall diVerentiating information in agentic vignettes, whereas priming people with communion goals would allow them to better detect and recall integrating information from vignettes describing communal activities (a finding earlier established to be true among people for whom these same goals were chronically accessible). Replicating the pattern found with chronically accessible goals, when reading a vignette with agentic activities, people primed with agentic goals had better memory for diVerentiation than people primed with communal goals (and had better memory for diVerentiation than integration). However, people primed with communal goals better recalled information relevant to integration rather than diVerentiation when reading a vignette that described communal activities, and their recall for integrative information was superior to that of people primed with agentic goals.

B. SOME DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GOAL PRIMING AND SEMANTIC PRIMING Chartrand and Bargh (1996) illustrated that regardless of how a goal is activated (through consciously selecting it or having it triggered implicitly) the consequences are the same. Woike et al. (2001) illustrated that regardless of whether a goal is implicitly accessible because of a chronic state or because of a temporary triggering event, the consequences for implicit cognition are the same. Bargh, Gollwitzer, Chai, Barndollar, and Tro¨tschel (2001) sought to extend these findings by illustrating that a goal can be implicitly primed and retain all the features associated with goal pursuit. Bargh et al. (p. 1016) point out that goal pursuit involves not merely the initiation of goal-relevant

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responding, but that this responding is marked by characteristics such as ‘‘vigorous acting toward goal attainment, persistence in the face of obstacles, and resumption after disruption (Lewin, 1936; Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982).’’ In a first experiment, Chartrand and Bargh’s (1996) finding that goals can be implicitly primed was replicated. Participants were first given a word search puzzle intended to serve as the priming manipulation. The highperformance goal group received a puzzle with words relevant to the concept of high performance (e.g., win, compete, succeed). The no-goal group saw puzzles with neutral words. Participants then had to complete three more word search puzzles, which served as the dependent measure. The results revealed that the group primed with the high-performance goal found significantly more words than the no-goal group. This experiment suggests that performance goals can be activated and achieved without conscious awareness. However, participants already seemingly have the goal to solve puzzles consciously activated. A second experiment illustrated that goal priming does more than facilitate an already selected goal, but can influence behavior in the absence of a selected goal. Participants performed a resource dilemma task where they could either cooperate or compete with others. Findings revealed that people subtly primed with the goal to cooperate were found to cooperate to an equal degree as people who were explicitly told to adopt this strategy. The goal does not need to be first consciously selected for the priming of the goal to occur or to aVect responding. One feature of goal pursuit is that the goal looms larger as time passes and it remains unfulfilled. Unlike semantic concept activation, which fades as time passes and the activation potential of the triggered concept returns to baseline (e.g., Higgins, Bargh, & Lombardi, 1985), Bargh et al. (2001) propose that goals persist in being activated until a goal-relevant response (either disengagement or goal pursuit) is taken. Liberman and Fo¨rster (2000) provided an illustration of this lingering activation by allowing some participants the opportunity to satisfy a goal and denying others this opportunity. Participants were either given the goal of suppressing the use of colors in describing a painting or were given no instruction. Half of the participants were then given the goal of describing a second painting, but they were encouraged to use color words if they desired. Thus, there were participants who had suppressed the use of certain words and never had the chance to express them and participants who had suppressed these words and then were given a chance to express them. The former group was predicted to have the goal to use color words accessible because the goal had been instigated by the suppression instruction, yet was not satisfied. The latter group, however, having presumably had the chance to satisfy the goal, should no longer have the goal accessible. They found that for participants who were allowed to satisfy the goal, there was no longer evidence of the

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accessibility of goal-relevant concepts (they exit the feedback loop illustrated in Fig. 4), whereas people denied the opportunity to satisfy the goal persisted to have these concepts accessibile. In fact, triggered goals should increase in strength over time, whereas conceptual priming should decrease over time. This provides a way to illustrate that it is goals that are being triggered, rather than merely the semantic concepts associated with the goal (such as the concept of ‘‘cooperating’’ being triggered rather than the goal of cooperating). If goals are mental representations that can be primed, Bargh et al. (2001) argue that, unlike other mental representations, the strength of the priming eVect should increase with the passage of time rather than decrease. Participants worked on a series of word puzzles, and the first was used to prime participants. Half of the participants were primed with high-performance goals and half were in a control condition in which no goal was primed. A delay manipulation was added to the experimental design for which half of the participants moved immediately from the priming task to the subsequent word puzzles and half were asked to spend 5 minutes drawing a family tree. Two dependent variables were used: one was social perceptual in nature and the other was behavioral. The perceptual measure was an impression rating of an ambiguously high-achieving person the participants read about. The behavioral measure consisted of the three word search puzzles that had been used in the first experiment. The results revealed that the perceptual eVects of priming do in fact decrease over time. Participants primed with performance goals considered the ambiguously achievement-oriented target to be a higher achiever than participants in the control condition did. However, this eVect was found only when the rating task immediately followed the priming task and dissipated after the 5-minute delay. More importantly, in line with the hypothesis concerning the motivational eVects of performance priming, the eVect found on performance on subsequent word puzzles increased after the delay. These results strongly suggest that preconscious goals are being activated rather than a mere perceptual representation. One additional feature of goal pursuit is persistence in the face of obstacles to goal pursuit. Thus, Bargh et al. (2001) proposed that the nonconscious activation of a goal to perform well would lead participants to persevere on a task despite obstacles, more so than participants who were not primed. Half the participants were primed with high-performance goals and half were not primed. Participants then were told they would be given 10 minutes to perform a variation of the board game Scrabble, where participants were given letter tiles and were instructed to write down as many English words as they could. However, rather than allowing participants the promised 10 minutes to perform the task, an intercom message instructed them to stop the task after only 2 minutes. This was done so that the goal of ‘‘high

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performance’’ would not yet have been met but disrupted by an obstacle (the obstacle being the instruction to ‘‘stop’’). A hidden video camera taped participants during this task, and the dependent measure was whether the participant continued to work on the task after hearing the instructions to stop. That is, did the goal persist in the face of the obstacle? Despite the fact that the preconscious goal was in conflict with the consciously detected experimental instructions, goal pursuit was predicted to persevere in the face of the obstacle. This is what was found, as 57% of the people primed with performance goals persisted at the task compared with only 22% of the control participants. Finally, one last hallmark quality of goal pursuit was tested by Bargh et al. (2001): the high probability of task resumption after disruption. It was predicted that the nonconscious pursuit of the goal to perform well would result in a greater tendency to resume a disrupted word-finding task rather engaging in an alternate, enjoyable activity. The goal priming manipulation was the same as in the previous studies. The subsequent task designed to test goal pursuit was the Scrabble task just described. Finally, a cartoon-rating task ( judging the degree of humor in a set series of cartoons) was provided as a potential attractive alternative task. Rather than interrupting participants after 2 minutes as in the previous study, the experimenters staged a bogus problem with the equipment and declared there was not enough time to complete all the tasks. At this time they explained to the participant that because of this the participant could choose to complete the task he or she had been working on or go on to the next task, which was judging the humor in a series of cartoons. The dependent measure was the participants’ choice of task after the disruption. As expected, the results showed a significantly higher proportion of participants who had been nonconsciously primed with the high-performance goal choosing to continue working on the Scrabble task compared with the nonprimed participants.

C. PRIMING COMPETING GOALS Whereas Bargh et al. (2001) found that priming a focal goal ‘‘shielded’’ people from being distracted by other (more attractive) goal pursuits, what would occur if the alternate goal had been primed in addition to being presented as an explicit task one could choose to pursue? That is, we just described a case where a focal goal is primed and an alternate goal is explicitly presented. What would happen if the focal goal was not implicitly primed, but consciously selected, and one was primed with an alternate goal that then could be consciously selected. Would the focal goal still be shielded from this competing goal, or would the heightened accessibility of the alternate goal

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distract one away from the focal goal? Shah and Kruglanski (2002) explored how goal pursuit is influenced by the accessibility of alternative goals that run counter to (are incompatible with) current goals (what they called ‘‘priming against your will’’). In one experiment Shah and Kruglanski (2002) manipulated the accessibility of an alternative goal through subliminally priming the alternative task as participants were pursuing the primary goal. They then examined the consequences for attainment of the primary goal. It was predicted that if the alternative goal being primed was incompatible with the focal goal, then performance on the focal goal (solutions generated) and persistence (time spent on the task) would be undermined. The two goals were represented by two separate tasks: one was an anagram task said to measure verbal recall and the other task, which represented the alternative goal, was a box-use task (naming all the uses of a box) said to measure one’s skill at functional thinking. Participants were asked to rate how related the two skills were to one another, thus providing a way to assess whether for a given participant the two goals were seen as compatible or incompatible. Before performing the anagram task the participants were subliminally primed by being presented with the phrase ‘‘box use,’’ thus priming a compatible goal for some participants (those who perceived the two tasks as related) and an alternate and incompatible goal for others (those who perceived the two tasks as unrelated). They found that the increased accessibility of the alternative goal aVected participants’ commitment to the focal goal as reflected in performance and persistence on the task. However, this depended on the perceived relation of the alternative goal to the focal pursuit. Accessibility of the alternate goal undermined persistence and performance to a greater degree for participants who perceived the tasks as unrelated relative to those who perceived them as interrelated. This suggests that the implicit priming of an alternate goal can detract from pursuit of a consciously selected goal when the two goals are perceived to be incompatible with one another. Why does priming a competing goal undermine performance on a focal goal? Shah and Kruglanski (2002) suggest that one reason this occurs is because a competing goal usurps resources from pursuit of a focal goal. One such resource is the ability to generate new and improved means to attaining the focal goal. Kruglanski et al. (2002) propose that goals have associated with them (as part of the mental representation) various means to successful goal attainment (what Tolman, 1932, called behavior routes). When an alternate goal that is incompatible with the focal goal is primed, this triggers the means linked to the alternate goal and leads the person away from the means that would best allow for successful pursuit of the focal goal. When an alternate goal facilitates the focal goal, then the means work in concert.

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Thus, a person primed with an incompatible alternate goal will not have resources available to pursue new and clever means to the focal goal, and at best will need to rely on either existing means already associated with that goal or on readily accessible means that come to mind quickly (such as those suggested by someone else, even if they are not very good means to the desired end). To examine this question, Shah and Kruglanski (2002) provided participants with a means to an end, giving them a strategy by which to pursue the focal goal (anagram solving). The problem was that it was not a very good strategy, but one shown to have no eVect on anagram solving abilities. They predicted that people primed with an alternate goal (a box-use task) perceived to be incompatible with the focal goal would fall-back on this readily accessible strategy and use it to help perform the focal task, and thus be unable to generate eVective strategies. In contrast, people who saw the two goal-tasks as compatible would not be limited in this way. While working on the anagram task, some participants were subliminally primed with the alternate goal (whereas other participants were subliminally presented with control phrase ‘‘view it’’). The findings revealed the influence of the prime depended on whether participants saw the mental tasks as compatible. The influence of priming the alternate goal on anagram performance was greatest when people saw the alternate goal as incompatible – fewer anagrams were solved. Additionally, the same interaction pattern emerged when examining people’s likelihood of using the provided means. Relying on this strategy (the provided means) was greatest when the alternate goal was primed and people saw the two tasks as being incompatible.

D. GOAL SHIELDING The research on alternate goals by Shah and Kruglanski (2002) suggested that the accessibility of alternative goals interacts with the compatibility of that goal with a focal goal, and either pulls resources away from or mobilizes them toward a focal goal. This occurred when people had no conscious awareness of the triggering of the alternative goal and suggests that the ‘‘pull’’ from an alternate goal away from a focal goal is a relatively automatized eVect. These findings might seem to contradict those of Bargh et al. (2001), in which, when an alternate goal presented itself, research participants did not waiver from the focal goal (despite the alternate goal being more attractive). Why would the triggering of a goal that is not particularly attractive and that had already been disrupted prevent people from simply switching goals when an attractive, alternate goal presented itself?

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1. Goal Inhibition Shah and Kruglanski (2002) oVer one suggestion—people may automate goal shielding responses. That is, one may automatize the inhibition of alternative goals when a focal goal is being pursued, especially if the focal goal has been bolstered by an implicit prime. Perhaps inhibition of incompatible goal responses is spread through the associative network to shield a focal goal from distracting influences and the intrusion of other goals. This process could work in two directions such that (1) temptations to a focal goal might increase the accessibility of the focal goal, thus counteracting the pull from the temptation, or (2) the focal goal once triggered might inhibit incompatible goals, making them less accessible and less likely to disrupt goal pursuit. In essence, one can shield a goal by a process in which cues from the environment ultimately increase the strength of the focal goal or by a process in which the activated focal goal inhibits the strength of competing goals. This set of aVairs is depicted in Fig. 6, where both a focal goal (Goal 1) and an alternate goal (Goal X) are primed, and the two are incompatible with one another: pursuit of the focal goal would be undermined by the simultaneous pursuit of the alternate goal. Under such circumstances the alternate goal is inhibited by activation of the focal goal while there is heightened sensitivity to cues and behaviors routes relevant to the focal goal. Fishbach, Friedman, and Kruglanski (2003) proposed that both facilitative and inhibitory associations may exist among goals such that a focal goal may either promote or inhibit the activation of other related goals. For example, when confronted with temptation, as a way of strategic self-regulation people may activate a focal goal to override the temptation. People know that constantly eating chocolate cake would be bad for them, but if they work in an environment like that at the Lehigh University psychology department, they are constantly exposed to such treats (such is the danger of having people who bake linked to the department). To regulate behavior people may develop a strategy for resisting temptations each time exposure to a tempting item occurs. Over time this self-regulation experience should create associations between temptations and overriding goals such that the presence of the temptation comes to facilitate not the pursuit of the behaviors relevant to the temptation (e.g., eating chocolate cake) but the triggering of focal goals that will help one resist the temptation (e.g., eating carrots, or not eating at all, but reading). In this instance, the presence of cues relating to one goal does not trigger that goal, but actually triggers goals that are incompatible with the goal immediately linked to the cue. Ultimately we are shielding one goal by developing a goal system in which cues to incompatible goals trigger the goal we desire to shield, allowing it to become

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Shielding a goal criterion by the inhibition of an incompatible goal.

accessible, rather than the alternate goal that is linked immediately and directly to the temptation. In one experiment Fishbach et al. (2003) found that both a temptation (delicious but fattening foods) and a focal goal (dieting) triggered the goal of being health conscious in one’s eating behavior. Some participants were primed with a temptation by having them work in a room with magazines and photographs depicting fattening food. Other participants were primed with the goal of dieting by having them work in a room with magazines and photographs about weight watching. Finally, a group of control participants were in a room with magazines and pictures irrelevant to the temptation to eat sweets or the goal of dieting. As a dependent variable the participants were asked to choose between a chocolate bar and an apple as a departure

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gift for having participated in the experiment. Both the food-primed and diet-primed participants were more likely than control participants to choose the apple rather than chocolate. To examine whether the link from a cue related to a temptation implicitly and automatically triggered the activation of goals to override the temptation, Fishbach et al. (2003) performed an experiment relying on a lexical decision task as a dependent measure. Participants first generated goals that they wanted to pursue. Then they generated temptations they must avoid to achieve the goals. This resulted in pairs of goal–temptation for each participant (e.g. study–play basketball). Using a serial priming technique, they first primed words related to either a temptation or a goal the subject had just listed. Then participants performed a lexical decision task in which the words were related to goals or temptations. When primed with temptation, lexical decision responses were faster on words associated with the goal relevant to the temptation relative to irrelevant goals. When primed with a goal, lexical decision responses to words relevant to the temptation were not faster relative to those irrelevant to the temptation. Thus, temptations seemed to prime goals with which the temptation was incompatible, whereas those goals did not prime the temptation. This pattern persisted even when participants (in a second experiment) were placed under a condition of cognitive load, suggesting to Fishbach et al. that the link from the temptation to the goal with which it is incompatible is automatic. This type of association between a goal and a cue linked to a response incompatible with that goal (leading it to trigger the goal rather than the incompatible response to which it is more typically linked) was also illustrated by Moskowitz, Salomon, and Taylor (2000; see also Moskowitz, Li, & Kirk, 2004). Moskowitz et al. (2000; 2004) examined people who had egalitarian goals accessible and argued that stereotyping was a response incompatible with the goal. They predicted that the presence of stereotyperelevant cues (faces of people from a stereotyped group) would increase the accessibility of their egalitarian goals (similar to a temptation triggering the focal goal incompatible with the temptation). Participants were exposed to faces of African-American and white men as a so-called distraction in a lexical decision task. When the words in the lexical decision task were relevant to the stereotype of African-Americans, participants with accessible egalitarian goals showed no evidence of stereotypes being triggered by these cues with which they are usually associated (whereas activation did occur for control participants). However, these cues now were triggering the goal to be egalitarian, as reaction times to words relevant to the goal were facilitated when preceded by faces of African-American men (whereas facilitation did not occur for control participants). The goal was being triggered by cues typically associated with a response antagonistic to the goal.

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We have now seen one way in which goal shielding may occur: cues representing a temptation away from a focal goal (or a response antagonistic to a focal goal) can trigger the focal goal, whereas the focal goal does not trigger the temptation (or the antagonistic goal). This prevents distracting goals from being triggered (even by their own cues) and keeps the mental representation of the desired goal activated (even being triggered by cues one might label as incompatible with the goal). However, this does not mean that an association between the focal goal and the temptation/antagonistic response is not being used when the focal goal is primed. It is possible that rather than spreading activation from the focal goal, the desire to suppress competing goal constructs might lead to spreading inhibition occurring, with the temptation actually having a decreased likelihood of being triggered (thus shielding the goal pursuit by decreasing the opportunities for its competitors to be triggered). It is known that single instances of adopting a goal to avoid something (such as a temptation) lead to the hyperactivation of the to be avoided construct rather than its inhibition (Wegner, 1994). Thus, adopting the goal to suppress thoughts about chocolate cake might lead the person with the focal goal of dieting to paradoxically think about cake even more. However, if the goal to suppress a particular response was automatically associated with the item to be suppressed, then the presence of the temptation might, as we have seen, trigger the focal goal. In this way, chocolate cake that one deliberately tried to avoid might dominate one’s thoughts, whereas chocolate cake that one did not consciously resist, but automatically shielded from impacting goal pursuit, could be less accessible in the mind (even inhibited). Additionally, if the focal goal itself was primed, this accessibility might successfully allow one to suppress or inhibit the unwanted response. Such spreading inhibition from an activated goal was evidenced by Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel, and Schaal (1999). They posited that if people with accessible egalitarian goals are implicitly inhibiting incompatible responses, it is likely that the presence of stereotype-relevant cues (cues incompatible with the focal goal) (1) activates egalitarian goals and (2) inhibits the activation of responses incompatible with the focal goal. Moskowitz et al. (1999) found that stereotype activation (a response incompatible with an egalitarian goal) may be inhibited by the presence of a stereotype-relevant cue (such as a member of the stereotyped group) if the goal to be egalitarian is accessible when that cue is encountered. In a negative priming task (where the stereotypic prime was to be ignored rather than attended to), Moskowitz et al. (1999) exposed male participants with accessible egalitarian goals to faces of women (a stereotyped group) just prior to performing a lexical decision task. The words included in the lexical decision task were either relevant to the stereotype of women or control words, and followed the faces immediately. The duration from the appearance of the stimulus/cue (face)

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to the person’s response was fast enough to preclude the possibility that people’s responses were being consciously controlled. They found evidence for implicit inhibition of the stereotype for people with egalitarian goals if (and only if) a stereotype-relevant cue had been presented. Seeing faces of women led people with accessible egalitarian goals to inhibit the activation of the stereotype of women, as evidenced by slower responses to stereotype-relevant words on the lexical decision task relative to control words (and relative to when stereotypic words were preceded by faces of men). Thus, the accessible focal goal leads to inhibition of responses incompatible with the focal goal when cues relevant to that incompatible response are encountered. This finding illustrates automatic goal shielding in the important domain of stereotype control. However, this work did not focus on the association between competing goals, but with a focal goal (being egalitarian) and with cognitive responses incompatible with the goal (stereotyping). If goals are connected through an associative network, then goal shielding should also occur through the implicit priming of one goal leading to the inhibition of its competing goals (see Fig. 6). It is this inhibitory link between two goals that was the focus of the research of Shah, Friedman, and Kruglanski (2002). 2. Goal Facilitation Whereas goal shielding may involve the inhibition of incompatible goals and responses, it should also include the facilitation of goals and concepts compatible with goal pursuit. This would promote goal pursuit by keeping the individual on track and heightening sensitivity to opportunities and stimuli relevant to his or her goal. For example, a given cue, or a given behavior that serves as a means by which a desired end (a goal) can be achieved, can be associated with more than one goal. Kruglanski et al. (2002) labeled this state of aVairs as multifinality. When these goals are compatible with one another, then rather than inhibiting the alternate goal, goal shielding would be evidenced by a facilitation of the alternate goal. That is, a means that can address more than one goal may allow the individual to ‘‘kill two birds with one stone.’’ As depicted in Fig. 7, a cue that is associated with multiple goals can trigger each of these goals (and each goal once triggered may itself trigger related goals), and if these goals are compatible with one another, they will facilitate processing of goal-relevant stimuli. 3. Moderators of Goal Shielding In exploring the issue of how we manage to remain single-minded in our goal pursuits, Shah et al. (2002) focus on whether self-regulatory success lies in the cognitive inhibition of alternative goals that compete for one’s

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Shielding a goal criterion by the facilitation of a compatible goal.

attentional resources. They assume that intergoal inhibition is overlearned to the point of being applied automatically. Yet, despite being automatic, inhibition is not presumed to be applied indiscriminately and without regard to various internal and external cues. For example, the degree of commitment to the goal is important in that the greater the commitment, the stronger the inhibition of alternative goals. Additionally, the relation between the goals is an important determinant of goal shielding (some goals are facilitative of other goals, whereas others are incompatible). In a first experiment examining whether goal commitment spontaneously inhibits the accessibility of alternative goals, Shah et al. (2002) had research participants first describe a current goal to which they were either strongly or weakly committed. They then were asked to rate the importance of

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attaining the attribute, the diYculty of its attainment, the time they spent pursuing the attribute over the last month, and the progress they had made in that time. Participants were then asked to list other attributes that they were currently trying to possess and were also asked to rate importance. Finally, they were asked to list the activities (means) they could perform to attain the attribute they initially listed. The findings revealed that the lowcommitment group listed significantly more alternative goals than the high-commitment group. The listing of attainment means yielded the exact opposite pattern, where the high-commitment group listed significantly more means than the low-commitment group. It was assumed that this provided evidence that focusing on more highly committed goals caused other alternative goals to be inhibited while more strongly triggering the means to the focal goal. In a second experiment Shah et al. (2002) subliminally primed a focal goal construct and used implicit measures to assess the activation level of alternative goal constructs. Participants were asked to provide one-word attributes that they wanted to possess (e.g., intelligent, happy). Goal commitment was assessed by participants indicating how important it was to them to possess the attributes listed. They then performed a reaction time task that required them to determine whether a target word represented a personal attribute or not. These target words were preceded by subliminal primes that included the goals the participant had listed. This allowed for a determination of how presenting participants with one of the attribute goals as a prime aVected the accessibility of the remaining two. There was a significant inhibitory eVect for each of the participants’ attribute goal primes: the participants were significantly slower in recognizing their goals when first primed with another of their goals than when first primed with a control word. Regression analyses revealed that participants’ commitment to each of their three goals was positively related to the degree to which each of these goals inhibited the other two goals. However, these eVects are moderated by perceived inter-goal facilitation, as inhibition increased when an alternative goal was not seen as aiding attainment of the focal goal. One could argue that by asking people to generate goals and then priming people with those goals that this research was examining the triggering of chronic goals, rather than momentary goals. Although this is not a criticism of the research itself and its ability to illustrate goal shielding via the connection in an associative network between goals (even between incompatible goal concepts), perhaps it does not yet address the concern of this review with goals that are not chronically accessible. The linking of these issues of goal shielding to momentary goals was established by Shah et al. (2002) in experiment 6 of their series of experiments. Participants were told that they would be performing an anagram task designed to measure verbal

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fluency (and to indicate how committed they were to doing well on the anagram task). They were also informed that they would perform an object-use task to assess their analytical reasoning. To measure the degree to which participants were focusing on the anagram goal and inhibiting the object-use task, they had participants perform a lexical decision task under the guise that it was important to determine how quickly words were recognized. Target words in the lexical decision task were relevant to either the focal goal (e.g., verbal), the alternative goal (e.g., analytical), or neither goal (e.g., finger). After the lexical decision task, the participants performed the anagram task. The results revealed that an individual’s level of commitment to the focal goal predicted inhibition of the alternative goal and accessibility of the focal goal. Accessibility of the alternative goal was significantly and negatively related to task performance and persistence on the focal goal. Goal commitment was not related to accessibility of the control words. The results demonstrated that inter-goal inhibition can occur outside an individual’s conscious awareness, even for goals that are temporarily adopted and not the beneficiaries of habit, routine, and chronicity. Goal shielding allows for the activation of goal-relevant concepts while inhibiting the activation of incompatible alternate goals. 4. Classic Studies Demonstrating Inhibition of Competing Goals Inhibition among competing constructs is not a novel idea. For example, cognitive psychologists introduced notions of spreading inhibition and negative priming that occur when people explicitly try to ignore an object (e.g., Fox, 1995; Tipper, 1985). Much earlier, and in a more related content domain, Bruner (1957) invoked the idea of inhibition among incompatible constructs to explain perceptual defense. In perceptual defense, information that is antagonistic with one’s chronically accessible needs was said to be preconsciously avoided, making that information less likely to enter consciousness. Bruner’s (1957, p. 145) explanation was that: . . . failure to perceive is most often not a lack of perceiving but a matter of interference with perceiving. Whence the interference? I would propose that the interference comes from categorizations in highly accessible categories that serve to block alternative categorizations in less accessible categories. As a highly speculative suggestion, the mechanism that seems most likely to mediate such interference is probably the broadening of category acceptance limits when a high state readiness to perceive prevails . . . the range of inputs that will produce a match signal for a category increases in such a way that more accessible categories are likely to ‘‘capture’’ poor-fitting sensory inputs.

In fact, even the ability for temporary goals to disrupt incompatible and implicit responses was empirically demonstrated long ago. Stroop (1935)

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had participants in one experiment repeatedly perform a color-naming task over a period of several weeks. Words were presented in colored inks, and participants had to name the color of the ink. The words were at times incompatible with the goal because they named colors diVerent from the ink color that needed to be spoken aloud (e.g., the word blue written in red ink). Stroop found that word meaning not only interfered with color-naming, but that the goal of color-naming eventually came to interfere with the ability to name words. Spontaneously learning to attend to ink color (routinizing this goal) created an interference not from the fairly automatic process of processing semantic content to the fairly eVortful goal of colornaming, but from the now implicitly functioning goal of color-naming to the implicit process of detecting semantic meaning. Logan (1980) provided similar data. The goal to name the color of the ink gained dominance over the goal to extract semantic meaning from the letter string when one had suYcient practice with the task and the goal. Given the association between a specific goal (color naming) and a specific stimulus (letter strings), the goal can come to operate automatically. In this case the support for the automaticity of the process arises from the fact that it occurs in the presence of an habitual, antagonistic response. Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland (1990) used computer modeling to provide a Connectionist account of how implicitly triggered temporary goals may lead to inhibition in the ‘‘Stroop eVect.’’ In Connectionist models, processing is assumed to take place in a system of interconnected modules, with each module containing processing units that receive inputs from other units and adjusts the output signals it transmits accordingly. Because modules receive and send input, control can occur when the processing along one pathway and the processing along a second pathway intersect—they share a module. If the processing along these two pathways conflicts, the module can control processing along the pathways by ‘‘altering the responsiveness of the processing units in a pathway.’’ Thus, goals can have preconscious eVects if they serve to alter the spread of activation along pathways, increasing the signal along one pathway and inhibiting the propagation of signals across the other. For example, the Stroop eVect is a case of word naming and color naming as processing pathways that share a module. Because experience has trained the individual to respond to letter strings as written words, the connection weights in this pathway are stronger than in a pathway for colornaming. When the system receives the conflicting inputs from the tasks (color naming and word reading), the response to the word meaning occurs more quickly. This means the semantic component of the stimulus, not its color, dictates the response. If given an explicit task demand (a goal) of naming color, interference should occur when generating an appropriate response (colornaming) due to the more dominant signal emanating from

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the same module along the word pathway. The task can be performed successfully despite the interference due to the task demand (goal) modulating the more dominant pathway. But it causes a slowdown in responding that indicates the presence and activation of the more dominant path, a slowdown known as the Stroop eVect. The models show that control over this eVect can occur if goals alter the connection weights so that the word pathway is no longer the one more quickly activated. Thus, the notion of inhibition emanating from a triggered goal has been examined in both cognitive (e.g., Cohen et al., 1990; Logan, 1980; Stroop, 1935; Tipper, 1985) and social psychology (e.g., Bruner, 1957). The research reviewed above (e.g., Fishbach et al, 2003; Moskowitz et al., 1999; 2003; Shah et al., 2002) illustrates that goals are mental representations that can be implicitly triggered by relevant cues in the environment and that once triggered these goals are connected to other mentally represented concepts and goals that are then, if incompatible with the focal goal, inhibited. This can shield the goal from being interfered with, and can occur even in the absence of the goal being chronically accessible, or in the absence of repeated practice at inhibiting the alternate goal when the focal goal is triggered. This allows for control over unwanted goals, habits, and cognition when one’s temporarily adopted goals are activated, thus promoting goal attainment (a result that paradoxically may not occur when one tries to consciously inhibit or suppress those responses; e.g., Wegner, 1994).

E. IMPLICIT PRIMING FROM GOAL-RELEVANT CUES IN THE ENVIRONMENT Where do one’s current concerns and goal pursuits come from? Given the multitude of goals an individual could pursue at any moment in time, what factors determine whether one goal (versus others) will be momentarily pursued? This is typically defined as a problem of goal selection (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1982; Gollwitzer 1990; 1993), and it is typically a process associated with deliberation between possible alternatives in conjunction with the opportunities aVorded by the situation (e.g., Lewin, 1936; McArthur and Baron, 1983). However, goals, as mental representations, can also be implicitly primed. We have been reviewing research where the priming of goals arises from an experimenter subliminally flashing goal-relevant words, or embedding concepts relating to the goal in information that participants are asked to read. But how do the mental representations that contain goals get triggered in the course of everyday life?

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1. Enacting the Means Triggers the Goal The implicit priming of goals can be evidenced by examining the heightened accessibility of the various components of the mental representation given the presence of a goal-relevant cue. As Tolman (1932) suggested, this can include the behavior routes that lead to the goal, or the means to an end. Suggestive evidence in support of the idea that a means to goal pursuit can trigger the goal first appeared in research examining the automatic activation of evaluation/attitudes (e.g., Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, & Pratto, 1992; Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986). Cacioppo, Gardner, and Berntson (1997) suggested that automatic attitude activation exists to provide fast feedback about the aVective nature of a stimulus. This is a functional account of automatic attitude activation, where such responses are said to occur for the purpose of preparing the organism to approach or avoid a stimulus that is either desired or undesired. If this functional account is accurate, then the implicit triggering of approach and avoidance goals should facilitate implicit responses associated with those goals, such as automatic evaluation. Positive stimuli should be detected faster and the aVect associated with them triggered more quickly when an approach goal is triggered (the same being true for negative stimuli and avoidance goals). How can approach and avoidance goals be implicitly triggered? An interesting series of studies has suggested that this can be accomplished through having people enact the means (behavior routes) to these goals. Cacioppo, Priester, and Berntson (1993) used arm flexion (pulling the arm toward the self ) versus arm extension (pushing the arm away from the self) as behavioral means associated with approach and avoidance motives, respectively. Research participants were asked to evaluate ambiguous objects while their arms were either flexed or extended. These neutral objects were shown to be evaluated more positively during arm flexion (for a conceptual replication using reaction time measures, see Chen & Bargh, 1999, Experiment 1). Thus, this research provides evidence for the means associated with approach and avoidance to seemingly trigger those goals. Of course, although participants were not aware of the link between their arm movements and their goals, or between their goals and their evaluations, they were certainly aware that they were making an evaluation, as they were explicitly asked to do so. Thus, it is possible that explicitly having the goal to evaluate is required for the implicit goals of approach and avoidance to be triggered. Chen and Bargh (1999) address this issue more directly by borrowing a paradigm from Solarz (1960). Chen and Bargh (Experiment 2) asked participants to move a lever when a word appeared, with the direction of the lever movement (arm flexion versus extension) manipulated. The words were either positive or negative in valence, although participants were

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not asked to attend to this feature of the stimulus. They were simply asked to use the appearance of the word as a cue to move their arm in the already specified way (flexion or extension). When asked to flex the arm, responses were faster when the words were positive than negative. When asked to move the lever through arm extension, responses were faster when words were negative in valence. Such findings suggest the valence inherent in an object is automatically activated, and that this activation is compatible with the appropriate corresponding goal of approach or avoidance. Although such compatibility is not direct evidence that a goal is automatically linked to an evaluation, it provides compelling evidence for the existence of a link between evaluation and approach-avoidance goals. And it provides compelling evidence for the possibility that these goals can be implicitly triggered through simple acts typically used as the means by which the goal is attained, even when it is not obvious that those acts are currently being used in the service of those goals. One would be hard-pressed to argue that participants consciously associate arm flexion or extension with goals, yet approach and avoidance goals are triggered by these means. Further evidence in support of the idea that flexion and extension movements will implicitly prime approach and avoidance goals is provided by Friedman and Fo¨rster (2000). They posit that avoidance goals are typically associated with situations that are problematic for the organism and require certain rectifying actions, whereas approach goals indicate a benign situation in which searching and exploratory responses are allowed. Thus, because these diVerent motor actions and the corresponding goals they trigger are associated with diVerent states of being, they are each linked to information processing styles suitable for the requirements of benign versus problematic situations. Flexor contraction, if triggering approach goals, should induce a heuristic information processing style, as well as more ‘‘risky’’ and exploratory responses. This risky style facilitates cognitive processes related to creativity such as breaking the situation-induced mindset and cognitive restructuring. On the other hand, extensor contraction induces avoidance goals and a more conservative, analytic, or detail-oriented processing style. This conservative style promotes perseverant and repetitive processing of currently available options, and impairs generation of novel alternatives (presumably because untested novel responses could make an already problematic situation even worse). Friedman and Fo¨rster (2000) investigated how flexor and extensor muscle contraction triggers approach and avoidance goals, as evidenced by the influence of the enacted means to these goals on three well-established cognitive components of creativity (i.e., breaking a context-induced mental set, cognitive restructuring, and extensive and unconscious mental search). In all experiments the approach and avoidance actions were induced by

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flexor versus extensor contraction (pressing a palm either upward or downward on a surface). For example, in one experiment, participants’ ability to break ‘‘context-induced mental set’’ was measured with the Embedded Figure Task (Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp, 1971). In this task, participants receive complex figures. After the presentation of each, the participant receives a simple figure as the target and must find where this target is embedded in the complex figure, presumably requiring breaking the misleading interpretations (mental sets) induced by the initial inspection of the complex figure. Arm flexion participants outperformed extension participants. Approach goals triggered by flexor actions were more conducive to breaking context-induced mental sets. Other experiments used a Completion Task (Ekstrom, French, Harman, & Dermen, 1976) as a measure of restructuring. The task required participants to recognize fragmented images of familiar objects and name the object from the fragments, accomplishing a ‘‘gestalt closure’’ by shifting perspective and recoding the fragments. Again, flexion participants named a larger number of objects on the basis of the fragmented images. Friedman and Fo¨rster (2002) provided further support for the idea that flexor and extensor muscle contraction triggers approach and avoidance using creativity as a dependent measure. Specifically participants were required to solve word problems that measure creative thinking. For example, in one problem a coin dealer is approached by a person who wants to sell a rare coin that bears the emperor’s head on one side and the mark ‘‘550 bc’’ on the other. Instead of buying the coin, the dealer reported the seller to law enforcement authorities. The participants’ goal was to figure out why the coin was a fake. Similar to the previous studies, it was found that participants who engaged in arm flexion solved more word problems than those engaged in extension. Finally, Fo¨rster (2003) demonstrated that approach versus avoidance can also influence behavior, in this case food intake. Participants in whom the approach action was induced by assuming the flexor contraction position (pressing upward on a surface) consumed more cookies than participants made to assume an avoidance posture (an extensor contraction position assumed by pressing downward on the surface). 2. Priming the Means Triggers the Goal Enacting the means can prime the goal, but so too should the implicit priming of a means. Although not all individuals will have the same responses associated with a goal, some subset of people who have similar experiences in goal pursuit should have those experiences included as part of the mental representation of the goal. Thus, people who have pursued similar means to

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an end should have those means triggered when pursuit of the end is triggered. As an example, all people should be able to adopt the goal of riding a bicycle to work, but only experienced commuters by bike will have come to associate specific types of means (behavior routes) with this goal. Such individuals will not merely have the goal made accessible, but as part of the mental representation of the goal, the triggering of the goal will spread to its constituent components. Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2000) reasoned that some individuals have habitualized behavioral responses associated with their goals, and for these individuals the priming of the goal should implicitly trigger associated behaviors/means. Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2000) identified a list of locations suitable and unsuitable for using a bicycle as a means of transportation and for other means of transportation (i.e., walk, bus, and train). Research participants then performed a task in which travel goals were implicitly primed, and the accessibility of the means to the goal (suitable and unsuitable locations for goal pursuit) was subsequently assessed in an ostensibly unrelated task. To prime the goal (e.g., bicycle riding) half of the participants read sentences describing various travel goals, under the deceptive instruction that they were participating in a communication and language study. The other half of the participants did not read the sentences and went to the second task directly. The participants were told that it was an association task allegedly designed to study relations between all sorts of locations and travel behavior and that diVerent location words would appear briefly on the screen followed by a mode of transport. Their task was to indicate, as quickly and as accurately as possible, whether the presented mode would constitute a realistic means of transport for the location. Finally, participants were asked to estimate their frequency of bicycle use in the recent past for diVerent trips (to obtain information on whether they had formed habitual links between the means and the end). They found that in the ‘‘no goal’’ prime condition, habitual participants’ response latencies did not diVer from those of nonhabitual participants. However, habitual participants’ response latencies were significantly faster than responses of nonhabitual participants in the goal-priming condition. Habitual participants responded faster to locations suitable for bicycle riding after being primed with travel goals related to bicycle riding. Kruglanski et al. (2002) point out that while means are triggered by goals, often many means are associated with a given goal, a state of aVairs known as equifinality. Thus, each of the equifinal means should be triggered by the goal being primed, as each are a suitable means for goal attainment (and should be substitutable for each other as a form of goal pursuit, e.g., Mahler, 1933). However, equifinality is subject to the constraint that the set of means associated with a goal (the equifinality set) can vary from context to context such that a means associated with a goal in one context may no longer be

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associated with that goal in another (Kruglanski et al., 2002). It is also possible that the utility of a given means changes from context to context such that a given means may be the preferred route to goal pursuit in one context, but an alternate means is preferred in a diVerent context (given that each means is associated with the goal in each context; all that changes is the utility associated with the mean). Thus, the substitutability of means is context dependent. Supplementing research showing that goals (ends) activate goal-relevant actions (means/behavior routes), Shah and Kruglanski (2003) have recently demonstrated that representations of goals are activated by implicit perception of the means used for achieving it. That is, if the goal can trigger the means, the means should be able to trigger the goal. In Experiment 1, they measured the speed of responses to words related to education and health goals (e.g., ‘‘educated’’ and ‘‘knowledgeable’’; ‘‘strong’’ and ‘‘fit’’) following subliminal priming of words representing the means for achieving each of these goals (e.g., ‘‘study,’’ ‘‘read,’’ ‘‘exercise,’’ and ‘‘run’’). Following each prime, participants had to decide whether a target word represented a characteristic or trait as fast and accurately as possible. Participants’ responses to target words representing the education and fitness goals were faster following primes representing a means correspondent for achieving the goal than following a control word. In Experiment 2, the means for achieving a goal was provided by the experimenter. Participants solved anagrams, a task allegedly related to reading and writing skills, for which they were provided a strategy. During ‘‘practice’’ trials, half of the participants were subliminally primed with the word string representing the strategy (i.e., ‘‘first-last’’) before each anagram, whereas the other participants were primed with a control word. After the practice trials on the anagram, participants received a lexical decision task for the purpose of measuring the accessibility of the goal. The lexical decision task included words related to the goal: ‘‘anagram,’’ ‘‘reading,’’ and ‘‘writing.’’ After the lexical decision task participants performed the formal trials of the anagram-solving task on computers, which recorded their perseverance and performance on each trial. Goal accessibility was greater among participants who had been primed with the corresponding means, as measured by their faster lexical decision response to words representing the goals, than participants primed with a control word. Moreover, participants primed with the corresponding means were more perseverant and performed better on the anagram task. 3. People as Cues to a Goal One type of cue in the environment that can trigger goals is the people we observe. Even strangers can serve to trigger goal concepts that are linked to the actions of those strangers. For example, Hafer (2000) proposed that

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people possess a goal to believe that the world is just (Lerner, 1980), and this belief is triggered by cues in the environment that suggest that injustice is prevalent. Such cues include the innocent suVering of others, with certain types of victims posing a more potent threat to one’s sense of justice than others (e.g., victims who are innocent are threatening; victims whose attackers go unpunished are threatening). For example, participants were exposed to a videotaped news story of an innocent victim of assault and robbery. Threat to the belief in a just world was manipulated by whether those responsible for the victimization were punished. Participants then performed a modified Stroop task in which they were presented with justice-related and neutral words. If just-world goals are triggered by a victim’s suVering, with the goal being more potent when the criminal goes unpunished, then color identification latencies should be greater for justice-related words than neutral words, especially when the person responsible for the victimization is unpunished. As predicted, color identification latencies were greater for justice-related words than for neutral words, and this trend occurred primarily when there was no retribution for the oVense. Aarts, Gollwitzer, and Hassin (in press) argued that the priming of a goal can be ‘‘caught’’ from other people. Goals are described as contagious in that seeing someone else performing goal-relevant behavior can prime that goal in the perceiver. This can occur without the perceiver being aware that a goal-relevant behavior has even been observed in the other person, let alone triggered in oneself. This process of implicitly adopting the goals that others are pursuing is called goal contagion. A goal activated through contagion should have the properties found in any implicitly activated concept—it can influence behavior without the perceivers awareness of this influence. However, perceiving a goal-directed behavior in another person is not proposed to always lead to the perceiver adopting that goal. Aarts et al. propose the perceiver must first value the goal before it will be caught from others and implicitly aVect one’s chosen course of action. Aarts et al. had research participants read a script describing the behavior of a person who went to work on a farm. Half of the participants were told the person was going to do volunteer work, whereas the other half of participants were told the person was working for money to pay for a vacation. Next, a message appeared on the computer screen telling participants that another task would follow and that following that task, if time permitted, they could perform yet another task to earn cash. The question of interest was whether the participants who had read about someone with the goal of making money would now adopt this goal and then have it influence their behavior. In this case the behavior would be to try to work through the second task incredibly quickly to ensure there would be time for the money-making task.

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They further predicted that the extent to which people value the goal would moderate the eVect. Although all students like money, some need it more than others. Therefore, they predicted that the speed with which people found their way to the final task (the cash-earning task) would be moderated not only by the goals implied in the behavior of the person they read about, but the financial status of the participant. People short on cash should be more susceptible to catching the goal (they have a reduced immune system). Results supported the hypotheses. Participants who read about someone with the implied goal of making money were faster working their way through the experiment when they had a high need for money, but not when they had a low need. Goals are primed by observing those goals in others. However, one need not fear mimicking the behavior of others who behave in nonnormative and maladaptive ways. We are inclined only to experience goal contagion to those goals we already value. 4. Relationship-Partner Priming If strangers can cue goals, certainly significant others should also have this power. Goals often may originate from external pressures on us by significant others (such as parents and friends) until gradually we come to internalize their goals for us. Thus, the representations of particular interpersonal relationships (mother, best friend, coworker) include the specific interpersonal goals relevant to that relationship (achievement, helping, understanding). The interpersonal goal may be unconsciously activated by the relationship partner associated with those goals. Either the presence of that person, or thoughts of the partner (without the partner’s physical presence), can prime the goals associated with that person. Fitzsimons and Bargh (2003) illustrated the power of relationship partners to prime the specific goals linked with them. One experiment took place in an airport. Participants were approached and given a questionnaire meant to prime a relationship and the interpersonal goals associated with it. Specifically, the participants were asked to think about either a friend or a coworker, with friends predicted to activate a helping goal (whereas thinking about a coworker would not). Then participants were asked a series of questions about their willingness to help by taking part in further studies both at the airport in the future and their willingness to do another 10- to 15-minute study immediately. Participants in the friend-priming condition indicated a higher level of hypothetical willingness to take part in a future study and being willing to oblige the experimenter’s request for taking part in a further study immediately. Is this increased willingness to help linked to a helping goal being triggered by the relationship partner? Fitzsimons and Bargh (2003) illustrated this by showing that priming the relationship partner (in this case one’s mother)

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activates the goal associated with that person (e.g., achievement). If priming the participant’s mother activates the relationship-relevant goal representation (i.e., achievement), then the participant should subsequently view a set of behavior ambiguously relevant to achievement as more achievementoriented than a participant who has been primed with a diVerent relationship partner (e.g., a friend). At the priming stage, the participants were asked to visualize the image of either their best friend or their mother and write about the appearance of these partners in a couple of lines. In the target perception stage, participants read a vignette about a college student whose behavior was ambiguously related to being successful at school, and rated the extent that they believe the target person was motivated to be successful at school. Participants primed with their mother saw the target person as more motivated to succeed than those primed with their best friend. To further illustrate the implicit nature of the association between relationship partners and goals, a third experiment primed participants subliminally with the name of their best friend, whereas others (the control group) were primed with the name of another participant’s best friend. Further, goals associated with the best friend were assessed, and participants were classified as either having or not having the goal to understand the reason behind their friend’s behavior. After the priming stage, participants read the description of behavior of a stranger and generated plausible causes for this person’s behavior. Although participants by default make internal attributions to others’ behavior, they tend to take situational causes into consideration when thinking about the behavior of the self and close friends. Therefore participants primed with their best friend made less internal attribution for the target person’s behavior than control participants. Moreover, those participants who were classified as possessing the goal of figuring out the reason behind their friend’s behavior made the least internal attribution. Shah (2003) explored how mental representations of significant others, through their associative links to various goals, may implicitly influence goal accessibility, goal commitment, and goal pursuit. It is posited that not only would cues associated with significant others lead us to pursue the goals defined by our relationships with those others, but they might prevent us from pursuing goals if those goals are ones deemed unworthy by significant others. A first experiment involved asking research participants to provide the first name of their mother and the first (diVerent) name of a close friend. Participants were then asked to provide an attribute that represented separate goals that their mother and friend had for them. They were then primed with either the name of their mother, the name of their friend, or a control word. Finally, participants indicated how committed they were in the upcoming week to attaining the attributes they had listed previously and how frequently they would try to fulfill the goal. When participants were primed

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with the name of their friend compared to the control prime and mother prime, the intention to pursue the goal associated with the friend was heightened. Additionally, regression analyses revealed that participants’ commitment to a goal was significantly greater when they were primed with their mother versus a friend or a control word (apparently because mothers have higher standards, or are perceived to have higher standards, for us). Priming of relationship partners appeared to be triggering goals associated with the partners and impacting on one’s expressed commitment to the specific goal and the intention to pursue that goal. Shah (2003) further examined whether close others may have an inhibitory eVect on goal accessibility, goal commitment, and goal pursuit when those others do not endorse the goal that is being pursued. Research participants were asked to complete an anagram task that was described as an indicator of verbal fluency. Before completing the task, participants were primed with either the name of a significant other who would most want them to have verbal fluency as an ability, someone who would least want them to have this ability, or a non-word control. The priming manipulation was followed by a lexical decision task designed to test accessibility. Performance and persistence on the anagram task assessed goal pursuit. The results indicated that participants’ representations of significant others aVect their motivation by automatically increasing or decreasing goal accessibility, goal commitment, and goal pursuit. These eVects were moderated by participants’ relationship with the significant other such that the closer the relationship, the more likely goal commitment, goal accessibility and goal pursuit were aVected in the direction congruent with the others’ intentions for that person. In other words, when the significant other valued the goal, there was an increase in goal accessibility, commitment, and pursuit, whereas the opposite was true when the significant other saw no value in the goal. A subsequent experiment found that this eVect was significantly weakened by increases in the number of goals the significant other had on them. The greater the number of goals associated with a significant other, the less likely he or she will automatically prime any particular goal. Of course, significant relationship partners are not limited to humans. Many people have pets with whom they hold significant relationships, and diVerent types of pets may be linked with diVerent types of goals. A cat is less likely to be associated with goals relating to loyalty than a dog, whereas a dog is less likely to be associated with the goal of being independent and aloof relative to a dog. Fitzsimons, Chartrand, and Fitzsimons (2003) have recently illustrated how images of cats and dogs can prime the anthropomorphic representation of these two animals, and these mental representations include the personality traits associated with each animal and the goals linked to each type of pet. After viewing images of either one type of pet or

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control images, participants read scenarios about an interpersonal situation involving a same-sex friend. They were asked to rate the degree to which they agreed with statements about what they would do in each of the situations. This provided a measure of the participants’ loyalty to the imagined transgressions of their friend. People presented with images of dogs were shown to be more loyal than participants presented with images of cats or neutral images. 5. Features of Environments Just as representations of relationship partners can automatically trigger goal pursuit, specific environments may also function as triggers. Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2003) demonstrated how exposure to a pictorial image of an environment can increase accessibility of goals associated with particular items in that environment. After a picture-viewing task in which participants studied images containing either a library or an exclusive restaurant, they were given a lexical decision task in which they had to indicate as fast and accurately as possible whether they detected a meaningful word versus a non-word. The stimuli varied so that the words were sometimes control words and other times were words related to the goals associated with the cues that had just been observed (e.g., library-related words). It was found that participants who had studied the library image as opposed to the other image responded faster to words associated with behavior appropriate for a library environment (e.g., silent, quiet, word, whisper) compared to control words. How do we know this reveals the priming of a goal as opposed to the semantic priming of concepts associated with the category ‘‘library’’? These eVects only occurred for those participants who were told that they would be visiting the library, suggesting that it is the actual goal of going to a library that increased the accessibility of the behavioral norms associated with being in a library, not simply the semantic content linked to the concept of a library. One specific type of feature that can be found in the environment is a cue that reminds a person of his or her own mortality. Terror management theory (e.g., Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) claims that people need to regulate the existential fear associated with thoughts of their own mortality. Thinking about death is aversive, and people adopt goals aimed at managing this aversive state. When features of the environment trigger thoughts about death (even when the triggering is implicit in the form of semantic concept priming), regulatory processes are initiated to manage the associated fear and anxiety. One goal successful at buVering the anxiety linked to thoughts of death is the goal of identifying the self with institutions and values that have long-lasting value. By linking oneself to time-honored

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traditions and cultural worldviews, the individual has chosen a self-regulatory strategy that wards oV thoughts of the fleeting nature of existence. The goal has attached the individual to institutions that will persevere into the far future, thus combating the thought of one’s termination and alleviating the associated anxiety. Examples of buVering types of responses in the service of this goal include more positive evaluations of others who share the same beliefs system and negative evaluations of those who threaten it (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990), in-group bias in a minimal group setting, perceived consensus of one’s beliefs, reluctance to violate cultural norms, physical distancing from out-group members, and aggression against those who violate the cultural world view (e.g., Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997). One interesting hypothesis that grows out of this model is related to implicit volition. It suggests that cues in the environment that suggest death should trigger the goal of buVering the individual from the anxiety associated with thoughts of dying, rather than triggering thoughts of dying. This should even be true when terror management processes operate at the nonconscious level, such as when concepts related to death are embedded in the environment outside the individual’s awareness. Arndt et al. (1997) presented research participants with subliminal stimuli (either the word ‘‘death’’ or ‘‘field’’). After the priming manipulation, participants were given an ostensibly separate experiment on personality. Participants who were primed with neutral words were then divided into two groups—those asked to explicitly think about their own death and those asked to think about a diVerent anxiety-provoking topic (taking an exam). The dependent measures involved (1) the accessibility of death-related thoughts after the priming task using a word completion task, and (2) the defense of one’s cultural world view (expressing pro-American sentiment) after the personality test. The standard terror management eVect was found for people who explicitly thought about their death. They expressed greater support for their cultural worldview than people who thought about taking an exam. More importantly, people subliminally primed with death showed the same pattern as people who explicitly thought about death (and in fact showed a more extreme, though nonsignificant, tendency to support the cultural worldview). To support the notion that the priming of death from the subliminal cues was responsible for the triggering of this goal-directed response, participants in the ‘‘death cue’’ condition were more likely to complete word fragments with words relating to death than participants primed with neutral words. In a final experiment, Arndt et al. (1997) replicated the finding that the subliminal presentation of deathrelated words produced an immediate increase in worldview defense, but that the same cues presented at speeds perceivable to the participants did not produce an increase in worldview defense. They suggest that the findings illustrate that the unconscious activation of death-related thoughts through

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subliminal priming can influence social judgment beyond semantic and conditioned associative links. One feature of an environment that can aVect the implicit priming of a goal is the expected time frame for entering the context. Freitas, Salovey, and Liberman (2001) proposed that proximal environments trigger one type of goal, whereas more distant contexts trigger other goals. It is proposed that people have the goal of evaluating themselves realistically (i.e., seeking realistic feedback) when contemplating how they will evaluate information in the distant future. However, when faced with the immediate evaluation situation they tend to pursue the goal of self-enhancement, maintaining a high level of self-esteem by seeking positive feedback. This informationseeking behavior is hypothesized to be regulated by the self-evaluation goals people implicitly adopt when an environment has the feature of being proximal versus distant. Freitas et al. (2001) experimentally manipulated the temporal proximity (either tonight or next semester) of a context in which an evaluation would occur (a bowling session). Less skilled bowling mates (therefore the opportunity for downward social comparison) were preferred more by those who imagined the event ‘‘tonight’’ than ‘‘next semester.’’ The reverse pattern of diVerent preference for the more skilled bowling mate was found (but did not reach significance when the environment was going to be entered in the next semester). These results indicate that when construing the evaluation situation in the near future, people engage in pursuit of a self-enhancement goal, whereas the goal of realistic self-evaluation is primed when construing the evaluative situation in the more distant future. 6. Priming from Goal-Relevant Mental Cues We have been reviewing how cues in the environment that are linked to one’s goals can prime one’s goals. However, the environment can also include the internal life of the person. The cues that trigger the goal can be mental events, such as the activation of concepts related to the goal through an associative network. As an example, Weary, Jacobson, and Edwards (2001) proposed that a sense of uncertainty about links between causes and eVects is aversive and induces people to pursue the goal of achieving accuracy. An internal experience of causal uncertainty should trigger accuracy goals (rather than directly priming accuracy through an experimenter flashing goal-relevant words or by exposure to cues in the environment directly linked to accuracy goals). Weary et al. (2001) used a priming procedure to activate causal uncertainty beliefs, thus inducing the accuracy goal implicitly. In an ostensible memory task, participants memorized sentences semantically related to causal uncertainty. Then in a separate task, they read about a disciplinary case of

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academic cheating that contained ambiguous evidence and rated the guilt of the protagonist. For some participants, the accused person was identified as a member of a group stereotyped for this type of oVense, whereas for other participants the accused was not identified as belonging to the stereotyped group. When uncertainty beliefs were primed, people showed little evidence of stereotyping; they rated a member of a stereotype group no more guilty than a member of the nonstereotyped group. This was interpreted as showing that uncertainty beliefs trigger the goal to be accurate in person perception, which in turn reduces stereotyping. Liberman and Fo¨rster (2000; Fo¨rster & Liberman, 2001) investigated a goal’s association with implicit internal feelings. Recall that when we earlier reviewed the findings of Liberman and Fo¨rster, a goal seemed to loom larger as time elapsed and the goal was unfulfilled. The goal remained primed until a goal-relevant response was made (unlike semantic concepts, which see their activation potential dissipate as time elapses). However, we did not review the method through which the goal was primed in that research—asking participants to suppress a thought. Liberman and Fo¨rster (2000) posited that the diYculty of suppressing a thought (e.g., Wegner, 1994) implies to the participant that he or she has the goal to think about that particular thought. In this phenomenon, the goal of interest does not have to actually exist in the person’s mind, but only needs to be metacognitively inferred, rightly or wrongly, from the sensations that are being experienced as a consequence of thought suppression. This implicit triggering of the goal from the mental sensations experienced along with suppression makes the person more likely to use the suppressed concept after the suppression is lifted, and can account for the often observed (e.g., Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000; Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne & Jetten, 1994; Wegner & Erber, 1992) hyperaccessibility of thoughts that are being suppressed. But as soon as the suppressed thought is used, the accessibility dissipates (rather than being made even more accessible by the repeated presentation and use of the concept) because the goal is satisified. In a follow-up experiment, Fo¨rster and Liberman (2001) more directly investigated the assumption that the cognitive sensation of ‘‘diYculty in suppression’’ leads to an inference regarding one’s motivation. Research participants’ interpretation of their suppression failure was manipulated. Participants were instructed to verbalize their thoughts without thinking or mentioning thoughts about a ‘‘white bear’’ and were informed that their diYculty in suppressing thoughts about ‘‘white bears’’ indicated they had either a strong or weak motivation to use the concept. A control group who did not suppress the target thoughts at all, as well as a group who suppressed the thoughts but received no interpretation for their diYculty in suppression were also included. After the suppression phase, participants were instructed

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to think aloud again with the freedom to express any thoughts. During this expression phase, participants who had interpreted their repression failure as a strong motivation to use the concept showed slightly more rebound than those who simply suppressed the thoughts. Those led to believe that their diYculty indicated low motivation to express the thoughts showed no rebound eVect. Their expression of thoughts about white bears was comparable to those who had not suppressed these thoughts in the first place. Thus, the presumed implicit inference about one’s goals that is made from sensations associated with suppression were made explicit in this experiment. The findings support the idea that goals are associated with meanings attached to cognitive sensations, with the experience of those sensations being able to trigger the goal via a metacognitive inference. A similar pattern of goal activation from metacognitive inference was provided by Fo¨rster and Liberman (2001) using the suppression of social stereotypes. Participants either suppressed or did not suppress a stereotype. Some of those who suppressed stereotypes were told that suppressing stereotypes was diYcult for people who were unprejudiced. Rebound of the suppressed stereotype was measured in three ways: (1) by the penalty participants allocated to crimes associated with the stereotyped group versus crimes unrelated to this group, (2) by measuring the participants’ tendency to interpret an ambiguous cartoon as depicting a criminal act or neutral act, and (3) using a word-fragment completion task to assess the extent to which participants used crime-related words for the completion. With all three measures, those who were simply instructed to suppress the stereotype showed more rebound relative to those who had not suppressed the stereotype and, more importantly, relative to participants who had been told that suppression was diYcult for unprejudiced people. The diYculty at suppressing these thoughts was thus associated with goals of being nonprejudiced, and people then responded in nonprejudiced ways, even on implicit measures of stereotype activation.

F. TEMPORARY GOAL ACTIVATION AND REGULATION FOCUS Gollwitzer and Moskowitz (1996) identified two general types of theories for examining goals’ eVects on action and cognition. The first type are content theories that examine how the structures and themes of goals aVect responses. The other type are self-regulation theories that emphasize the dynamic operation of goals in regulating behavior within specific situations (focus is on how goals regulate cognition and behavior—the mediating processes—not on the sources and content of goals). These two approaches also emerge in the ways goals are primed in social-psychological research.

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The content-oriented approach is what has dominated our discussion of goals as knowledge structures thus far. That is, being presented with the goal triggers the goal content (e.g., priming an impression goal triggers impression formation strategies), as does being presented with associative features of the goal (e.g., priming with ‘‘mother’’ triggers achievement goals and achievement-oriented behavior; enacting the means to the goal triggers the goal content associated with that means, and, in the case of multifinality, may trigger multiple goals). Research by Higgins, Fo¨rster, and their associates has revealed that just as goal content can be primed, goal-regulatory processes can be primed. Higgins, Roney, Crowe, and Hymes (1994) proposed that a strategic component to goal regulation exists that specifies a general tactic used for regulating the steps taken toward goal pursuit—the concept of ‘‘regulation focus.’’ Higgins et al. argued that all goal pursuits can be characterized by either the desire to approach pleasurable stimuli or to avoid aversive stimuli and that the regulatory strategies used to guide goal pursuit are geared toward either approach or avoidance. A strategy that regulates goal pursuit through a focus on approaching a desired or ideal state is a promotion focus, whereas a strategy that regulates goal pursuit through a focus on avoiding undesired states that represent behaviors one should not (or ought not) engage in to attain the goal is called a prevention focus. Higgins and colleagues (e.g., Fo¨rster, Higgins, Idson, 1998; Fo¨rster, Higgins, & Strack, 2000; Higgins et al., 1994; Shah, Higgins, & Friedman, 1998) argued that the type of regulatory focus that is accessible during goal pursuit aVects the manner in which the goal is regulated. That is, even if a goal has a specific content, that same goal content can be pursued through a strategy that involves a prevention focus or a promotion focus. If one adopts the goal of doing well in an upcoming oral presentation, one can pursue this goal geared toward avoiding situations and behaviors that one ought not engage in if one hopes to maintain focus on the preparation of the talk, or one could approach the pursuit of the goal with a focus on approaching situations and behaviors that are compatible with the ideal of doing well on the talk. Thus, the same goal content can be primed under conditions of diVering accessibility of regulatory foci, altering the way cognition and behavior in pursuit of the goal is produced. Priming a regulation focus involves framing the experimental task in terms of either achieving an ideal versus preventing a negative outcome. The implicit priming of regulatory focus can be attained when participants are unaware of the influence of the promotion and prevention framing on their task performance. For instance, participants who took part in the study in exchange for monetary payment were instructed to perform above a certain level to either earn an extra amount (inducing promotion) or to

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avoid losing money (inducing prevention; Fo¨rster, Higgins, & Idson, 1998). Another way of manipulating regulation focus requires participants to solve a picture puzzle where they need to find a way for a rat to get out of a maze (e.g., Friedman & Fo¨rster, 2001). The task is framed as helping the rat find a route either to reach a piece of cheese or to escape from a hovering predator. After activating the regulatory focus, a range of aVective, cognitive, and behavior eVects can then be measured to assess the impact of the implicitly adopted regulatory focus on a diVerent goal pursuit in a new context (with diVering goal content). For example, promotion focus should induce a cognitive style characterized by ‘‘strategic eagerness,’’ whereas prevention focus should induce an inclination toward ‘‘strategic vigilance.’’ The behavioral eVects of the two regulation foci are approach and avoidance tendencies, which can be measured implicitly in responses in participants’ musculature and broader behavioral styles such as preference of novelty versus stability, response accuracy versus speed, and so forth. We organize our review according to the domains in which the eVects of regulatory focus have been measured—aVect, cognition, and behavior. 1. Affective Effects of Implicit Regulation Goals Idson, Liberman, and Higgins (2000) investigated the aVective reactions to goal-pursuit success and failure under promotion versus prevention focus. Under the promotion focus, success means a gain, whereas failure means a non-gain. Under the prevention focus, success means a non-loss, whereas failure means a loss. They predicted that success would be hedonically more positive under the promotion focus than under the prevention focus, and failure would be more negative under the prevention focus than under the promotion focus. For example, four groups of research participants imagined two scenarios: buying a book and paying for lunch. The first group imagined that they received a discount, a success condition under the promotion focus. The second group imagined they did not receive a discount, a failure condition under the promotion focus. The third group imagined that they did not receive a penalty, a success condition under the prevention focus. The fourth group imagined that they received a penalty, a failure condition under the prevention focus. Then each participant rated the experience he or she had imagined. Failure under both promotion and prevention foci was rated more negatively than success. However, failure was rated more negative under the prevention (i.e., loss) than the promotion focus (i.e., non-gain). Success was rated more positive under the promotion (gain) than the prevention condition (no-gain). Shah and Higgins (2001) manipulated regulation focus and then measured the eYciency in self-rating of mood to demonstrate that promotion and

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prevention foci are associated with emotions on the cheerfulness–dejection and agitation–quiescence dimension, respectively. Under the promotion focus, emotion concepts along the cheerfulness–dejection dimension became more accessible and the evaluation of objects along this dimension became more eYcient (measured in reaction time). Prevention focus made emotion concepts along the agitation–quiescence dimension more accessible and speeded up evaluation of objects along this dimension. 2. Cognitive Effects of Implicit Regulation Goals In a series of studies regulation focus has been found to aVect participants’ information processing style related to creativity. The rationale for these studies was that the nurturance-seeking goal underpinning promotion should facilitate riskier information processing that is more conducive to creative problem solving. Friedman and Fo¨rster (2001) induced research participants with either promotion or prevention focus to perform the Snowy Picture Test (Ekstrom, et al., 1976) as a measure of creative insight. Participants with promotion focus outperformed their prevention focus counterparts. A subsequent experiment tested the eVect of regulation focus on creative generation, with a task that requires the participant to generate as many creative uses of a brick as possible. Although the promotion and prevention focus groups did not diVer in the sheer number of responses generated, the former achieved higher creativity scores. Finally, to demonstrate the mechanism mediating the superior creativity under promotion focus was due to a riskier information-processing style (associated with an increased willingness to adopt novel responses), Friedman and Fo¨rster (2001) examined the impact of regulation focus on memory-related mechanisms. Specifically, the more risky processing style associated with promotion focus led to a more extensive memory search for diVerent alternative responses, whereas the more conservative style associated with prevention focus made participants persevere on initially retrieved responses, blocking the retrieval of alternative responses. Liberman, Molden, Idson, and Higgins (2001) proposed that people generate more alternative hypotheses under a promotion than a prevention focus. Research participants viewed ambiguous photographs of objects and named the possible identities of the objects. They were instructed to list as many possibilities as they could. In the promotion condition participants generated more hypotheses and were faster in generating each hypothesis than participants in the prevention focus. In a follow-up experiment using participants’ ratings of the extent to which a situational versus dispositional cause could account for the behavior of another person, evidence of people failing to discount was found among promotion focus participants. In other

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words, participants were more open to alternative hypotheses about the causes of the target’s behavior under promotion than prevention focus. Roese, Hur, and Pennington (1999) investigated the influence of regulation focus on counterfactual thinking. Generating counterfactual thoughts involves specifying what would have happened (what consequences would have emerged) if one had taken one versus another course of action. It is a focus on alternative realities, variations in antecedent conditions, and how these diVering actions might aVect outcomes. Additive counterfactuals are those that specify what would have happened had the person taken a particular (beneficial) action that in reality had never been taken. Subtractive counterfactuals are those hypothetical scenarios in which the person had not taken a particular (damaging) action that had actually been taken. These diVerent types of counterfactuals seem to be a natural fit to promotion and prevention focus, leading to the prediction that a promotion focus would encourage the generation of additive counterfactuals, whereas a prevention focus would promote subtractive counterfactuals. Regulation focus was manipulated by either failures to obtain desired outcomes or failures to prevent undersirable outcomes. After each scenario, participants completed a counterfactual statement about the situation. Additive counterfactuals were more frequently generated under promotion focus and subtractive ones more frequently generated under prevention focus. 3. Behavioral Effects of Implicit Regulation Goals Fo¨rster, Higgins, and Idson (1998) posited that the motivation to succeed in goal pursuit increases as one gets closer to accomplishing the goal. Although each success reduces the discrepancy associated with not yet attaining the goal, the remaining discrepancy continues to motivate the individual to pursue the goal. In fact, each subsequent success will be able to resolve an even greater percentage of the remaining discrepancy, thus making the individual even more motivated the closer he or she gets to attaining the goal (Brendl & Higgins, 1996). This increasing utility of action for goal accomplishment has diVerent eVects on goal-pursuit motivation under the two regulation foci. Under the promotion focus, the closer one gets to the goal state, the more motivated one is to engage in the goal pursuit. Under the prevention focus, the closer one gets to the end state, the more conservative and cautious one gets, for fear of making mistakes, therefore promoting a tendency for avoiding the goal-pursuit actions. Fo¨rster et al. (1998) investigated this by having participants solve two sets of anagrams, one after the other, under either promotion or prevention focus. Participants were closer to goal accomplishment when solving the second set of anagrams than the first. Approach motivation was measured

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with a motor procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to press their hands either upward on the surface of a machine attached to the underside of the table, or downward on the same surface on top of the table. The harder the participant pressed upward, the stronger the motivation to approach the task. The harder the participant pressed downward, the stronger the motivation to avoid the anagram task. The results indicate that the approach gradient was steeper for participants with promotion focus than prevention focus. Under the promotion focus, the motivation to approach and engage in the task grew stronger the closer to the goal. On the other hand, the avoidance gradient was steeper for participants with prevention focus than promotion focus. Under prevention focus, the motivation to avoid the task grew stronger as the participants got closer to accomplishing the goal. They also found that under the promotion focus, participants solved more anagrams while engaging in the approach action (flexion) than with the avoidance (extension) action. Conversely, under the prevention focus, more anagrams were solved under the avoidance (extension) action than approach (flexion) action. In another study (Fo¨rster, Grant, Idson, & Higgins, 2001) success versus failure feedback was added to the design. The authors predicted that success feedback would enhance approach motivation more eVectively under promotion than prevention focus. On the other hand, failure feedback would promote avoidance motivation more eVectively under prevention than promotion focus. In Experiment 1, participants solved two sets of 12 anagrams each. Regulation focus was manipulated through task framing. After all 12 anagrams of the first set were solved, the participant was given either success or failure feedback (either performing above or below the target level set in the regulation focus) before completing the second set. Approach and avoidance orientation was measured with flexor and contractor pressure throughout the procedure. While solving the anagram, participants in each regulation focus group pressed one of their hands either upward or downward on a scale. Before receiving the feedback, approach gradient was steeper among participants with promotion focus, whereas avoidance gradient was steeper among participants in the prevention focus group. After the feedback, the approach gradient was most positive when the promotion focus participants received success feedback, whereas the avoidance gradient was most positive when the prevention focus participants received failure feedback. In a second experiment, persistence, measured by the time spent on each set of anagrams, was used as an index of motivation strength. Participants under promotion focus persisted longer during later trials than on the earlier trials if the anagram induced an approach task set. Participants with prevention focus persisted longer during the later trials than on the earlier trials if the anagram induced an avoidance task set.

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Fo¨rster, Higgins, and Bianco (2003) showed that another important feature of behavior—speed and accuracy in task response—come under the influence of regulation focus. The standard conception of response speed and accuracy regard these as mutual trade-oVs; to increase accuracy one has to sacrifice speed and vice versa. In the regulation focus framework, the more risky cognitive style associated with promotion focus should promote speedy responses, whereas the more cautious style associated with prevention focus should promote accuracy. Thus, promotion focus participants should be faster, but especially so toward the end of the task (when goal accomplishment gets closer). In contrast, prevention participants should be more accurate, but especially so toward the end of the task. In three separate experiments participants were instructed to draw lines connecting dots to make pictures. They were given several pictures to work on, creating diVerent degrees of progress toward goal accomplishment. The number of dots connected within a period of time was recorded as a measure of speed, while the number of mistakes made in connecting the dots were taken as a measure of accuracy. In all three studies, the participants were faster in drawing the lines but made more mistakes under the promotion than prevention focus. Moreover, the diVerences in speed and accuracy did not emerge until the last half of the picture series (i.e., close to task accomplishment). To implement a set of goal-directed actions requires avoiding distractions. Freitas, Liberman, and Higgins (2002) investigated how ‘‘regulation fit’’ influenced people’s ability to resist the temptation of engaging in distracting activities during goal pursuit. The authors suggest that it is easier for people to resist temptation in the regulatory state with a prevention focus than one with a promotion focus. In Experiment 1, participants received a series of encrypted messages consisting of digits and letters on the computer screen and had to distinguish between authentic and counterfeit messages according to a simple rule. Promotion and prevention foci were induced by instructing the participants to make a response either to accept authentic messages or to reject counterfeit messages. Half of participants in each regulation focus condition worked on the task with a video clip played concurrently on the background and had to ignore it. After completing all the trials, the participants indicated how much they had enjoyed accepting the authentic or rejecting the counterfeit messages, as well as how much they enjoyed the video clips. A significant interaction emerged between focus manipulation and distraction. Participants who had worked without distraction enjoyed accepting or rejecting the message more under the promotion than prevention focus. For those who had worked under distraction, the reverse pattern emerged; the task was rated as more enjoyable under the prevention than promotion focus. In Experiment 2 a more diYcult task,

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solving math problems, was used as the dependent variable in the hope of obtaining regulation focus eVects on both task enjoyment and level of performance. After the regulation focus manipulation, all participants completed nine math problems, with half of them under distraction of a video clip. Then they rated their enjoyment of the task and the video clip, as in Experiment 1. The task enjoyment measures replicated Experiment 1. The percentage of correct responses was taken as a measure of task performance. A significant interaction emerged between regulation focus and distraction. Distracted participants solved more problems under the prevention than promotion focus, but participants who had worked without distraction performed better under promotion focus. Liberman, Idson, Camacho, and Higgins (1999) investigated the eVect of regulation focus on preference for stability versus change in goal-pursuit actions, proposing that promotion should encourage people to take the opportunities oVered by change, whereas prevention should make people avoid the potential danger in making changes. To investigate this they tested object substitution under promotion versus prevention focus. Each participant was instructed to imagine a scenario of receiving either one of two presents, a coVee mug or a pen. They were then given the opportunity to exchange the present they received for the other one and asked whether they would accept the oVer. Consistent with the prediction, participants were more likely (44%) to take the opportunity to exchange their present for a diVerent one under the promotion than the prevention focus (19%). A subsequent experiment tested the eVects of regulation focus on the participants’ preference for an object they had previously owned versus a substitute object. During the first session of the experiment participants indicate their preference among a series of objects of similar value. During the second session, more than a week later, they were given one of their top-two preferences as prizes. Then they were instructed to perform an anagramsolving task and were informed that whether they could keep the prize would depend on their performance on the task. Some participants were told that if they performed above a certain level, they could keep their prizes, inducing a promotion focus. Others were told that if they perform below a certain level they would lose the prizes, inducing a prevention focus. After the task all participants were told that they had failed according to the preset criterion and therefore lost the prizes. Then they were given a chance to work on another task for a prize, which was also among their top-two preferences indicated during the first session. They were given the choice to work for the same prize they had owned and lost or the substitute prize. Chi-square tests indicate that participants were more likely (56%) to work for a substitute prize instead of the one they had originally been given under the promotion than the prevention focus (29%).

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III. Implicit Regulation via Intentions Ach (1910; 1935) expressed a belief similar to that of James (1890/1950)— that goal-directed behavior could be triggered by the mere presence of an appropriate cue that has been associated with the goal. For James this was believed to happen when behavior was routinized, through experience. The preconscious initiation of a goal pursuit required a chronic association between the cue and the response. Ach posited that the manner in which the will is typically translated into action is through specific plans that link the initiation of a particular behavior to the presence of a particular stimulus in the environment. For the plan to have the greatest likelihood of producing goal attainment, it was said to need to be accompanied by commitment to the goal and determination to perform the specified behavior in the specified context (Ach, 1935). Given appropriate levels of commitment and determination, goal-directed behavior was said to be triggered by the presence of the cue to which it had been linked through the plan. Although the initial formation of plans requires a conscious choice, the pursuit of them does not. Thus, from this perspective, temporary goal pursuit could be preconsciously regulated if a plan was in place. This logic maintained the stimulus-response ethos inherent to James’ approach (and at the heart of the goal-priming research reviewed above), while arguing that the ability of a stimulus to trigger the response was not dependent on a mutual history of being paired. All that was required was a momentary decision (what Ach called a determining tendency) to link a stimulus and response that, in the absence of a history of repetitive pairings, forged the link through commitment and determination. Ach (1910) regarded experience as a suYcient, but not a necessary, condition for an implicit connection or association to develop between stimulus and response. With a plan in place, initiation of goal-relevant behavior could be turned over to the environment, freeing the conscious mind from the role of regulator. The plan is perhaps not an essential ingredient to goal-directed behavior when the mental representation of the goal (and its associated behavior routes) is simply being triggered or primed (this allows Behaviorists such as Tolman, 1932, to discuss goal-directed behavior without implicating a mentalistic notion such as a plan). However, in consciously pursuing a goal, a plan is the mechanism through which modern psychologists posit that individuals translate volition into action and pursue their goals. The plan to act in a goal-directed way is called an intention. That is, prior to a response (e.g., behavior) and subsequent to initial acts of volition (e.g., setting a goal) is the mental act of deciding to respond in a manner that serves one’s goal. Intentions, held in mind as a purpose, plan, or design, translate goals into reality. In Tolman’s (1925) description of the hungry rat striving for food, a

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need (hunger) points to a respective incentive (food), and the animal’s approach of the incentive is defined as goal striving. Social psychologists today use a similar language but insert the notion of an intention as providing a link between the incentive and the need. Thus, a need state (e.g., need for approval) is satisfied by various classes of incentives (e.g., being popular, doing what is asked), and the intentions to attain these incentives trigger goal-directed behavior (e.g., Geen, 1995; Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, 1996). For example, the intentions to attain the incentive to be popular with one’s friends or to be accommodating to the wishes of others are higher-order goals serving the need state. These higher-order goals may be served by many lower-order goals (e.g., intending to use one’s weekend to visit friends or to run the specified errands asked of you by a person whose approval you seek). This definition of intention as the tool of volition, as with typical definitions of volition, seems to presuppose deliberation and consciousness by implicating constructs such as design and purpose. As Ach (1935) pointed out, although consciousness may be required to formulate a plan, there is no reason to presuppose it is required to trigger or implement the plan. Thus, intentions are a form of association that can allow for implicit volition. Through planning there is an ‘‘adhesion’’ (Lewin, 1935, p. 43) of the specific response to the appropriate stimulus that automatically leads to the initiation of the intended response in the presence of the stimulus. In testing this idea, Ach relied on demonstrating the ability of a temporary goal (such as subtracting when presented with a pair of numbers) to disrupt an antagonistic response (adding a pair of numbers) that had been habitualized (through training participants to respond repeatedly and consistently until the response was routinized). This ability to disrupt a routinized process suggests the initiation of goal-directed behavior was automatic. Gollwitzer (1993) extended this theorizing by describing the eVects of implementation intentions—intentions furnished by plans that link specific acts to specific stimuli. Gollwitzer’s research suggests that implementation intentions make goal-relevant action more eYcient and likely to occur by allowing the intention to act to be automatically triggered by environmental stimuli.

A. IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS Intentions do not get turned into actions for many reasons. One may lack the aptitude or skill to turn the intention into a reality. For example, one may intend to finish graduate school but may lack the aptitude to complete the required courses and research adequately. Additionally, one may lack desire to implement the intended act despite being replete with ability. For example, one may possess all the skill in the world for being a successful graduate

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student but have no desire to engage in the long nights of work, the months to years without vacation, and the sacrifice of financial reward that would otherwise come if one pursued some other profession. Even when people possess both desire and aptitude, they often still do not act. There are several reasons that intentions, even under such facilitating conditions, still do not move from the head and into action. First, boundaries and diYculties may pop up in the environment that block taking eVective action. Second, the value of the outcomes associated with the intended action can change and become less attractive. Third, other intentions that are also desired and for which one has aptitude can create conflict between one’s intended actions. Fourth, commitment level to the intended action may be low. Fifth, the ability to detect relevant opportunities to start pursuing an intended action may be limited so that good opportunities to get started are missed and the window of opportunity for behaving in the intended way closes. Finally, one may be lost in deliberation about the best time and place and way to pursue the intended behavior. A particularly eVective means to promote the performance of an intended behavior is the formation of a plan, which is a particularly eVective selfregulatory skill (Gollwitzer, 1999). A plan does more than allow one to reflect on the outcome of attaining a goal or the reward at the end of having successfully performed an intended action. Plans allow one to mentally simulate the many possible ways to attain the outcome associated with a goal (Taylor, Pham, Rivkin, & Armor, 1998). This then increases one’s chance of actually attaining the outcome and successfully performing the intended behavior. Why? Gollwitzer (1999) argues that most goals can be attained in many diVerent ways and that people have to make decisions about which behaviors are the most instrumental to meeting one’s goals and what situations are most favorable for performing them. Deciding these issues in advance renders eVortfully deliberating about them in the situation moot. Instead, the person can initiate the intended behavior automatically on mere exposure to the cues in the environment that are associated with the intended behavior (as specified in one’s plans). Thus, implementation intentions automate the association between an intended action and relevant opportunities to begin the act, thus providing people with the ability to quickly and eYciently detect relevant opportunities and means to successfully implement an intended action (e.g., Bayer, Moskowitz, & Gollwitzer, 2004; Brandsta¨tter, Lengfelder, & Gollwitzer, 2001). 1. Implementation Intention Effects on Goal Attainment In numerous field experiments it has been observed that the realization of goal intentions benefits from forming implementation intentions. For example, Gollwitzer and Brandsta¨tter (1997) asked research participants to

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list two projects they intended to complete over a 10-day period. DiYcult (versus easy) goals were finished about three times more often when implementation intentions were in place. Further, implementation intentions helped to complete unpleasant-to-perform or anxiety-arousing goals, as demonstrated in studies examining intentions to perform diVerent kinds of health-promoting and disease-preventing behaviors, such as regular breast self-examination (Orbell, Hodgkins, & Sheeran, 1997), cervical cancer screening (Sheeran & Orbell, 2000), and resumption of functional activity after joint replacement surgery (Orbell & Sheeran, 2000). For example, Orbell et al. (1997) suggest that breast self-examination (BSE) is a relatively easy and uncomplicated volitional behavior with enormous health benefits. Like many behaviors people intend to do, it is often not done regularly. Women who form implementation intentions concerning when and where to perform BSE increase the likelihood of conducting the exam. 2. Implementation Intention Effects on Action Are Mediated through Automatic Processing By forming implementation intentions people are said to switch from conscious and eVortful control of their goal-directed behavior to being automatically controlled by situational cues that have been selected in advance. Action initiation is postulated to become immediate, eYcient, and does not require a conscious intent (i.e., it acquires features of automaticity; Bargh, 1997). For example, the issue of eYciency of action initiation as a consequence of forming implementation intentions was illustrated by Brandsta¨tter, Lengfelder, and Gollwitzer (2001) by looking at whether such behavior does not require much cognitive capacity. To demonstrate that action initiation from an intention can be performed even under high cognitive load, they focused first on specific types of participants known to have distracting thoughts that serve as a cognitive load—heroin addicts under withdrawal (Study 1) and schizophrenic patients (Study 2). For example, both heroin addicts who had recovered from withdrawal and addicts still under withdrawal were given a goal intention. They were asked to write a resume´ as part of a program to help hospital patients apply for jobs and reintegrate into society. The resume´s were to be collected 7 hours later. Half of the people in each group had this goal intention supplemented with an implementation intention regarding where and when they intended to perform the behavior. Despite the fact that both groups of participants showed the same level of commitment to the task, the group with the relevant implementation intention was more likely to actually do it. This was true for the group under cognitive load just as much as it was for the

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group not under load. This suggested that these plans help people even when cognitive resources are scarce, making it an example of an eYcient cognitive process. In a more controlled illustration of this point, Brandsta¨tter et al. (2001) performed an experiment using college students in the laboratory and a manipulation of cognitive load using a dual-task paradigm. Participants were asked to perform a task with a series of meaningless syllables on one side of a computer monitor while simultaneously pressing a button whenever a digit appeared on the other side. The task performed on the nonsense syllables was either diYcult (repeat aloud and memorize the series) or easy (making free associations), thus constituting a manipulation of cognitive load. Implementation intentions were formed by having participants commit themselves to detecting and responding as fast as possible to one specific digit from the distracting materials. Implementation intentions facilitated immediate action initiation to the secondary task irrespective of the cognitive load established in the primary task. People with implementation intentions responded to critical numbers faster than the noncritical numbers, whereas this eVect was not found for people without implementation intentions. The eYciency of the action initiation provides supportive evidence that the behavior is being automatically triggered by an association to the cues in the environment specified in the implementation intention. If this is the mechanism providing the impact of implementation intentions, people with implementation intentions should have heightened accessibility of environmental cues specified in the implementation intention. Aarts, Dijksterhuis, and Midden (1999) provided precisely this type of evidence. They reasoned that for an intended behavior to be performed often requires the disruption of other behaviors that are perhaps more routinized. One could decide to mail a letter, but this requires breaking the daily routine and making a trip to the post oYce to get stamps. To break such routines is hard, even if the intended behavior is simple. An implementation intention makes the act of breaking from habit and pursuing an intention easier because it will make the cues in the environment relevant to the intended behavior more accessible, more likely to be detected, and the opportunity to act more likely to be seized. Aarts et al. (1999) illustrate that the cause of the heightened rate of completion for intended behaviors following an implementation intention is the increased accessibility of cues specified by the plan that links the action to the environment. Research participants were all given the same goal. They were asked to get a coupon from a specified location (the secretary’s oYce). All participants were then given directions to the oYce (down the corridor, through the swinging doors, near the red fire hose, etc.). They were told the experiment concerned how people plan the accomplishment of mundane behaviors, and

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within this premise the manipulation of intentions occurred. Participants in the implementation intention condition were asked to formulate a plan that specified how (what route they would take to the secretary’s oYce) and when (what time of day) they would collect the coupon from the location where it was being held. Next all participants were given a lexical decision task to perform as part of an ostensibly separate experiment. Among the words were a subset that were related to the environment in which the intended behavior was to occur. These were words specifically mentioned in the directions to the location where the coupon was being held and included ‘‘red,’’ ‘‘fire hose,’’ and ‘‘corridor.’’ These environment-relevant words are crucial to the experiment as they should be more accessible for research participants with implementation intentions if the intended behavior has been linked to the specific plan. Finally, to test if the behavior itself actually is more likely to be performed for participants with implementation intentions (and increased accessibility of behavior-relevant environmental cues), all participants were asked to walk from the lab to a cafeteria located in the same building. They were told that in the cafeteria they would perform a task assessing prices and quality of various products, such as pie and coVee. A list of the products was given to them, and they were dismissed from the experiment. This last task was meant to occupy them, thus giving the implementation intentions some room to have an eVect. Without some competing task they reasoned all people would just stop at the secretary’s oYce after the experiment to get the coupon. Now, however, a more sophisticated prediction emerged. People who had formed implementation intentions should be more likely to stop by the secretary’s oYce (which lies between the laboratory and the cafeteria) and get the coupon on the way to the cafeteria than people without such intentions. This is precisely what was found. People with implementation intentions stopped for the coupon 80% of the time compared to 50% of the remaining people. Most importantly, their reaction times to the critical words were reliably faster (almost 100 ms faster) than people who did not form implementation intentions. Finally, after statistically controlling for the eVects of the increased accessibility, the greater likelihood of getting the coupon for people with implementation intentions was no longer reliable. This suggests increased accessibility causes the behavior diVerence. The question of whether action initiation based on implementation intentions is automatic was investigated by Bayer et al. (2004) by focusing on whether action initiation from a plan can occur without conscious intent. Action initiation without a conscious intent is most directly tested by presenting the critical stimulus (i.e., the stimulus selected for the if part of the implementation intention) subliminally so that no conscious perception is possible. Then one can assess whether the goal-directed behavior (i.e., the

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behavior specified in the then part of the implementation intention) is triggered. In one experiment research participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible to geometrical figures (i.e., 3 angular and 3 rounded) by pressing either the left or right button of a response box. Implementation intention participants, in addition, were asked to make the plan to respond to one of the angular (i.e., a triangle) or one of the rounded (i.e., the circle) stimuli in a particularly fast manner. These critical stimuli (a circle and a triangle) and a control stimulus were then presented as subliminal primes in a priming task that used rounded and angular geometrical figures as targets. The prediction was that even when a control stimulus was presented as a subliminal prime, critical (e.g., a triangle) as compared to noncritical (e.g., a square, a circle) targets should be responded to faster by implementation intention participants. However, if the implementation leads to an association between a cue and goal-directed behavior that can be implicitly triggered, then this eVect should be more pronounced when the critical stimulus (e.g., a triangle) is presented as the subliminal prime. In addition, congruent targets (i.e., targets demanding the same response as the critical prime—other rounded targets for the circle prime and other angular targets for the triangle prime—should also be responded to faster than noncongruent targets (i.e., angular targets for the circle prime and rounded targets for the triangle prime) in implementation intention participants. This is precisely what was found. Forming an implementation intention to respond to a triangle by pressing a button on the keyboard led people to respond fastest in their various button-press responses to the stimulus conditions in which a triangle appeared. This eVect was exacerbated when triangles were preceded by subliminal images of triangles. Further, other angled objects were responded to faster when the person had the implementation intention to respond quickly to a triangle and a triangle was subliminally presented. The critical prime prepared the respective behavior in implementation intention participants even though the critical target was not being responded to because they shared the same response output as the critical trials (pressing the same button for a triangle as for a rectangle or square). Finally, if implementation intentions are indeed implicitly operating, it is reasonable that people provided with temporary goals furnished with an implementation intention would respond in a manner similar to people with chronic goals. As described earlier, Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2000) identified people who had habitualized behavioral responses associated with the goal of riding bicycles as well as people for whom such goals were not habitualized. They reasoned that the latter group should benefit from forming plans, but people with chronic goals should have those intentions automatically triggered in the absence of the conscious plan and would not benefit from supplementing their implicitly triggered goals with an explicit plan.

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Research participants first read sentences describing a goal to travel to a destination with a variety of transport modes and were told that one of these goals would be given to them to be actually realized later in the experiment. Half of the participants were instructed to consciously plan achieving a goal relevant to cycling by writing about how they would go to certain places by bike. The other half consciously planned achieving a goal irrelevant to the act of cycling. The participants then performed a second task in which diVerent location words appeared briefly on the screen followed by a mode of transport. Their task was to indicate, as quickly and as accurately as possible, whether the presented mode would constitute a realistic means of transport for the previously presented location. The results showed that for habitual bikers, responses to the word cycling following locations related to cycling as a means of transport did not vary as a function of whether they had engaged in conscious planning relevant to cycling. However, nonhabitual bikers’ associative response to the word cycling following bike-related locations benefitted from conscious planning relevant to bicycle us as a means of transport.

B. ACTION CONTROL Kuhl (1986; Kuhl & Beckmann, 1985) also proposed that intentions often fail to be realized in action, and that successful goal pursuit hinges on implicit processes. The function of these implicit processes is to shield an intention from the action tendencies with which it competes and strengthen the intention to a suYcient degree so that it will be carried out. These steps are required because goals are not typically achieved quickly, but require that one persist in the intended action over time and not become distracted by a premature shift to an alternative activity. Kuhl (1986) proposes that there are several (related) cognitive processes that serve to maintain the activation of an intention and help to shield it in the face of competing intentions and facilitate the transition from intention to action. Kuhl refers to this implicit regulation of an intention, processes that keep the intention active in working memory until actually attained, with the label of action control. The first step in action control is the activation of an intention (an action-related memory structure) from long-term memory. But how is such activation maintained until the intention is attained? One processing strategy is attentional in nature. These are cognitive processes aimed at detecting in the environment information relevant to the intention and inhibiting the processing of information that competes with the intention. For example, Moskowitz et al. (1999), as reviewed earlier, found that people with the intention to be egalitarian to members of a

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stereotyped group (women) were exhibiting an inhibited ability to attend to words relevant to the stereotype of women (using a negative priming procedure). Stereotyping women is inconsistent with being egalitarian toward them, and thus this information appears to be inhibited in the service of pursuing the intended action. Similarly, Moskowitz et al., (2000), as reviewed earlier, found that people with the intention to be egalitarian to members of a stereotyped group (African Americans) exhibited a facilitated ability to attend to words relevant to their egalitarian goals. Thus, action control is linked to automatic processes of attentional selectivity that deliver stimuli relevant to the intention to consciousness ward-oV and competing stimuli. A second cognitive strategy involved in action control is encoding control. Once one has selected a stimulus to attend to, the way in which information about that stimulus is encoded into long-term memory is biased by the intention. It is proposed that the individual selectively stores information received about a stimulus in a way consistent with current intentions. For example, in research on cognitive tuning eVects (e.g., Brock & Fromkin, 1968; Cohen, 1961; Leventhal, 1962; Zajonc, 1960), currently activated intentions are analyzed in terms of how they aVect the perception of other people. Subsequently, it is observed how research participants organize information about the target person and what kind of information is suppressed. Encoding of the stimulus is tuned according to the intentions activated when the stimulus is encountered. For example, Zajonc (1960) instructed half of the research participants to transmit impressions of a target person to others (i.e., to play the role of communicators), whereas the other half were told to receive impressions of the target person formed by others (i.e., to play the role of recipients). These intended actions exerted an eVect in that communicators distorted stimulus information to a greater extent than recipients. Emotion control is another processing strategy used in action control, one that inhibits emotional states that would interfere with pursuing the intended behavior. For example, if one intended to stay up all night to work on an important speech, it would be to one’s benefit to keep at bay emotions such as anger, sadness, and jealousy that might serve to distract attention from the task at hand. Motivation control is a cognitive strategy aimed at strengthening the motivational basis for performing an intention, bolstering the felt need to perform the behavior (by processes such as acquiring evidence that the act will be beneficial, or that the failure to do the act will be harmful in some way). In summary, the model describes an extremely complex set of strategies that are used to regulate behavior. The link between an intention and action is said to be moderated by the various types of information that are

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attended to and encoded in one’s environment, with successful implementation of the action requiring adequate action control.

C. AFFORDANCES Implementation intentions specify a particular response to be made in the presence of a particular cue. As with the auto-motive model, this pairing of cue and goal allows for the implicit triggering of the goal given the cue. However, this possibility introduces a potential problem. As previously discussed, a given cue can be associated with multiple goals, some of which are compatible with one another, and others of which are incompatible. For example, one’s mother might serve as a cue to a variety of goals that are associated with one’s mother, such as achievement, aYliation, eating, and avoidance. Is it not possible a cue that in one context is strongly associated with one goal will not trigger other goals with which, in a diVerent context, it might be associated? If so, when is it the case that a goal will not be triggered following a relevant cue, even if the pairing of cue and goal has been automatized through either an implementation intention or through frequent pairing of the two over the course of time, practice, and repetition? One possible answer to this question is ‘‘never.’’ That is, a goal’s accessibility will always follow a cue with which it has forged a link that is capable of implicitly triggering the goal. This possibility is currently represented in Fig. 5 by the arrow that leads directly from the cue to the activation of the goal. However, another possible answer to this question is ‘‘whenever the situation dictates that the cue no longer aVords an opportunity to attain the goal with which it has previously been paired.’’ This answer stipulates that before a cue triggers a goal, an initial preconscious analysis is conducted that determines whether the context in which the cue is encountered aVords an opportunity for the person to pursue the goal, or whether an opportunity to pursue an alternate goal is aVorded. McArthur and Baron (1983, p. 215) described aVordances as ‘‘the opportunities for acting or being acted upon that are provided by environmental entities.’’ This latter answer is closely tied to Lewin’s (1951) description of the concept of valence. Valence was described as the strength of the association between a cue (e.g., an object in the environment) and the goal—the opportunity aVorded by the cue to address or attain the goal. This may change from moment to moment. For example, if achievement goals are currently important, then encountering a cue associated with one’s mother might be more likely to trigger achievement-related responses rather than aYliative responses. However, if one had recently had success on a task, the context would no longer suggest that achievement goals are important to pursue.

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The desire to share one’s success with significant others might now be an important goal. In this context, aYliation might be more strongly triggered by cues associated with one’s mother. With this example we see that aVordance (or valence) is in part determined by the importance of the goal to the individual. This can fluctuate from context to context. A variety of factors in addition to the value the goal holds for the individual can impact the valence that is established between a cue and the goal. For example, expectancies about being able to successfully attain a goal by engaging in the behavior routes linked to a given cue and one’s sense of self-eYcacy in a goal domain might both impact valence. For example, a baseball player might have an automatically activated goal to ‘‘pull’’ the ball whenever he gets a fastball thrown at him by a pitcher. His detection of a fastball should then trigger a particular type of swing. However, if the pitch is veering far to the outside part of the plate, there is little opportunity aVorded to attain the goal and a small expectation for success (it is far harder to ‘‘pull’’ a ball that is far away than one that is close to the batter). In this instance, the goals of ‘‘taking the pitch’’ (not swinging at all and increasing the chance of getting on base by ‘‘drawing a walk’’) or the goal of ‘‘going the opposite way’’ might have stronger valence, and one of these alternate goals might be the one that is implicitly triggered. This could occur even if these alternate goals have less importance to the individual (perhaps because he is slow and prefers to avoid the walk or base hit in favor of the increased chance of an extra-base hit that exists when one ‘‘pulls’’ the ball). A goal that is slightly less important, but that has a far higher expectation for success, should have a stronger valence established in this example. Bargh et al. (2001) found that priming an achievement goal through contemplating a relationship partner (e.g., one’s mother) leads to the implicit activation of the goal. So does the presentation of the word achievement. The current discussion, however, suggests goal priming may not occur if the goal has already been attained. Priming someone with achievement goals who has recently achieved great things might be unlikely to trigger those goals. Although the semantic concept of achievement would be triggered, the goal to achieve would not be activated. The next section reviews research by Moskowitz (2002) and Moskowitz, Li, and Kirk (2004) that illustrates that an individual who has recently contemplated success at a goal pursuit does not have that goal activated. Exposure to the goal concept by way of aYrmation in the domain does not lead to the triggering of the goal when cues relevant to the goal are next encountered. It seems as if the cues no longer aVord an opportunity for goal pursuit, as goal pursuit is no longer necessary or important (the goal is already attained). These considerations suggest a revision to Fig. 5 that incorporates a stage where an initial analysis of the valence between a cue and goal is

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preconsciously conducted. If the analysis suggests that a strong enough valence exists between the cue and goal, then the context aVords an opportunity for goal pursuit and the goal is activated. If there is no aVordance, the goal will not be activated. Presumably such an analysis would need to be conducted for each cue and each goal to which it is potentially linked. The results of these analyses will direct the responses of the individual; the associations with the strongest valence will be the ones that are triggered. The emerging model of implicit volition (Fig. 8) suggests the triggering of a goal in the presence of a cue is preceded by an implicit assessment of the valence between the cue and the goal, the aVordance. We represent the two possible paths from a cue to goal activation in the model with a dotted line to indicate this issue is not currently resolved (and that both paths may be possible). The model specifies that a cue (e.g., a contextual feature such as the detection of a word that is related to a goal or an object in the environment that is associated with the goal, a mental state such as the inferred goals of others or a reminiscence of one’s own past behavior) can be associated with

Fig. 8.

The implicit volition model. See text for details.

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multiple goals. An initial analysis of the valence that represents the vector between each goal and the cue will determine which goals are activated. If multiple goals are activated, then the activation will facilitate goal pursuit toward each respective goal when the goals are compatible. However, if incompatible, an activated goal may inhibit its competing goal, as well as any concepts that are incompatible with goal pursuit. The triggering of the goal will lead to other goal-relevant operations aimed at action control in addition to such goal shielding. This may include a facilitated ability to detect cues associated with the goal, increased attention to goal-relevant stimuli, encoding control (or motivated construal) in which information is interpreted in a goal-relevant manner, ruminating on the goal, and enacting the behavior routes that lead to goal attainment. Some representative operations, those that are believed to directly aVect other steps in the model, are represented in the model by a dashed double line. For example, perception of a goal-relevant cue is partly determined by one’s implicitly activated goals via processes of attentional selectivity. Ultimately, the model requires that goal pursuit must be halted at some point. The decision as to when (and if) to engage a diVerent goal and to disengage from the current goal involves the feedback that results from consulting the comparison module. Finally, the operations used to regulate goal pursuit may be initiated from (at least) two possible paths. Operations may either be preceded by an analysis of one’s current level of goal attainment (engaging the comparison module), or these action control processes may be triggered directly from the activation of the goal. The next section analyzes the role of the comparison module in instigating implicit processes of action control.

IV. Compensatory Cognition and Compensatory Behavior Kurt Lewin proposed a model in which temporary goals could operate in the preconscious, but one that attacked James’ (1890/1950) and Ach’s (1910; 1935) S-R conceptions. To Lewin (1935; 1951), rather than goal-directed behavior being equated with associations/plans and linkages connecting specific behaviors to specific cues, goal pursuit was likened to the manner in which need states are satisfied. Lewin made this similarity explicit by calling intentions quasi-needs. Intentions were likened to needs because having goals that are not attained was believed to lead the individual to experience a tension state that energizes goal-directed responses ( just as need states are described as a tension arising from tissue deficits that energizes responses to reduce the deficit). Lewin (1935) proposed that the cause of goal-directed behavior was the energization of a goal striving: ‘‘in order that

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the bound or coupled complex move, in other words that a process occur, energy capable of doing the work must be set free. One must therefore inquire of every psychical event whence the causal energies come’’ (pp. 45–46, emphasis in original). This energy was said to be provided by the arousal of a tension state that drives the organism toward discharge of the tension ‘‘and causes activities which serve the execution of the purpose’’ (p. 242). That is, an intention creates a goal state that is unfulfilled, and this leads to compensatory responses aimed at attaining the goal and discharging the tension. Whereas quasi-needs propel people toward a state of equilibrium, reducing or discharging the tension can occur through a variety of responses and movement toward a host of goal-relevant stimuli. Just as needs-states such as hunger can be reduced by various responses (e.g., eating fruit, meat, popcorn), a quasi-need such as the intention to promote a deserving student can be satisfied through various routes toward goal attainment (e.g., writing a letter of recommendation, making telephone calls to colleagues, providing opportunities for being lead author on a manuscript). Thus, rather than an intention representing an association between one stimulus and one course of action, the quasi-need was said to specify a valence being established between the goal and the various stimuli in the environment relevant to the goal. The valence represents the strength and direction of association that develops between the quasi-need and a variety of stimuli in the environment. The presence of any of several possible objects with suYcient ability to reduce a tension state triggers action (or inaction) relevant to the attainment of the goal. For example, to a person who detests networking and values the rewards of hard work, the act of ‘‘talking-up’’ a student at a conference (pursuing the goal of promoting him or her) might be more likely when conversation turns toward a collaborative project than to the state of the job market. Both conversations aVord the opportunity to pursue the goal, but the valence associated with the former is greater. For this individual the cues associated with a discussion of the job market might be less likely to trigger a goal-relevant response and might in fact lead to goal avoidance (despite superficially seeming to aVord a better opportunity to pursue the goal).

A. MODELS OF SELF-REGULATION THROUGH COMPENSATORY PROCESSES According to Lewin (1935) goal striving and goal-directed responses are initiated by the arousal of tension systems from unfulfilled (incomplete) intentions and the pursuit of the goal is terminated by the release of the tension through attaining (completing) the striving. Researchers have more

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recently followed up on Lewinian theory by examining questions of whether failure in a goal pursuit triggers tension which, in turn, triggers compensatory responses aimed at executing intended responses, attaining the goal, and discharging the tension. For example, control theory is a cognitive approach to examining self-regulatory mechanisms in goal striving that grew out of Craik’s (1947, 1948) engineering system analysis and Miller, Gallanter, and Pribram’s (1960) TOTE (test-operate-test-exit) model. A common metaphor for describing such models is the regulation of heat in a house. A goal is set by establishing a criterion level—setting the desired temperature. A test is then conducted whereby a thermostat registers the existing heat and a comparison is made to the desired level of heat. If it is below the criterion level, action is taken to raise the temperature, another test is run, and the process continued until the criterion is attained. In social-psychological models describing the regulation of goal pursuit (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1981), goals specify a standard or reference criterion. Control is said to be analogous to a negative feedback loop in which one takes appropriate steps toward, and monitors progress toward, reducing the diVerence between an existing state and the reference criterion. Over the past 30 years a variety of social-cognitive theories have hinged on the notion of a discrepancy between a desired and an actual goal state being detected, with this discrepancy triggering an aversive tension that must be reduced or alleviated. For example, Wicklund and Gollwitzer (1982) asserted that failure to attain a goal leads to an experienced state of ‘‘incompleteness’’ that triggers compensatory behavior aimed at restoring a sense of completeness (the feeling of having attained a desired identity). There are many possible indicators or symbols that one possesses an identity, and people are engaged in an ongoing process of collecting such indicators so they may feel they are progressing toward (and ultimately attaining) the goal. Therefore, feelings of incompleteness that accompany a failure with respect to the pursuit of a desired identity lead to compensatory eVorts that will point to the possession of alternative symbols and the acquisition of new symbols that aYrm the identity. Higgins, Bond, Klein, and Strauman (1986) focused on the emotional consequences associated with the tension state arising from an intention that had not been attained. Higgins et al. posited the emotional experience associated with failing to attain a self-relevant goal was dependent on the standard used when evaluating one’s progress in goal pursuit. One’s actual level of goal-striving can be evaluated against a standard that specifies what one ought to have attained (i.e., what one should accomplish) or against a standard that specifies what one can ideally attain (i.e., what one would hope to accomplish; see also Devine, Monteith, Zuwerink, & Elliot, 1991). These diVerent standards provide distinctly diVerent emotional reactions in response to a

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detected discrepancy. The former yields anxiety-related and the latter depression-related emotions. Monteith (1993) found that the aVect associated with a self-discrepancy triggers compensatory responses. For example, participants experiencing a discrepancy between their actual responses and how they ought to respond had heightened states of self-focus, greater numbers of thoughts about their discrepant behavior, and took longer to read an essay about the causes of discrepant behavior. These responses are compensatory in that they allow the individual to specify the conditions that produced the discrepancy and establish coping strategies to be used in the future. A discrepancy between one’s desired goal and one’s current state of goal pursuit is essentially providing the person with negative feedback. They are incomplete in an important identity-relevant domain: they have failed to attain a desired state. Steele (1988) proposed that this represents to the person not merely a specific type of dissonance between two cognitions in a given domain (e.g., Festinger, 1957), but a threat to the integrity of their entire self-belief system. Steele asserted that one can maintain a positive view of the self in the face of negative feedback by focusing not on the feedback, but by engaging in a process of self-aYrmation whereby one focuses on retrieving and contemplating positive aspects of one’s self-concept that are not currently under threat. Indeed, the literature on self-esteem threat (too large to review here) suggests people compensate for threats to self-esteem by either attempting to enhance their sense of self, confirm their sense of self, find consistency in the self, aYrm the self, and so on (see Sedikides & Strube, 1997, for a review).

B. COMPENSATORY COGNITION: AUTOMATIC COGNITIVE RESPONSES TOWARD THE DISCHARGE OF TENSION In research on compensatory processes, one’s shortcomings are typically made salient to the individual and they are then placed in a situation that clearly aVords an opportunity for overt behavior to address those shortcomings. Given these circumstances it is likely that the state of incompleteness is still the focus of conscious attention. The similarity of the discrepancy-arousing task and the discrepancy-reducing task further increases the possibility that participants are consciously focused on restoring a sense of completeness while performing the task, aware that these responses can be used to address their experienced sense of incompleteness. For compensatory cognition following a perceived discrepancy to qualify as a case of preconscious control, it requires that the individual is not aware the discrepancy either increased the accessibility of a goal or that the activated

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goal could influence performance on the cognitive task that might address that goal. They neither intend to initiate nor are aware of having initiated compensatory cognitive/behavioral operations. Thus, the preconscious eVects of discrepancies on compensatory behavior could be examined by distancing the goal activation from the response (so that the goal is active but not salient) and by making the response one that is not so directly (obviously) linked to the goal that has been undermined or disrupted. For example, although one experiences the tension associated with the tipof-the-tongue eVect while consciously focused on retrieving the desired information, the sense of intent and awareness of trying to retrieve the information is seemingly released when one consciously disengages from the task. Yet the tension has not been released nor has one disengaged from the task; these phenomena simply retreat to the preconscious and continue to operate automatically. Similarly, participants in Zeigarnik’s (1927) experiment who were blocked from a goal pursuit, although consciously engaged in an alternate activity, continue to have the blocked goal accessible; the tension state associated with having failed to attain the goal is prolonged (and directing how information is retained in memory). 1. The Necessity of Tension for Implicit Compensation Strahan, Spencer, and Zanna (2002) distinguished between a goal’s motivational force and its semantic content. They proposed that priming goalrelevant thoughts (semantic content) alone is insuYcient for goal-relevant response. The individual must experience the drive associated with the goal having not yet been attained. As Lewin (1935) asserted, we must inquire about the nature of the causal energy for every response, a statement that presupposes that causal energy is required for responses to occur. Strahan et al. (2002) sought to illustrate that goal pursuit is essentially an attempt to compensate for an experienced tension or energy (path B in Fig. 8). Research participants were exposed to a subliminal prime relating to a goal and then were observed to determine whether they engaged in goal-relevant response as a function of whether they additionally had the drive to achieve the goal. In an initial experiment research participants believed they were participating in a marketing experiment to assess various foods and beverages. They were asked no to eat or drink for 3 hours before the experiment. On arriving at the laboratory, the participants performed a taste test and ate some cookies. Afterward, half were asked to cleanse their palate by drinking some water and half were not given this opportunity. Participants were now assumed to be in two groups—a thirsty group (those who did not drink for 3 hours, ate cookies, and did not get a chance to drink) and a not-thirsty group

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(those who had a chance to drink in the experiment). Next, participants were asked to perform a lexical decision task, and in this task they were being subliminally primed. Half of the participants were primed with words relevant to thirst, and half were primed with neutral words. Finally, the four groups of people (thirsty and primed with thirst, not thirsty and primed with thirst, thirsty and primed with non-thirst words, not thirsty and primed with non-thirst words) were asked to perform a second taste test comparing two beverages (Kool-Aid). The measure of interest in the experiment was how much of the Kool-Aid the participant drank. The hypothesis was that the subliminal prime would aVect behavior (drinking Kool-Aid) only if the person already had the goal in place (they were thirsty). This is what was found. When not thirsty, priming did not matter. However, when people were thirsty, they drank more when primed with ‘‘thirst’’-related concepts as opposed to neutral concepts. The goal needed to be paired with the state of having not yet attained the goal for priming of the goal to aVect behavior. Strahan et al. (2002) illustrated that even if primed, one would not consume a beverage if one was not thirsty. Thus, the impact of a prime on behavior might often be dependent on first having the goal in place. Additionally, if one did have the goal in place, this suggests that a prime could exert an impact on whether compensatory eVorts aimed at reducing the goal– related tension state were enacted. This is similar to the finding of Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2003, reviewed in the section on goal priming) that participants primed with the image of a library as opposed to other images responded faster to words associated with behavior appropriate for a library environment (e.g., silent, quiet, word, whisper) compared to control words, but only when they had the goal of visiting the library. One might wonder: ‘‘if someone already has the goal to act a particular way, why would priming influence whether or not they act?’’ An answer can be oVered: We have many goals active at any point in time, and which one we actually pursue is a matter of our level of commitment to each goal, which ones are more feasible to be attained in this situation, and so forth. Priming can prioritize one of the goals, increase one’s commitment to pursuing that goal, and have an impact on whether one construes the current environment as likely to yield successful attainment of the primed goal. Thus, given a tension exists, priming should aVect the strength of compensatory strivings. For example, an advertisement for a thirst-quenching beverage would be particularly eVective if one was thirsty and primed with thirst relative to the state of just being thirsty. An advertisement that focused on the beverage’s health benefits would not be benefitted by the prime. To examine this issue Strahan et al. (2002) conducted an experiment using only thirsty participants. After priming the participants with either words such as thirst and dry or words irrelevant to the goal of

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quenching one’s thirst, the participants reviewed print advertisements for two drinks. One was advertised as thirst quenching, the other as restoring electrolytes. They then rated each drink for its thirst-quenching and electrolyte-restoring qualities, as well as its general merit as a sport drink. Finally, they were given coupons for each of the drinks separately, and asked how many coupons they wanted for each. Participants primed with goal-relevant concepts rated the thirst-quenching drink more favorably than those primed with control words and asked for more coupons for this drink. The priming did not aVect responses to the electrolyte-restoring beverage. 2. Attentional Selectivity as a Preconscious, Compensatory Response Zeigarnik (1927) found that participants seemed to ruminate on a disrupted (incomplete) task. How can we illustrate that such cognitions are compensatory responses? One solution is to allow some people to discharge the tension associated with the failure at a goal pursuit and have other participants denied this opportunity. Those denied should ruminate as a way of compensating for the failure, those allowed to discharge the tension through self-aYrmation should no longer need to compensate, and evidence of rumination should disappear. That is, they should exit the comparison module because the discrepancy associated with having not attained the goal has been reduced (see Fig. 4). People denied the opportunity to aYrm the self must return to the operations stage and engage in goal pursuit until that tension has been allowed to be discharged. Koole, Smeets, van Knippenberg, and Dijksterhuis (1999) illustrated that ruminative thinking is induced by a failure in goal pursuit by focusing on people’s increased attentional selectivity to goal-relevant stimuli. As Kuhl (1986) postulated, to maintain a goal and sustain it in the face of competing goals one can initiate action control strategies that begin with shifting attentional focus to goal-relevant stimuli. This is illustrated in Fig. 9 by the path (the dashed, double line) that leads from the operations triggered by the comparison module to the perception of cues relevant to the goal. In this example the processes of goal pursuit begin in the comparison module, as participants are explicitly given negative feedback about their status in the pursuit of an explicit goal. However, despite the explicit nature in which the goal is initially triggered, implicit processes of regulation should result. This could include the goal’s heightened state of accessibility not being consciously recognized by the person once the person has exited the negative feedback situation. Therefore, one might not recognize that a goal is being pursued or that the current situation aVords an opportunity to pursue the implicitly activated goal. Implicit processes of regulation would also be evidenced by

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Fig. 9.

Action control (attentional selectivity) following goal-relevant failure.

the initiation of action control strategies that are beyond the conscious control of the individual (such as selective attention to stimuli in the environment that are compatible with one’s goals and the heightened ability to detect stimulus items that are relevant to one’s goals). To examine the implicit regulatory operations following a detected discrepancy between a desired and actual state of goal pursuit, Koole et al. (1999) began by giving research participants a putative intelligence test consisting of unsolvable problems. This forced them to suVer failure at maintaining the self-image of being intelligent. Some participants, however, were allowed to first aYrm an aspect of their self-image that was irrelevant to intelligence. Self-aYrmation was predicted to serve as a buVer against the failure feedback, thus preventing people from experiencing any discrepancy

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when failing. A lexical decision task was used to assess the implicit processes of facilitated attention to goal-relevant words that Kuhl (1986) predicted would accompany action control. People who had not self-aYrmed recognized words related to intelligence faster than the control group (who did not receive the failure feedback) and participants who had the opportunity to self-aYrm. The fact that aYrmation blocked the cognitive process suggests that the function of the process was similar to that of the aYrmation—a regulatory strategy meant to repair the tension associated with the discrepancy. Moskowitz (2002) performed a similar illustration of compensatory attentional selectivity in the service of repairing an undermined goal. If the goal to be egalitarian is encountered in the context of having contemplated how successful one has been at being egalitarian, the goal should not be undermined and no regulatory action would be required. However, failure at being egalitarian should lead to attempts to compensate for the shortcoming in this domain. Moskowitz (2002) predicted that a goal temporarily triggered in this way would lead to implicit processes of attentional selectivity that compensate for the goal state and address the tension of the temporary intention. Goal-relevant stimuli should be detected more eYciently and attention should be selectively directed toward such stimuli. Participants were asked to contemplate either a past failure at being egalitarian or a prior success at being egalitarian. Having triggered goals in this fashion, participants were next asked to join a separate experiment in a diVerent room and perform a task assessing perceptual ability, a task ostensibly unrelated to the prior task in which goals had been manipulated. In this task two objects moved on the screen, one vertically, the other horizontally. The task was to detect which object moved vertically and report whether the direction of movement was up or down. If participants are to complete the task successfully they should ignore the objects moving horizontally. Participants did not know it (because of the speed of presentation), but the moving objects were words. The content of the words was essential. On some trials words related to the goal of egalitarianism were presented as the word that was moving horizontally. Moskowitz (2002) found that when goals had been undermined they were able to direct attention. This was evidenced by the fact that on the trials of the experiment where the goal words appeared, participants were slower at performing the task (naming the direction of the word moving vertically). If the word relevant to their goal appeared in the to-be-ignored spot (it moved horizontally), one’s goals led attention to be diverted away from the task they were supposed to be focused on (detecting the direction of the word moving vertically) and slowed their performance on the task at hand.

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This occurred despite participants not knowing words relevant to their goals were presented (or that any words were being presented!) or that basic processes of attention were being assessed. They presumably did not even know they were trying to aYrm their sense of being an egalitarian person (that this goal was triggered and relevant in the current context). These compensatory processes of selective attention were not found when the goal concept had been triggered by contemplating a prior success at being egalitarian. 3. Derogation as a Preconscious, Compensatory Cognitive-Processing Strategy The social environment provides diVerent routes to improving self-esteem. Koole et al. (1999) allowed participants to aYrm their sense of self in a domain irrelevant to their failed intellectual performance, yet this was suYcient to compensate for the experienced tension state and reduced it. Another route to compensation is related to members of low-status groups, who can serve as targets of downward comparison. Fein and Spencer (1997) demonstrated that the use of negative stereotypes in forming impressions of members of a stigmatized group is often a compensatory process linked to maintaining self-esteem. For example, in one experiment some participants first identified their most cherished value from a list and wrote about why this value was important to them, whereas other participants identified their least cherished value from the list and wrote about why it might be important to others. Then all participants reviewed a description of a woman embedded in job application materials that were part of the experiment’s target task. Her name implied that she was either Jewish or non-Jewish. The dependent variables were ratings on the target’s qualification for the job and personality dimensions. In the absence of self-aYrmation, participants rated the target more negatively on both job qualification and traits if the target was Jewish relative to nonJewish. This negative bias as a function of the target’s group membership did not occur among those who had aYrmed their cherished values. Fein and Spencer (1997) further found that self-esteem threat exacerbated stereotyping and prejudice against members of a minority group. Participants received bogus feedback on an intelligence test. Some were misled to believe that the feedback was actually veridical, whereas others received the same feedback but were told that it was bogus. Then all participants read a description about a fictional character. As a between-group variable crossed with self-esteem manipulation, participants were led to believe the character was either gay or heterosexual. The dependent variable included ratings of the person on a number of personality traits, including those related to stereotypes of gay men. Among participants whose self-esteem had been

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undermined, the gay target was rated as possessing more gay-stereotypic characteristics than the heterosexual target. This stereotyping eVect did not emerge among participants who had been spared the self-esteem threat. In this case, an implicit process of stereotyping is being used to compensate for the undermined goal. The goal, consciously triggered in one context, appears to be implicitly regulated through compensatory processes of stereotyping in an unrelated context where one is judging a target that is not tied in any explicit way to the undermined goal. A final experiment provided direct evidence that derogating others in response to self-image threat helps restore self-esteem. Self-esteem was measured after participants received the bogus feedback on the intelligence test, and again after completing the evaluation of the target person. Derogating a member of a minority group following a self-esteem threat repaired the damaged self-esteem. In a related study, Spencer, Fein, Wolfe, Fong, and Dunn (1998) demonstrated that if the perceiver has just received a self-esteem threat, stereotypes become activated automatically, even under cognitive load. This result suggests that unfavorable stereotyping of a stigmatized group is often used as a means for alleviating self-esteem threat. In one experiment participants watched a videotape in which either an Asian or European woman held up cards bearing word fragments (e.g., Gilbert & Hixon, 1991). The word fragments could be completed with multiple words, including stereotypic words. It was found that participants, who completed the word fragments under cognitive load (i.e., reciting a multidigit number), did not provide more stereotypic completions of the word fragments when the card-turner was Asian versus white (replicating Gilbert & Hixon’s, 1991, finding that stereotype activation depends on a suYcient supply of cognitive resources). However, this was only half of the story. Before the word fragment task, half of the participants suVered a setback in self-esteem by receiving bogus feedback that they had performed inadequately in an intelligence test. For these participants, more stereotype-related words were used when solving the word fragments in the presence of the Asian than the European card-turner. More detailed data analyses showed that eVects of self-image threat were detected only on stereotype-relevant words with derogative connotations, rather than all the stereotype words used. This result implies that the opportunity for stereotyping a target person had been seized upon by the participants for repairing their damaged esteem through derogating other people. This occurs despite conditions of cognitive load that would otherwise undermine stereotype activation. A subsequent experiment replicated these findings using subliminal priming of the target groups. In summary, stereotype activation is a compensatory cognitive process that occurs in the preconscious, and it is used to compensate for a goal that

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the individual is not consciously ruminating on or pursuing during the actual task that assesses stereotype activation. In this way both the goal’s accessibility and the cognitive processes used as a form of action control to help regulate the goal are implicit and not recognized by the individual.

4. Controlling Stereotyping as a Compensatory Cognitive-Processing Strategy Although stereotype activation can at times be an appropriate preconscious compensatory response to an implicitly activated goal, it is also possible to predict what, on the surface, seems to be the opposite point. If one alters the goals that are being implicitly regulated, one could expect to find stereotype inhibition rather than heightened accessibility as an appropriate means of compensation. Spencer et al. (1998) argued that a threat to one’s identity triggers the goal of repairing the threatened self-image, and this lowered state of self-esteem can be repaired by stereotyping. However, if a goal that is perfectly incompatible with stereotyping is triggered, such as the goal to be egalitarian, then implicit regulation through compensatory cognition should lead to the disruption of stereotype activation and the inhibition of stereotypes (e.g., Monteith, Ashburn-Nardo, Voils, & Czopp, 2002; Moskowitz et al., 2003). For example, Moskowitz et al. (1999), as described earlier, illustrated how people with chronic goals to be egalitarian had stereotypes inhibited preconsciously, rather than activated. The face of a woman led male research participants to react more slowly to stereotype-relevant words on a negative priming task. Moskowitz et al. (2000) found that people with chronic egalitarian goals had their goals primed by faces of African Americans rather than the stereotype (responding faster to goal-relevant words following these primes). Together these experiments illustrate that concepts incompatible with one’s goal (a stereotype) are inhibited, whereas concepts (and goals) compatible with one’s goal are processed in a facilitated manner, all without the perceiver’s intent or awareness. Moskowitz et al. (2004) extended these findings to individuals without chronic goals. They argued that people given the temporary goal to be egalitarian should exhibit similar implicit control over stereotype activation due to preconscious compensatory processes, such as the inhibition of stereotypes (Fig. 10) and the heightened attentional selectivity to goal-relevant stimuli (see Fig. 9). The triggering of the goal to be egalitarian in these experiments was the result of participants being explicitly asked to detect a discrepancy between their goal to be egalitarian and their own past, nonegalitarian behavior. This detected discrepancy was proposed to initiate implicit processes of action control.

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Fig. 10. Implicit inhibition of stereotypes following the activation of egalitarian goals.

Moskowitz et al. (2004) asked some participants to reflect on a time when they had failed to act in an egalitarian manner, thus undermining their sense of self in this domain. In essence, this task has participants consciously adopting the goal to be egalitarian, establishing this as the goal criterion, and thus having them enter the process model illustrated in Fig. 10 at the point of goal activation. However, the task immediately asks them to engage the comparison module and evaluate their own past behavior against the standard established by the goal criterion. The resulting feeling of incompletion, or need for aYrmation, should produce compensatory responses aimed at restoring the sense of self in the damaged domain. In contrast, participants who had contemplated a recent success at being egalitarian should not feel this sense of incompletion and can exit the comparison module without the need to engage any compensatory operations. Moskowitz et al. (2004) found that participants whose sense of self as egalitarian had been undermined engaged in compensatory responses to disrupt stereotype activation. Stereotype activation was assessed using a procedure almost identical to that of Moskowitz et al. (2000). Research participants were shown pictures of either African American or white men ostensibly as part of a memory test.

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Following the pictures, were strings of letters (briefly flashed) that had to be identified as either words or nonsense syllables. The words, on the trials of interest, were either related to the stereotype of blacks or were irrelevant to this stereotype. The usual finding, that people respond faster to words relevant to the stereotype following a black face, was found only for participants who had not been asked to contemplate a previous instance of being unfair. People who had fairness goals triggered by contemplating such a prior experience (thinking about failures at being egalitarian) did not show activation of the stereotype. They compensated for the triggered goal by engaging in goal-compatible responses such as inhibiting the stereotype. Moskowitz et al. (2004) also found that the triggering of the goal through this compensatory path led to an increased attentional focus to goal-relevant stimuli—implicit attentional selectivity (see Fig. 9). To illustrate this increase in attentional focus to goal-relevant stimuli, participants were asked to perform a lexical decision task, where each letter string was preceded by the presentation of a face. On critical trials participants responded to words related to the goal of being egalitarian (e.g., tolerant, fair, egalitarian) and to words irrelevant to this goal following either black or white faces. People whose fairness goals had been undermined responded faster to the words relating to egalitarianism following a black Face (but showed no facilitation following a white face) relative to people who had not been undermined in this domain. And such detection occurred preconsciously—people were detecting these goal-related words at facilitated speeds even though the stimuli were being presented (and responded to) too quickly for conscious control to have been directing attention. Finally, to verify that this was indeed a case of preconscious compensatory responses in the service of a goal (to be egalitarian), Moskowitz et al. (2004) studied whether people are not only faster at recognizing words relating to the concept ‘‘egalitarian’’ but if they started scanning their environment for stimuli that would allow them to address their goal and begin to compensate for their feeling of incompleteness. If their responses truly reflect attempts to compensate for a goal state that one desires to attain, this should be evidenced in the ability to detect goal-relevant stimuli in the environment faster than people who are not attempting to compensate and who do not have the goal. To assess this, Moskowitz et al. provided participants with a visual search task: four images of men were flashed on four quadrants of a screen, and the participants had to detect which man was not wearing a bow tie. This man was always white. However, the three other men (all wearing bow ties) were sometimes all white and sometimes contained one black man. The logic was that when a black man was included among the stimuli, people who had the goal to be egalitarian and fair toward black men would be scanning the environment, preconsciously, for cues relevant to their goal

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pursuit. A black man presents such an opportunity. Thus, these participants should be more likely to detect and attend to this image, and thus be distracted by it (as it shifts attention from the focal task). That is, their response time in detecting the man not wearing the bow tie would be slowed by this momentary attention to the goal-relevant cue in the environment. This is precisely what was found. When a goal to be fair had been temporarily introduced, it made people more likely to detect stimuli in the environment relevant to that goal relative to people who did not have such goals triggered. Evidence that cues in the environment that are related to one’s goals are disruptive of incompatible processing and lead to implicit attempts to inhibit incompatible processing is provided by Monteith et al. (2002), who illustrate that a behavioral inhibition system is triggered when cues relating to one’s goals are detected. Monteith and Voils (2001) posited that the mechanism that produces implicit stereotype control is one in which an association is built between the cues that trigger the negative aVect (for example, the presence of a black or gay person), the experience of the negative aVect (guilt, shame), and the action that caused the negative aVect (acting in a nonegalitarian fashion toward members of the group in question). They propose that to stimulate stereotype regulation people must first recognize some discrepancy from their personal standards of prejudice, which then stimulates feelings of guilt and disappointment. Once this occurs then cues associated with these aversive self-feelings can trigger compensatory processes. The cues eventually serve as a warning that a discrepant response might follow, and this triggers a behavioral inhibition system (BIS) that would allow for control over the unwanted response: ‘‘when [cues for control] are present in subsequent situations, the BIS should be activated again, causing heightened arousal and a slowing of ongoing behavior (i.e., behavioral inhibition). Consequently, the response-generation process should be slowed and executed more carefully’’ (Monteith & Voils, p. 382). To trigger the goal to be egalitarian, the participants in the Monteith et al. (2002) research were undermined in their pursuit of the goal of being a nonprejudiced person. They were connected to equipment said to measure physiological arousal and told that computer-generated feedback would indicate when they had negative responses to diVerent kinds of pictorial images. The feedback then gave some participants the impression that despite their attempts to control their physiological responses they responded with negative arousal to pictures that were racial in content. Participants in the control condition received information indicating they had low negative arousal to racial stimuli and high arousal to nonracial pictures. All the participants were told to press the space bar after they received the feedback, so that the program would advance to the next picture. The time

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between the presentation of the feedback graph and the spacebar press was recorded as the measure of behavioral inhibition. When participants thought their physiological responses indicated prejudice, they demonstrated behavioral inhibition with slower responses to pressing the space bar. The appearance of racial images served as a cue to initiate the BIS, which slowed participants’ general responsiveness. Monteith et al. (2002) provided further support for compensatory processes of inhibition in the face of a goal having been undermined. This time actual feedback was provided to participants by having them take the implicit association test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Lowprejudiced participants completed a racial IAT that asked them to categorize items as either ‘‘black’’ or ‘‘white’’ names or ‘‘pleasant’’ or ‘‘unpleasant’’ words. Once the participants completed the IAT, the experimenter showed them their performance discrepancy—faster performance on congruent than incongruent trials, indicating implicit stereotyping, presumably an unfavorable response for those who are low in prejudice. They then completed two final tasks. The first was simply a way to familiarize the participants with the format of the task. It involved viewing words on the computer screen and categorizing them as either living or nonliving, indicating their response by a key press. The items contained words from the filler task, new filler words, and names from the IAT. The second task asked the participants to indicate like or dislike to the same words presented in reverse order. The rationale was that presenting black names in the context of a like-dislike judgment should stimulate the cues for control among participants who felt guilty as a result of their earlier performance on the IAT. Thus it was expected that people who felt the guiltiest from their performance on the IAT should pause the most when they were presented with a black name in the context of having to respond to whether they liked or disliked the name. Indeed, in the presence of a black name those participants who felt guiltiest (as determined by their ratings on an aVective measure) about their IAT performance were significantly less likely to generate racially biased responses and responded slower when presented with the black name. A behavioral inhibition was triggered by people motivated to compensate for a self-relevant goal that had been undermined. 5. Conviction as a Compensatory Response in Implicit Goal Pursuit Besides self-esteem, self-consistency (i.e., a sense of the self with a unified and integrated identity) constitutes another important need related to the self (e.g., Swann, 1987; Tesser & Martin, 1996). When people notice inconsistent goals and values in their own behavior, their self-integrity is threatened, prompting the need to compensate for this inconsistency. McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, and Spencer (2001) proposed that one way to compensate for self-

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inconsistency is to express strong conviction to one’s attitude on an issue or an aspect of the self. In one experiment self-consistency was manipulated by having participants write either about a complex personal dilemma that they did not know how to resolve or about a dilemma of a friend. Then some participants were given the opportunity to repair their self-consistency, by identifying a personally important value and writing about how they had been consistent in fulfilling this value, whereas others identified the value that was least important to them and wrote about how these values could be important to others. Finally, all participants indicated their attitudes on a social issue (death penalty). Those who had just had their self-consistency undermined and without the opportunity to repair it expressed more extreme opinions about the issue, felt less ambivalent about their own attitudes, and estimated a higher number of people would agree with their position than those who had just had their self-consistency maintained. The authors labeled this radical aYrmation of an attitude ‘‘spontaneous compensatory conviction.’’ A similar kind of nonconscious compensatory process is elicited by thoughts and feelings associated with death. As reviewed earlier, terror management theory proposes that when one becomes aware of one’s inevitable death it may lead to a debilitating terror, which initiates goals to avoid such thoughts (e.g., Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). These goals are presumed to be implicit in that one need not consciously be focusing on avoiding mortality-related thoughts in order to engage in a motivated defense from the intrusion of such thoughts. Unconscious concerns relating to death prompt people to use several strategies for compensating for the occurrence of these unwanted thoughts and repairing the tension associated with the heightened salience of one’s mortality. The most extensively investigated strategy is ‘‘worldview aYrmation,’’ a process whereby people compensate for increased salience of mortality by implicitly ratcheting upward their conviction for the values, standards, beliefs, and stereotypes associated with the culture in which they live. As Arndt et al. (1997) mentioned, more than 40 experiments (at that time) illustrate that mortality salience increases people’s faith in their cultural worldview (readers are directed to Greenberg et al. (1997) for an extensive review of this particular form of compensatory responding to an implicit goal). 6. Identification and Disidentification as Compensatory Responses in Implicit Goal Pursuit Increased conviction to a culturally based belief system is but one way people may compensate for failure to attain the goal of avoiding mortality salience. As a separate route to the management of this terror, Wisman and Koole (2003) proposed that people can choose to go beyond reaYrming

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their identification with group values but seek out group aYliation. Joining groups is one way to compensate for the threat of mortality-related terror. After receiving a mortality salience manipulation (instructing some participants to write about how they would feel when they thought about their own death, whereas others wrote about how they would feel when they watched television), each participant was forced to choose either to sit alone and defend a his own worldview, or to sit with the group and defend a worldview incompatible with his own. Mortality salience made more people choose to sit with the group, even though this meant they had to defend a worldview contradictory to their own. This was interpreted as showing that both worldview defense and group aYliation can compensate for the implicit terror of mortality salience. When the two strategies conflict, group aYliation takes precedence. The strategy of behavior change seems to trump the strategy of increased conviction. Similarly, Arndt, Greenberg, Schimel, Pyszczynski, and Solomon (2002) found that at times the best approach for terror management is to avoid people and groups linked to the cultural worldview. Schimel, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, O’Mahen, and Arndt (2000) found that participants psychologically distanced themselves from people who possessed negative traits that participants feared they might possess. Arndt et al. (2002) remind us that sometimes the people who possess the negative traits that we wish to avoid are people who belong to the groups to which we also belong. In such cases we should seek to avoid groups associated with our cultural worldview when mortality salience is high, not embrace them. To illustrate the lessening of identification with one’s group as a means to maintain self-esteem in the face of mortality salience, Arndt et al. (2002) examined whether, under conditions of heightened mortality salience, derogation of in-group members emerged when salient negative information about one’s group makes identification potentially threatening. Hispanic and white participants were first asked to read one of three possible news articles meant to prime either positive, negative, or neutral associations to Hispanics (e.g., the negative prime was an article about a drug cartel from Mexico). Mortality salience was then manipulated and an ostensibly second task then asked participants to rate a series of contemporary art paintings by artists who had either an Anglo name or a Hispanic name. The findings indicated that mortality salience led to less favorable ratings of the paintings by Hispanics if negative exemplars of that group had been primed. This was found only for Hispanic participants. In contrast, when Hispanic participants were presented with positive exemplar primes, they had more favorable evaluations of paintings by members of their group. This indicates that mortality salience can at times lead to the compensatory strategy of disaYliating with members of one’s group.

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Disidentification in the face of self-esteem threat can also be evidenced using implicit measures. It would be hard to argue that the Hispanic participants were aware of the impact of their accessible, negative stereotypes of Hispanics on their subsequent evaluations. However, a more implicit measure of disidentification can more directly establish the preconscious nature of this compensatory response. Mussweiler, Gabriel, and Bodenhausen (2000) argued that implicit processes of self-categorization are often made in ways that satisfy the motivation to maintain a positive self-image. When one is faced with a self-esteem threat from a person outperforming oneself, one can compensate for the failure to maintain positive esteem by focusing on identities one does not share with this upward standard of social comparison. This minimizes the relevance of this standard and deflects the negative implications of the standard’s superior performance.

C. TWO REGULATORY PATHS It should be noted that the implicit volition model depicted in Fig. 8 leaves several theoretical questions as yet unanswered. A first has already been reviewed, and this involves the issue of whether a preconscious decision regarding aVordances need be made before a goal can be activated by a cue. A second regards the conditions that dictate which of the two paths from goal activation to goal operations will be pursued. The auto-motive model suggests that operations proceed immediately from goal activation. Models of compensatory cognition imply that operations toward goal pursuit are only initiated after a ‘‘test’’ has been conducted and a ‘‘comparator’’ has evaluated the output of that test. If a discrepancy exists between the goal criterion and one’s current state, then operations are initiated. If no discrepancy exists, then the ‘‘charge’’ or activation potential associated with the goal criterion is released and no operations are necessary (and one disengages from goal pursuit). Traditionally, the research examining each of these models has diVered along an important dimension. The auto-motive research has attempted to trigger the goal criterion implicitly, without conscious choice being required. Compensatory models have always relied on procedures whereby people are explicitly asked to evaluate their performance against some standard (either in the form of evaluating negative feedback or contemplating prior failures at goal pursuit). This might lead one to assume the implicit volition model uses the criterion of conscious choice as the determining factor regarding which path is pursued. However, it does not. There is no assumption that just because researchers have traditionally used explicit means to engage the comparison module that conscious selection of a goal criterion and the

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explicit decision to evaluate one’s status pertaining to goal pursuit are required for such ‘‘testing’’ to occur. It is possible that the detection of discrepancies between desired and current levels of goal pursuit could proceed implicitly. It is also possible that the direct path from an activated goal criterion to goal-related operations could occur after a goal criterion had been consciously selected. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, a diverse literature on Person Memory has already demonstrated that implicit and unintended operations (cognitive processes aimed at goal attainment) result from consciously selected goals (see Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, 1996; Srull & Wyer, 1986, for reviews). As yet, the conditions that determine which of the two paths to goal pursuit will be followed are not yet established. What can be asserted is that the determination is unlikely to be based on the explicit versus implicit nature of the goal criterion’s activation.

V. Conclusion In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States (in the case of Anne Hopkins v. Price Waterhouse), aided by an americus brief filed by the American Psychological Association (Fiske, BersoV, Borgida, Deaux, & Heilman, 1991), essentially ruled that employers were legally responsible for employee-directed bias and discrimination arising from unconscious sources. The amicus brief informed the court that stereotypes activated without one’s conscious intent are capable of influencing judgment (e.g., Allport, 1954; Bodenhausen & Wyer, 1985; Duncan, 1976) and behavior (e.g., Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974). However, such processes were also said to be capable of being controlled by people if they dedicated greater attention to and greater cognitive eVort in their review of the inputs to a judgment (e.g., Brewer, 1988; ). Such increased eVort can arise, for example, from the goal to be accurate (e.g., Neuberg, 1989; Tetlock, 1985), a goal capable of leading potential sources of bias to be removed from one’s judgment (even if one is not aware that such bias existed to start with; e.g., Thompson, Roman, Moskowitz, Chaiken, & Bargh, 1994). Therefore, the court ruled that because the eVects of unconscious sources of influence are controllable, they are within the domain of responsibility of those rendering the biased decisions, judgments, and actions. This susceptibility to legal sanction exists despite the fact that the bias was not consciously intended, and despite the fact that the oVending party was not aware any discrimination had occurred. A key ingredient to this ruling is the fact that although the dominant response when making judgments of stereotype-relevant targets may be to have stereotypes activated and used without awareness, individuals possess

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the ability to respond in an unbiased way. Therefore, one could place the burden on the employer to create an environment where employees are evaluated by managers sensitive to potential sources of influence that may bias their decision making. However, as Fiske (1989) pointed out, intending to be unbiased and fair in this manner is hard when compared to the ease with which stereotypes and other sources of unconscious bias may infiltrate judgment. The ability to control bias requires making what Fiske (1989) called a ‘‘hard choice’’ in that it requires overturning automatic products of cognitive processing. It is not diYcult to imagine those who hold a more conservative interpretation of the law, as well as those who run major corporations in the United States, taking issue with legal culpability being assigned to unintended acts, the existence of which the perpetrator (unlike the victim) was not aware. Legal definitions of intent aside, such individuals could also point to the social psychological literature to argue as to whether control over such automatic processes truly is possible. Chaiken and Trope’s (1999) edited volume on dual-process models in psychology revealed a dominant theme in current psychology—that the attempt to correct, modify, and adjust for the eVects of automatic processes requires conscious intent. And the successful deployment of such intent is dependent on one possessing (1) awareness that a biasing influence exists; (2) a theory about what that influence is and in what direction it is pushing one’s judgment, evaluation, and decision making; (3) the motivation to attempt to remove this unwanted influence; and (4) the resources (capability) with which to carry out these eVortful processes of correction and judgment modification. However, these conditions that undermine the ability for control to occur are precisely those that greet the typical decision maker in life outside the psychological laboratory (Baumeister, 2004; Bruner, 1957). Time pressure (e.g., Kruglanski & Freund, 1983), working on multiple tasks simultaneously and thus overburdening cognitive capacity (e.g., Bargh & Thein, 1985; Gilbert & Hixon, 1991; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994), and serving goals other than accuracy (e.g., Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Jones & Thibaut, 1958; Sedikides, 1990) are omnipresent conditions of the workplace and of social life generally. Thus, what are we to conclude about the possibility to control unwanted responses that have been habitualized (such as stereotyping)? Must we retract the optimistic view put forth by Devine (1989) that although stereotypes are automatically activated, they can be consciously controlled, replacing it with a more pessimistic view of control as limited? Implicit in this discussion regarding the ability to control automatic processes is the assumption that control is eVortful, that intentional acts are borne of consciousness, requiring awareness and cognitive resources. It assumes that prevention of

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unwanted responses requires overturning the automatic outputs of automatic processes. It assumes that to operate strategically is to operate eVortfully and consciously, and that strategic processes occur sequentially later than automatic processes. Certainly our goals and intent can be used to direct how we respond, consciously being deployed to either enhance, facilitate, inhibit, suppress, mold, adjust, and correct the inputs to consciousness that are provided automatically by the cognitive apparatus. As Bargh (1984) described, automatic processes could be modified and controlled by conscious processing. But does being strategic require making a ‘‘hard choice’’? The debate surrounding the legal meaning of intent (and culpability for unintended eVects arising from unconscious bias) must incorporate the issue of whether control can be automatic. It is posited that goal pursuit can be as dominant a response to a stimulus as the activation of other mental representations. Preconscious control is a common component of social life, it is just less intuitively obvious than conscious control (given lay conceptions of control and volition), more invisible or diYcult to detect (given it is concealed by conscious rationalization), and more threatening to the individual’s sense of identity (as it superficially suggests to the individual that action is determined by the environment alone). But implicit volition is a common component of everyday life, and it occurs even when the goals are not routinely practiced or associated with specific environments. We might use the term strategic automaticity to convey the possibility that temporary goals can be implicitly triggered and pursued—that implicit volition is not limited to chronic goals but can be selected by individuals within a current context to pursue context-relevant goals.

Acknowledgment This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0213693, awarded to Gordon B. Moskowitz.

References Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2000). Habits as knowledge structures: Automaticity in goaldirected behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 53–63. Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2003). The silence of the library: Environment, situational norm, and social behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 18–28.

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INDEX

A AATVS. See Adolescent Attitudes towards Violence scale Action control attentional selectivity and, 379, 390–392 emotional control with, 380 encoding control with, 379–380 implicit volition model and, 379–380, 390–392 motivation control with, 380 Action shape perception cognition with, 60–63 Activation/comparison model activation/comparison biases in, 304–306 attitude accessibility in, 265–266 attitude activation influence in, 280, 281, 284, 295–285 attitude confidence in, 301–302 attitude-consistent information in, 289–290 attitude dissolution processes and, 303–304 attitude-inconsistent information in, 286–289 attitude-related information in, 262–266, cognitive processes in, 297–298 comparative motivation influences in, 281–284 comparative validation in, 266–278 comparison influences in, 275–278, 295–297 conclusions on, 291–307 confidence/extremity increase in, 268–269 corroboration principle in, 266–270 defensive confidence principle in, 270–278 Fazio’s hypothesis with, 295 general ability influence in, 285–291 implications of, 300–302 implications of attitude change in, 285–291

judgments changed in, 258–291 limitations in, 306 motivation influence in, 297–300 nonevaluative judgments and, 300–301 policy implications with, 303 prior attitude in, 258–262 prior attitude polarization and, 269, 270 processing ability influence in, 297–300 proposed processes in, 258–278 Additive integration model different models compared with, 268 Adolescent Attitudes towards Violence scale (AATVS) video games testing with, 234, 235 Affective behavior GAM with, 199, 202, 203 Affirmative action fairness in, 13 macro vs. micro level in, 13 opposition to, 12 racism and, 11–14 reverse discrimination in, 11 whites’ reactions to, 12 Aggression. See also General Aggression Model; Violent video games behavior with, 218, 219–222, 228–229, 234, 235, 241 beliefs with, 203, 204 Buss-Perry Aggression measure and, 225, 227 cognition and, 199, 202, 203, 241 desensitization towards, 203, 204, 232 personality with, 203 TH correlated with, 220 Aggression paradigm Competitive Reaction Time and, 226–227 AI. See Artificial intelligence 415

416

INDEX

Ambivalence racism with, 4–7 Anagram task goals tested with, 338–339, 347 ANCOVA model video games tested with, 230–231 ANOVA video games testing with, 220, 221, 223, 227 Anthropology beliefs in, 122 Arousal GAM with, 199, 202 Artificial intelligence (AI) SSC with, 55 AST model cognition with, 64 Attentional selectivity, 379, 390–392 Attitudes activation/comparison biases in, 304–306 activation/comparison model for, 258–291 activation/comparison model limitations and, 306 affective based, 256 attitude accessibility in, 265–266 attitude activation influence in, 280, 281, 284 attitude-related information influencing, 262–266 behavioral information based, 256 changing of, 258–291 cognitive based, 256 cognitive processes in, 297–298 comparative motivation influences in, 281–284 comparative validation in, 266–278 comparison influences in, 275–278, 295–297 conclusions on, 291–307 confidence/extremity increase in, 268–269 confidence in, 256, 301–302 consistent information influencing, 289–290 corroboration principle in, 266–270 defensive confidence principle in, 270–278 different predictive models for, 293–295 dissolution processes of, 303–304 evaluative category in, 256 Fazio’s hypothesis with, 295 fragmented literature about, 252

general ability influence in, 285–291 implications of, 256, 300–302 implications of attitude change in, 285–291 inconsistent information influencing, 286–289 information-integration theory and, 294 introduction to, 252–255 memory-base/online information integrated for, 292–293 motivation influence in, 297–300 nonevaluative judgments and, 300–301 policy implications with, 303 preliminary definitions for, 255–258 prior attitude in, 258–262 prior attitude polarization and, 269, 270 processing ability’s influence in, 297–300 proposed processes in, 258–278 social judgment theory and, 294–295 subjective certainty in, 256 survival/change in, 251–307 three processes for changing, 252 Attitudes towards Violence scale (ATVS) video games testing with, 233, 235 Attribution lay theories with, 124 ATVS. See Attitudes towards Violence scale Automaticity implicit volition model with, 317, 320–322, 405 strategic, 317, 405 Averaging integration model different models compared with, 268 Aversive racism. See Racism B Behavior aggressive, 218, 219–222, 228–229, 234, 235, 241 beliefs’ predicting of, 173 context of, 87–89 environment support for, 86–87 GAM influencing, 202, 203 restaurant, 87 roles of social axioms for, 172–180 scripts in, 87, 203, 204 situational cues for, 83 social axioms shaped, 181 Behavioral inhibition system (BIS), 398 Behaviorism, 74, 327

INDEX Beliefs. See also Social axioms accumulated knowledge in, 128 aggressive, 203, 204 behavior predictive power of, 173 Chinese vs. Americans in, 124 cognitive dissonance in, 125 collective representation as, 122 communication with, 122 context-free, 128–130 domain-specific, 132 generalized expectancies in, 129 human nature in, 126 importance of, 127–128 individual differences as, 126 lay epistemics theory in, 125 lay theories with, 123–125 literature on, 132 mathematical axioms as, 129 measures of, 181 nations clustered by, 170–172 need for cognition in, 128 normative, 130 order vs. chaos in, 127–128 process models of, 125 research summary on, 126–127 shared, 122–123 social axiom construct and, 127–131 social nature of, 122 social psychological research on, 122–127 social representation as, 122–123 societal, 123 Big-five model social axioms studied with, 153, 166 video games testing with, 199, 232, 233, 234, 235 BIS. See Behavioral inhibition system Bug detectors, 57 Buss-Perry Aggression measure, 225, 227 C Cardiovascular activity arousal in, 218 measures of, 209, 210–211 violent video games and, 209, 210–211, 218 Chameleon effect communication and, 80 CIRP. See Cooperative Institutional Research Program

417

Cluster analysis social axioms in, 133 Cognition. See also Compensatory cognition action connection to, 65 action relevance with, 61–63 action shape perception with, 60–63 adaptive action in, 57–67 affect-cognition interfaces with, 71–72 agency self-attributions and, 84 agent interaction with, 74–89 agents leaning on world in, 89–90 aggression and, 199, 202, 203, 241 AST model with, 64 attitudes with, 64, 69–70 audience effects on, 78 behavioral cues with, 83 body movements in, 68 categorization with, 68–69 chameleon effect in, 80 cockpit paradigm with, 90 common knowledge effect with, 93 communication with, 62–63, 77–80, 94, 101–102 conceptual focus with, 104 conceptual knowledge in, 86 creative thought with, 70 culture and, 102–104 distribution in, 89–104 dual adaptation principle with, 98–99 embodiment of, 67–74 emotion related to, 59–60, 71–72 evolved psychological mechanisms with, 72–73 GAM with, 199, 202, 203 goals and, 366–368 human/tools coupling with, 98–99 implicit process in, 19–21 knowledge distribution with, 89, 92 language and, 95, 101–102, 103 language comprehension with, 66–67 memory with, 62 mentalism v., 74–75 mental representation with, 63–65 message interpretation in, 78–79 methodological implication of, 86–89 motivation related to, 59–60 motor movements with, 73–74 others’ response influencing, 82–83 perception-behavior with, 70–71

418 Cognition. See also Compensatory cognition (continued ) perception-cognition attributes with, 73–74 person impressions with, 64–65 person perception with, 61–62 pragmatic concerns with, 60–65 preserved knowledge with, 99 processing complex task with, 92–93 properties of tools and, 97–98, 100–101 reception in, 58 relevance shaped message with, 79–80 robot with, 76–77 scripts in, 87 self-esteem with, 81–82 self influence on, 80–82 shared reality and, 94–95 silent reading and, 98 situational aspects and, 84–85 situation specific knowledge in, 86 social axioms with, 128 social behavior contextual study, 87–89 social coupling with, 89–90, 94 social distribution/preservation of, 91–94 social environment interaction with, 74–89 social group influencing, 82–83 socially shared nature of, 94–96 socially situated action with, 77–80 social perceivers with, 60 social psychological contribution to, 58–65 speaker accommodation in, 80 stereotypes with, 70, 73 task interaction with, 74–89 task performance with, 68 theoretical focus with, 76 time pressures with, 60–61 tool use with, 89, 96, 97–99 transactive memory systems and, 93 Cognitive dissonance process models and, 125 Cognitive psychology SSC with, 55 Collective representation beliefs with, 122 Common In-Group Identity Model, 31–33 Common knowledge effect cognition and, 93

INDEX Communication audience effects on, 78 chameleon effect in, 80 cognition with, 62–63, 77–80, 94, 101–102 cognitive tuning in, 78 message interpretation in, 78–79 relevance shaped message with, 79–80 social representation with, 122 speaker accommodation in, 80 Watergate example of, 80 Compensatory cognition attentional selectivity in, 390–392 automatic cognitive responses in, 387–402 compensatory behavior and, 384–403 conviction in, 399–400 derogation failure in, 394–399 derogation in, 393–394 description of, 318, 323 identification in, 400–402 Lewianian theory and, 385 models of self-regulation and, 385–387 regulatory paths with, 402–403 tension discharge with, 387–402 Competition racism in, 5–7 Competitive Reaction Time (CRT) aggression paradigm with, 226–227 experiment 2 with, 216–218, 220, 224, 242 experiment 3 with, 224, 226, 227, 228, 231, 242 video games experiment with, 216–218, 220, 224, 226, 227, 228, 231, 242 Congruence coefficients social axioms with, 133, 139, 145 Contract Hypothesis racism in, 32 Control. See Preconscious control Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), 201 Coping styles social complexity prediction of, 174 terrorist attacks and, 177 Correlation matrix social axioms in, 133, 135–138 CRT. See Competitive Reaction Time Culture group linkage dendrogram for, 170, 171 Hong Kong Chinese, 132 social axioms differences in, 120, 132–139 Cynicism. See Social cynicism

419

INDEX D Dark Forces, 208, 212, 219, 244 Denial racism with, 4 Desensitization aggressive, 203, 204, 232 Developmental psychology SSC with, 55 Discrimination admission decisions with, 16–18 hiring decisions with, 15–16 prejudice scoring with, 16–18 racism disparity with, 2–3 reverse, 11, 13 social norms with, 7–8, 11 unconscious sources of, 403 Dissociation implicit process cognition in, 19–21 racism with, 19–25 E Economic correlation social axioms with, 157, 159–160 Embedded Figure Task goal study with, 352 Emotion cognition related to, 59–60, 71–72 Emotional control, 380 Emotional Susceptibility scale video games testing with, 199, 232, 233, 235 Encoding control, 379–380 Equifinality goals and, 354 Eureka experience, 318 Expectation schemata personality defined by, 203, 204 F Fate control checking horoscope correlated with, 176 citizen axiom associated with, 168–170 data analysis of, 145 description of, 133 five-factor solution with, 135–138 health spending correlated with, 168 life expectancy correlated with, 168 psychological indicators and, 163–165

social axioms with, 119, 133, 135–138, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 155–156, 161–162, 163–165, 168–170 socioeconomic-political indicators and, 161–162 universality of, 181 universal model with, 185 urbanism correlated with, 168 Fazio’s hypothesis activation/comparison model with, 295 Fisher transformation social axioms with, 133 Functional thinking goal testing with, 338–339 G GAM. See General Aggression Model Gender ratio social axioms survey with, 142 General Aggression Model (GAM) basic issues with, 204–206 description of, 202–204 key questions raised by, 206–207 overall view of, 205 primary route, 202, 203 secondary route, 203 single-episode, 202 violent video games with, 202–207 Gestalt, 328 Glider Pro, 208, 212, 213, 214, 216, 225–226, 231, 245 Goals affective effects of, 366 anagram task and, 338–339, 347 arm movements with, 351–352 behavioral effects of, 368–371 cognitive effects of, 366–368 competing, 338–340, 348–350 contagion, 356 content vs. self-regulation theories of, 364 Embedded Figure Task with, 352 enacting means triggering, 350–353 environment triggering, 359–362 equifinality with, 354 facilitation of, 345 functional thinking with, 338–339 implicit priming in, 330–335, 353–355 implicit triggering of, 327–371 inhibition of, 340–345, 348–350

420

INDEX

Goals (continued ) intentions influencing attainment of, 374–375 knowledge structures seen as, 330 mental cues for, 362–364 mental representation seen in, 327–371 moderators of shielding of, 345–348 multifinality with, 345 people as cues to, 355–356 priming means triggering, 353–355 regulation focus for, 364–371 relationship-partner priming of, 357–359 relevant cues priming, 350–364 scrambled sentence test and, 331–332 semantic vs. goal priming and, 335–338 shielding of, 340–350 Snowy Picture Test with, 366–367 social axioms and, 120, 130–131 Stroop effect with, 349 studies of, 348–350 verbal recall with, 338 Green Circle intervention program, 34 Group linkage dendrogram social axioms in, 170, 171 Group perception lay theories with, 124 Grutter vs. Bollinger, 11 H Habit implicit volition model with, 320–321 Hawk detectors, 57 Hierarchical cluster analysis social axioms in, 170 Hiring decisions racism in, 15–16 Hobbesian theory, 154 Horoscopes fate control correlated with, 176 social complexity correlated with, 176 I IAT. See Implicit association test Ido-motor action, 329 Implicit association test (IAT) compensatory behavior and, 398, 399 racism in, 40

Implicit volition model action control in, 379–380, 390–392 affective effects in, 366 affordances in, 380–384 attentional selectivity in, 379, 390–392 automatic cognitive responses in, 387–402 auto-motives in, 317, 320–322, 405 behavioral effects in, 368–371 classic goal studies and, 348–350 cognitive effects in, 366–368 compensatory cognition in, 318, 323, 384–403 conclusion on, 403–405 conviction in, 399–400 derogation failure in, 394–399 derogation in, 393–394 enacting means of goal triggering in, 350–353 environment triggering in, 359–362 goal attainment with intention in, 374–375 goal facilitation in, 345 goal inhibition in, 340–345, 348–350 goal-relevant cues in, 350–364 goals as mental representation in, 327–371 goal shielding in, 340–350 habit in, 320–321 identification in, 400–402 implementation intentions in, 373–379 implicit goals priming in, 330–335, 353–355 implicit regulation goals and, 364–371 intentions in, 353, 371–384 intentions mediating automatic processing in, 375–379 introduction to, 317–327 Lewianian theory and, 385 mental cues priming goals in, 362–364 models of self-regulation and, 385–387 moderators of goal shielding in, 345–348 people as cues in, 355–356 preconscious control in, 317, 319–320 preconscious goal regulation in, 317–405 priming competing goal in, 338–340, 348–350 regulatory paths with, 402–403 relationship-partner priming in, 357–359 semantic vs. goal priming and, 335–338 tension discharge in, 387–402 three theoretical points of, 317–318, 322–327

421

INDEX Indy Car 2, 208, 212, 219, 245 Information-integration theory judgments viewed in, 294 Information-processing approach SSC v., 56, 58 Intentions action control with, 379–380 affordances with, 380–384 automatic processing mediating effects of, 375–379 goal attainment influenced by, 374–375 implementation, 373–379 implicit regulation via, 353, 371–384 implicit volition model with, 383 quasi-needs and, 384–385 valence and, 381, 385 Intergroup relations categorization in, 30–31 Contract Hypothesis in, 32 experimental evidence with, 33–35 Green Circle intervention program with, 34 motivational orientations with, 35–37 racism with, 19, 30–37 Internality Social Axioms Survey with, 155 Interpersonal interaction social representation with, 122 J Jewel Box, 208, 212, 219, 245 Judgments activation/comparison biases in, 304–306 activation/comparison model for, 258–291 activation/comparison model limitations and, 306 affective based, 256 attitude accessibility in, 265–266 attitude confidence in, 301–302 attitude-consistent information in, 289–290 attitude dissolution processes and, 303–304 attitude-inconsistent information in, 286–289 attitude-related information in, 262–266 behavioral information based, 256 changing of, 258–291 cognitive based, 256 cognitive processes in, 297–298 comparative motivation influences in, 281–284

comparative validation in, 266–278 comparison influences in, 275–278, 295–297 conclusions on, 291–307 confidence/extremity increase in, 268–269 confidence in, 256 corroboration principle in, 266–270 defensive confidence principle in, 270–278 different predictive models for, 293–295 evaluative category in, 256 Fazio’s hypothesis with, 295 fragmented literature about, 252 general ability influence in, 285–291 implications of, 256, 300–302 implications of attitude change in, 285–291 information-integration theory and, 294 introduction to, 252–255 memory-base/online information integrated for, 292–293 motivation influence in, 297–300 nonevaluative judgments and, 300–301 policy implications with, 303 preliminary definitions for, 255–258 prior attitude in, 258–262 prior attitude polarization and, 269, 270 processing ability influence in, 297–300 proposed processes in, 258–278 social judgment theory and, 294–295 subjective certainty in, 256 survival/change in, 251–307 three processes for changing, 252 K Kiasu social axioms related to, 177 L Labor statistics racism in, 2–3, 15 Lay epistemics theory process models with, 125 Lay theories attribution in, 124 beliefs with, 123–125 Chinese vs. Americans in, 124 functionalist approach to, 130

422

INDEX

Lay theories (continued ) group perception in, 124 literature on, 124 perceived entitativity in, 124 research on, 124 Learning GAM influencing, 202, 203, 204 Legal decisions inadmissible testimony in, 15 justifications in, 14 racism in, 14–15 Lewianian theory, 385 M Machiavellianism, 154 Marathon 2, 208, 212, 213, 214, 216, 225–226, 230, 231, 244 Memory cognition with, 62 goal triggering with, 328 person, 402 transactive, 93 Meta-analysis best practices coding in, 238–239 study sample with, 237–238 video games studied with, 199–200, 237–239, 240 MMPI social axioms studied with, 154 Modern Racism Scale, 17 Modern Racism Theory, 6 Mortal Kombat, 200, 245 Motivation behavior predictive power of, 173 cognition related to, 59–60 Motivational factors racism with, 5–7 Motivation control, 380 Multifinality goals with, 345 Myst, 208, 212, 219, 245 N Narcissism scale video games testing with, 199, 232, 233 Negative feedback loop, 323 NEO PI-R social axioms studied with, 153, 156, 174

Neurobiology SSC with, 55 Neuroscience, 57–58 bug detectors in, 57 hawk detectors in, 57 Normal psychology racism in, 5 P Perceived entitativity lay theories with, 124 Perceptual schemata personality defined by, 203, 204 Personality aggressive, 203 big-five model for, 153 GAM defining, 203 Person Memory, 402 Physical Aggression scale. See Buss-Perry Aggression measure Political science beliefs in, 122 Preconscious control implicit volition model with, 317, 319–320 Prejudice. See also Racism psychopathology of, 4 response-latency technique assessing, 22 scoring of, 16–18 self-esteem with, 18–19 self reported, 22–23 Prejudice reduction techniques Common In-Group Identity Model in, 31–33 Contract Hypothesis in, 32 experimental evidence with, 33–35 Green Circle intervention program with, 34 imposed practice as, 27 motivational orientations with, 35–37 motivation as, 28–30 racism with, 26–37 redirecting in-group bias as, 30–37 self-regulation as, 28–30 Process models beliefs in, 125 cognitive dissonance in, 125 lay epistemics theory in, 125 research on, 125 Procrustes rotation social axioms with, 139, 153

INDEX Protestant Work Ethic, 155 Provocation pattern manipulation video games experiment with, 217, 220–222 Psychopathology prejudice in, 4 Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men (Tolman, E. C.), 327 R Racism, 1–52 admission decisions with, 16–18 affirmative action and, 11–14 ambivalence in, 4–7 authoritarianism in, 15 categorization with, 5 combating, 25–37 Common In-Group Identity Model with, 31–33 competition with, 5–7 conflicting attitudes in, 21–22 conscious attitudes in, 21, 23, 26 Contract Hypothesis in, 32 denial of, 4 discrimination with, 2–3 dissociated attitudes in, 19–25 dominative vs. aversive, 3 elusiveness of, 38 emergency intervention with, 10–19 experimental evidence with, 33–35 future research on, 40–42 Green Circle intervention program with, 34 groups with, 5, 273 hiring decisions with, 15–16 Implicit Association Test with, 40 implicit/explicit attitudes with, 22–24 implicit process cognition in, 19–21 information processing influenced by, 5 interaction problems with, 22–24 intergroup relations with, 19 labor statistics showing, 2–3, 15 legal decisions and, 14–15 liberal v. conservative in, 9–10 mixed messages with, 21–22 Modern Racism Scale and, 17 Modern Racism Theory and, 6 motivational factors with, 5–7 motivational orientations with, 35–37 nature of, 4–7

423

negative attitudes in, 4–7 normal psychology with, 5 operation of, 7–10 organizational implications of, 39–40 performance with, 24–25 policy support against, 11–14 positive reactions with, 4 prejudice reduction techniques for, 26–37 prejudice scoring with, 16–18 response-latency technique assessing, 22 response time research in, 20 selection decisions with, 15–18 self-esteem with, 18–19 self reported prejudice with, 22–23 serendipity of research in, 9–10 situational factors in, 8 subtle bias in, 18–19 summary/conclusions about, 37–43 Symbolic Racism Theory and, 6 task-oriented situations with, 24–25 unconscious attitudes in, 21, 22, 23, 26 Racism (modern), 6 Racism (symbolic), 6 Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke, 11 Religiosity Christian beliefs correlated with, 175 church attendance correlated with, 176 citizen axiom associated with, 167 data analysis of, 145 daytime temperature correlated with, 167 description of, 133 five-factor solution with, 135–138 health spending correlated with, 167 population growth correlated with, 167 psychological indicators and, 163–165 social axioms with, 119, 133, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 154–155, 161–162, 163–165, 167 socioeconomic-political indicators and, 161–162 universality of, 181 universal model with, 185 Response-latency technique racism assessed with, 22 Revenge motivation mediation hypothesis with, 230–231 variables correlated with, 223, 230 Reward for application citizen axiom associated with, 167–168

424

INDEX

Reward for application (continued ) data analysis of, 145 description of, 133 divorce tolerance correlated with, 168 five-factor solution with, 135–138 health spending correlated with, 167 persuasion use correlated with, 179 psychological indicators and, 163–165 social axioms with, 119, 133, 135–138, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 155, 161–162, 163–165, 167–168 socioeconomic-political indicators and, 161–162 trying harder correlated with, 176 universality of, 181 universal model with, 185 Rotter’s scale, 155 S Scrambled sentence test goals studied with, 331–332 Scree plots social axioms in, 133, 143, 144 Self-conceptualization cognition in, 80–82 external factors in, 82 self-esteem with, 81–82 social context of, 81 Self esteem cognition and, 81–82 prejudice and, 18–19 racism and, 18–19 self-conceptualization with, 81–82 social axioms with, 130 SSC and, 81–82 Situated cognition. See Socially situated cognition Snowy Picture Test goal testing with, 366–367 Social axioms, 119–189 accumulated knowledge in, 128 affluence with, 159 antecedents/consequences with, 158, 172–180 attribution in, 124 behavior roles of, 172–180 behavior shaped by, 181 belief research summary and, 126–127 beliefs’ importance in, 127–128

beliefs in research for, 122–127 big-five model for, 153, 166 Chinese vs. Americans in, 124 citizen profiles for, 121 cluster analysis of, 133 cognitive dissonance in, 125 congruence coefficients for, 133, 139, 145 context-free beliefs as, 128–130 correlation matrix of, 133, 135–138 cross-cultural investigation of, 178–180 cultural differences in, 120, 124 culturally reflective emics from, 186 culture-level in, 157 dimension content in, 153–157 dimensions’ comprehensiveness in, 184–186 dimensions of, 132–139 economic correlation with, 157, 159–160 environment, 133 evidence for, 157–170 factor analysis of, 133, 143 factors universality of, 181–182 fate control in, 119, 133, 135–138, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 155–156, 161–162, 163–165, 168–170 Fisher transformation for, 133 five-culture initial study of, 132–139, 135–138 five factors of, 119, 121, 134 four functions for survival in, 130 functional value of, 177 future research for, 187–189 gender ratio in, 142 generalized expectancies in, 129 global study of, 139–157, 141–142 goals and, 120, 130–131 group linkage dendrogram for, 170, 171 group perception in, 124 hierarchical cluster analysis for, 170 individual differences as, 126 individual-level in, 157 kiasu related to, 177 lay epistemics theory in, 125 lay theories with, 123–125 mathematical axioms as, 129 meaning/usefulness of, 157–170 meta-analytic procedure for, 150 MMPI for, 154 modernization with, 157, 159 nations clustered by, 170–172

INDEX need for cognition in, 128 NEO PI-R for, 153, 156, 174 normative beliefs in, 130 order vs. chaos in, 127–128 pan-cultural analysis with, 143, 157 pan-cultural dimensions in, 153–157 per capita GDP correlation with, 159–160 perceived entitativity in, 124 process linkages with, 178 process models with, 125 Procrustes rotation for, 139, 153 psychological attributes, 133 psychological construct with, 127–131 psychological indicators and, 163–165 religiosity in, 119, 133, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 154–155, 161–162, 163–165, 167 reward for application in, 119, 133, 135–138, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 155, 161–162, 163–165, 167–168 scree plots for, 133, 143, 144 self-worth in, 130 shared beliefs in, 122–123 similarity/congruence factors in, 150–153 social complexity in, 119, 133, 135–138, 146–147, 148–149, 150, 156–157, 161–162, 163–165, 166–167 social cynicism in, 119, 133, 135–138, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 153–154, 161–162, 163–165, 166 social interaction, 133 social representation theory with, 122–123 social world orientation, 133 societal beliefs in, 123 societal variables associated with, 158–170 societal variables correlation with, 160–165 socioeconomic-political indicators and, 161–162 spirituality in, 133, 135–138, 139 study methods/participants for, 140–142, survey for, 121, 139, 140–142 survey methods for, 140–142 survey participants in, 140–142 survey results for, 142–150 theoretical significance of, 180–181 universal model of, 182–184, 185 university students studied for, 158 valuational component in, 120 value added of, 180 values in, 130

425

values mapped for, 120 within-nation studies of, 173–178 Social Axioms Survey, 121, 139, 140–142 congruence coefficients for, 133, 139, 145 cultural groups in, 142 dimension content in, 153–157 factor analysis of, 133, 143 factor structure of, 142 fate control in, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 155–156 gender ratio in, 142 internality in, 155 meta-analytic procedure for, 150 methods for, 140–142 NEO PI-R v., 174 participants in, 140–142 religiosity in, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 154–155 results for, 142–150 reward for application in, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 155 Rotter’s scale in, 155 sample size in, 141–142 scree plots for, 133, 143, 144 similarity/congruence factors in, 150–153 social complexity in, 146–147, 148–149, 150, 156–157 social cynicism in, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 153–154 Social complexity checking horoscope correlated with, 176 citizen axiom associated with, 166–167 coping styles predicted by, 174 data analysis of, 150 description of, 133 five-factor solution with, 135–138 health spending correlated with, 166 psychological indicators and, 163–165 social axioms with, 119, 133, 135–138, 146–147, 148–149, 150, 156–157, 161–162, 163–165, 166–167 socioeconomic-political indicators and, 161–162 universality of, 181 universal model with, 185 voter turnout correlated with, 166 Social cynicism church attendance correlated with, 166 citizen axiom associated with, 166 data analysis of, 145

426

INDEX

Social cynicism (continued ) description of, 133 five-factor solution with, 135–138 job attitudes correlated with, 175 power use correlated with, 179 psychological indicators and, 163–165 satisfaction correlated with, 166 social axioms with, 119, 133, 135–138, 145, 146–147, 148–149, 153–154, 161–162, 163–165, 166 socioeconomic-political indicators and, 161–162 universality of, 181 universal model with, 185 volunteering correlated with, 176 Social group cognition influenced by, 82–83 Social judgment theory different models compared with, 268 judgments viewed in, 294–295 Socially situated cognition (SSC), 53–105 action connection to, 65 action relevance with, 61–63 action shape perception with, 60–63 adaptive action in, 57–67 affect-cognition interfaces with, 71–72 agency self-attributions and, 84 agent interaction with, 74–89 agents leaning on world in, 89–90 AI with, 55 AST model with, 64 attitudes with, 64, 69–70 audience effects on, 78 behavioral cues with, 83 body movements in, 68 categorization with, 68–69 chameleon effect in, 80 cockpit paradigm with, 90 cognitive psychology with, 55 common knowledge effect with, 93 communication with, 62–63, 77–80, 94, 101–102 conceptual focus with, 104 conceptual knowledge in, 86 core assumptions of, 53 creative thought with, 70 culture and, 102–104 developmental psychology with, 55 distribution in, 89–104 dual adaptation principle with, 98–99

embodiment of, 67–74 emotion related to, 59–60, 71–72 evolved psychological mechanisms with, 72–73 human/tools coupling with, 98–99 information-processing approach v., 56, 58 introduction to, 53–57 knowledge distribution with, 89, 92 language and, 95, 101–102, 103 language comprehension with, 66–67 memory with, 62 mentalism v., 74–75 mental representation with, 63–65 message interpretation in, 78–79 methodological implication of, 86–89 motivation related to, 59–60 motor movements with, 73–74 neurobiology with, 55 others’ response influencing, 82–83 perception-behavior with, 70–71 perception-cognition attributes with, 73–74 person impressions with, 64–65 person perception with, 61–62 pragmatic concerns with, 60–65 preserved knowledge with, 99 processing complex task with, 92–93 properties of tools and, 97–98, 100–101 reception in, 58 relevance shaped message with, 79–80 robot with, 76–77 scripts in, 87 self-esteem with, 81–82 self influence on, 80–82 shared reality and, 94–95 silent reading and, 98 situational aspects and, 84–85 situation specific knowledge in, 86 social behavior contextual study, 87–89 social coupling with, 89–90, 94 social distribution/preservation of, 91–94 social environment interaction with, 74–89 social group influencing, 82–83 socially shared nature of, 94–96 socially situated action with, 77–80 social perceivers with, 60 social psychological contribution to, 58–65 sociocultural psychology and, 54 speaker accommodation in, 80 stereotypes with, 70, 73

427

INDEX task interaction with, 74–89 task performance with, 68 theoretical focus with, 76 time pressures with, 60–61 tool use with, 89, 96, 97–99 transactive memory systems and, 93 Social perceivers cognition with, 60 Social representation theory beliefs in, 122–123 Societal beliefs, 123 Sociocultural psychology SSC with, 54 Sociology beliefs in, 122 Speed Demon, 208, 212, 219, 244–245 Spirituality social axioms with, 133, 135–138 SSC. See Socially situated cognition Stanford Law Review, 39 Stereotypes cognition with, 70, 73 egalitarian goals v., 344, 395–396 judgment influenced by, 403 Street Fighter, 208, 212, 219, 245 Stroop effect goal setting with, 349 Symbolic Racism Theory, 6 T Terrorist coping styles for, 177 Test-operate-test-exit (TOTE) model, 323, 385 TH. See Trait Hostility 3D Ultra Pinball, 208, 212, 219, 245 Tip of tongue effect, 318, 322 Tolman, E. C., 327–328, 329, 339, 350, 372 Tools cognition in use of, 89, 96, 97–99 humans coupled with, 98–99 properties of, 97–98, 100–101 TOTE model. See Test-operate-test-exit model Trait Hostility Scale, 216 Trait Hostility (TH) aggression correlated with, 220 variables correlated with, 223 video games experiment with, 215–224, 229, 242

Transactive memory systems cognition in, 93 Triggering. See Implicit volition model U U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 200 V Valence, 381, 385 Verbal recall goal testing with, 338 Video games. See Violent video games Violence. See also Violent video games beltway sniper, 200 media, 201 school shootings, 200 Violent video games, 199–245 AATVS in testing of, 234, 235 aggression paradigm with, 226–227 aggressive behavior with, 218, 219–222, 228–229, 234, 235, 241 aggressive thoughts accessibility score for, 208, 213–215 alien v. human targets in, 231 ANCOVA model and, 230–231 ANOVA in testing of, 220, 221, 223, 227 arousal/affective experiment with, 207–215, 212 ATVS in testing of, 233, 235 background questionnaire in testing, 218–219 Big-five model in testing of, 199, 232, 233, 234, 235 Buss-Perry Aggression measure and, 225, 227 cardiovascular arousal with, 218 cardiovascular measures after, 209, 210–211 correlation study measures in, 233–234 correlation study method with, 233–234 correlation study overview with, 232–233 correlation study participants with, 233 correlation study results with, 234–237 correlation study with, 232–237 critical incidents with, 200 CRT task in testing, 216–218, 220, 224, 226, 227, 228, 231, 242 demo, 201

428

INDEX

Violent video games (continued ) Emotional Susceptibility scale in testing of, 199, 232, 233, 235 experiment 1 materials in, 208–209 experiment 1 measures in, 209 experiment 1 method with, 207–209 experiment 1 participants in, 207–208 experiment 1 procedures in, 209 experiment 1 results with, 209–215 experiment 2 design with, 215–216 experiment 2 discussion with, 224 experiment 2 materials in, 216–217 experiment 2 measures in, 218–219 experiment 2 method with, 215–219 experiment 2 participants in, 215 experiment 2 procedures in, 217–218 experiment 2 results with, 219–224 experiment 2 with, 215–224 experiment 3 materials in, 225–227 experiment 3 method with, 225–228 experiment 3 participants in, 225 experiment 3 procedures in, 227–228 experiment 3 results with, 228–231 experiment 3 with, 224–232 frustration in, 208, 212, 215 GAM and, 202–207 general discussion of, 240–244 history of, 200–201 implications of, 243–244 introduction to, 200–202 key questions on, 206–207 matched pair selection for, 213 media violence research and, 201 meta-analysis best practices with, 238–239

meta-analysis results with, 239, 240 meta-analysis study sample with, 237–238 meta-analysis with, 199–200, 237–239, 240 Narcissism scale in testing of, 199, 232, 233 National Youth Survey in testing of, 234, 235 noise settings in, 217, 219, 220, 221, 222, 229 overview of present studies on, 207 persistent aggressive thoughts with, 236 personality effects of, 242–243 Physical Aggression scale and, 227 provocation pattern manipulation in testing, 217, 220–222 ratings of, 208, 211–212 revenge motivation from, 223, 230–231 sex effect in, 212 situational effects of, 240–242 supplementary analyses of, 229–231 TH experiment with, 215–224, 229, 242 word completion task after, 208–209 zero-order correlation with, 234 W Watergate communication seen with, 80 Wolfenstein 3D, 200, 208, 212, 219, 245 Wyer’s model, 302 Z Zeigarnik effect, 318, 322

CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES

Volume 1 Cultural Influences upon Cognitive Processes Harry C. Triendis The Interaction of Cognitive and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State Stanley Schachter Experimental Studies of Coalirion Formation William A. Gamson Communication Networks Marvin E. Shaw A Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness Fred E. Fiedler Inducing Resistance to Persuasion: Some Contemporary Approaches William J. McGuire Social Motivation, Dependency, and Susceptibility to Social Influence Richard H. Walters and Ross D. Purke Sociability and Social Organization in Monkeys and Apes William A. Mason Author Index—Subject Index Volume 2 Vicarious Processes: A Case of No-Trial Learning Albert Bandura Selective Exposure Jonathan L. Freedman and David O. Sears Group Problem Solving L. Richard Hoffman Situational Factors in Conformity Vernon L. Allen Social Power John Schopler

From Acts to Dispositions: The Attribution Process in Person Perception Edward E. Jones and Keith E. Davis Inequality in Social Exchange J. Stacy Adams The Concept of Aggressive Drive: Some Additional Considerations Leonard Berkowitz Author Index—Subject Index Volume 3 Mathematical Models in Social Psychology Robert P. Abelson The Experimental Analysis of Social Performance Michael Argyle and Adam Kendon A Structural Balance Approach to the Analysis of Communication Effects N. T. Feather Effects of Fear Arousal on Attitude Change: Recent Developments in Theory and Experimental Research Irving L. Janis Communication Processes and the Properties of Language Serge Moscovici The Congruity Principle Revisited: Studies in the Reduction, Induction, and Generalization of Persuasion Percy H. Tannenbaum Author Index—Subject Index Volume 4 The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective Elliot Aronson

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Attitudes and Attraction Donn Byrne Sociolinguistics Susan M. Ervin-Tripp Recognition of Emotion Nico H. Frijda Studies of Status Congruence Edward E. Sampson Exploratory Investigations of Empathy Ezra Stotland The Personal Reference Scale: An Approach to Social Judgment Harry S. Upshaw Author Index—Subject Index Volume 5 Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior: A Review of Experimental Research Richard E. Goranson Studies in Leader Legitimacy, Influence, and Innovation Edwin P. Hollander and James W. Julian Experimental Studies of Negro-White Relationships Irwin Katz Findings and Theory in the Study of Fear Communications Howard Leventhal Perceived Freedom Ivan D. Steiner Experimental Studies of Families Nancy E. Waxler and Elliot G. Mishler Why Do Groups Make Riskier Decisions than Individuals? Kenneth L. Dion, Robert S. Baron, and Norman Miller Author Index—Subject Index Volume 6 Self-Perception Theory Daryl J. Bem Social Norms, Feelings, and Other Factors Affecting Helping and Altruism Leonard Berkowitz The Power of Liking: Consequence of Interpersonal Attitudes Derived from a Liberalized View of Secondary Reinforcement Albert J. Lott and Bernice E. Lott

Social Influence, Conformity Bias, and the Study of Active Minorities Serge Moscovici and Claude Faucheux A Critical Analysis of Research Utilizing the Prisoner’s Dilemma Paradigm for the Study of Bargaining Charlan Nemeth Structural Representations of Implicit Personality Theory Seymour Rosenberg and Andrea Sedlak Author Index—Subject Index Volume 7 Cognitive Algebra: Integration Theory Applied to Social Attribution Norman A. Anderson On Conflicts and Bargaining Erika Apfelbaum Physical Attractiveness Ellen Bersheid and Elaine Walster Compliance, Justification, and Cognitive Change Harold B. Gerard, Edward S. Connolley, and Roland A. Wilhelmy Processes in Delay of Gratification Walter Mischel Helping a Distressed Person: Social, Personality, and Stimulus Determinants Ervin Staub Author Index—Subject Index Volume 8 Social Support for Nonconformity Vernon L. Allen Group Tasks, Group Interaction Process, and Group Performance Effectiveness: A Review and Proposed Integration J. Richard Hackman and Charles G. Morris The Human Subject in the Psychology Experiment: Fact and Artifact Arie W. Kruglanski Emotional Arousal in the Facilitation of Aggression through Communication Percy H. Tannenbaum and Dolf Zillman The Reluctance to Transmit Bad News Abraham Tesser and Sidney Rosen Objective Self-Awareness Robert A. Wicklund

CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES Responses to Uncontrollable Outcomes: An Integration of Reactance Theory and the Learned Helplessness Model Camille B. Wortman and Jack W. Brehm Subject Index Volume 9 New Directions in Equity Research Elaine Walster, Ellen Berscheid, and G. William Walster Equity Theory Revisited: Comments and Annotated Bibliography J. Stacy Adams and Sara Freedman The Distribution of Rewards and Resources in Groups and Organizations Gerald S. Leventhal Deserving and the Emergence of Forms of Justice Melvin J. Lerner, Dale T. Miller, and John G. Holmes Equity and the Law: The Effect of a Harmdoer’s ‘‘Suffering in the Act’’ on Liking and Assigned Punishment William Austin, Elaine Walster, and Mary Kristine Utne Incremental Exchange Theory: A Formal Model for Progression in Dyadic Social Interaction L. Lowell Huesmann and George Levinger Commentary George C. Homans Subject Index Volume 10 The Catharsis of Aggression: An Evaluation of a Hypothesis Russell G. Geen and Michael B. Quanty Mere Exposure Albert A. Harrison Moral Internalization: Current Theory and Research Martin L. Hoffman Some Effects of Violent and Nonviolent Movies on the Behavior of Juvenile Delinquents Ross D. Parke, Leonard Berkowitz, Jacques P. Leyens, Stephen G. West, and Richard Sebastian

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The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process Less Ross Normative Influences on Altruism Shalom H. Schwartz A Discussion of the Domain and Methods of Social Psychology: Two Papers by Ron Harre and Barry R. Schlenker Leonard Berkowitz The Ethogenic Approach: Theory and Practice R. Harre On the Ethogenic Approach: Etiquette and Revolution Barry R. Schlenker Automatisms and Autonomies: In Reply to Professor Schlenker R. Harre Subject Index Volume 11 The Persistence of Experimentally Induced Attitude Change Thomas D. Cook and Brian F. Flay The Contingency Model and the Dynamics of the Leadership Process Fred E. Fiedler An Attributional Theory of Choice Andy Kukla Group-Induced Polarization of Attitudes and Behavior Helmut Lamm and David G. Myers Crowding: Determinants and Effects Janet E. Stockdale Salience: Attention, and Attribution: Top of the Head Phenomena Shelley E. Taylor and Susan T. Fiske Self-Generated Attitude Change Abraham Tesser Subject Index Volume 12 Part I. Studies in Social Cognition Prototypes in Person Perception Nancy Cantor and Walter Mischel A Cognitive-Attributional Analysis of Stereotyping David L. Hamilton

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CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES

Self-Monitoring Processes Mark Snyder Part II. Social Influences and Social Interaction Architectural Mediation of Residential Density and Control: Crowding and the Regulation of Social Contact Andrew Baum and Stuart Valins A Cultural Ecology of Social Behavior J. W. Berry Experiments on Deviance with Special Reference to Dishonesty David P. Farrington From the Early Window to the Late Night Show: International Trends in the Study of Television’s Impact on Children and Adults John P. Murray and Susan Kippax Effects of Prosocial Television and Film Material on the Behavior of Viewers J. Phillipe Rushton Subject Index

Cognitive, Social, and Personality Processes in the Physiological Detection of Deception William M. Waid and Martin T. Orne Dialectic Conceptions in Social Psychology: An Application to Social Penetration and Privacy Regulation Irwin Altman, Anne Vinsel, and Barbara B. Brown Direct Experience and Attitude–Behavior Consistency Russell H. Fazio and Mark P. Zanna Predictability and Human Stress: Toward a Clarification of Evidence and Theory Suzanne M. Miller Perceptual and Judgmental Processes in Social Contexts Arnold Upmeyer Jury Trials: Psychology and Law Charlan Jeanne Nemeth Index Volume 15

Volume 13 People’s Analyses of the Causes of AbilityLinked Performances John M. Darley and George R. Goethals The Empirical Exploration of Intrinsic Motivational Processes Edward I. Deci and Richard M. Ryan Attribution of Responsibility: From Man the Scientist to Man as Lawyer Frank D. Fincham and Joseph M. Jaspars Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Emotion Howard Leventhal Toward a Theory of Conversion Behavior Serge Moscovici The Role of Information Retrieval and Conditional Inference Processes in Belief Formation and Change Robert S. Wyer, Jr. and Jon Hartwick Index

Balance, Agreement, and Positivity in the Cognition of Small Social Structures Walter H. Crockett Episode Cognition: Internal Representations of Interaction Routines Joseph P. Forgas The Effects of Aggressive-Pornographic Mass Media Stimuli Neil M. Malamuth and Ed Donnerstein Socialization in Small Groups: Temporal Changes in Individual–Group Relations Richard L. Moreland and John M. Levine Translating Actions into Attitudes: An Identity-Analytic Approach to the Explanation of Social Conduct Barry R. Schlenker Aversive Conditions as Stimuli to Aggression Leonard Berkowitz Index

Volume 14

Volume 16

Verbal and Nonverbal Communication of Deception Miron Zuckerman, Bella M. DePaulo, and Robert Rosenthal

A Contextualist Theory of Knowledge: Its Implications for Innovation and Reform in Psychological Research William J. McGuire

CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES Social Cognition: Some Historical and Theoretical Perspectives Janet Landman and Melvin Manis Paradigmatic Behaviorism: Unified Theory for Social-Personality Psychology Arthur W. Staats Social PsychologyfromtheStandpointofa StructuralSymbolicInteractionism: Toward anInterdisciplinarySocialPsychology Sheldon Stryker Toward an Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Carl W. Backman Index Volume 17 Mental Representations of Self John F. Kihlstrom and Nancy Cantor Theory of the Self: Impasse and Evolution Kenneth J. Gergen A Perceptual-Motor Theory of Emotion Howard Leventhal Equity and Social Change in Human Relationships Charles G. McClintock, Roderick M. Kramer, and Linda J. Keil A New Look at Dissonance Theory Joel Cooper and Russell H. Fazio Cognitive Theories of Persuasion Alice H. Eagly and Shelly Chaiken Helping Behavior and Altruism: An Empirical and Conceptual Overview John F. Dovidio Index Volume 18 A Typological Approach to Marital Interaction: Recent Theory and Research Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Groups in Exotic Environments Albert A. Harrison and Mary M. Connors Balance Theory, the Jordan Paradigm, and the Wiest Tetrahedon Chester A. Insko The Social Relations Model David A. Kenny and Lawrence La Voie Coalition Bargaining S. S. Komorita

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When Belief Creates Reality Mark Snyder Index Volume 19 Distraction–Conflict Theory: Progress and Problems Robert S. Baron Recent Research on Selective Exposure to Information Dieter Frey The Role of Threat to Self-Esteem and Perceived Control in Recipient Reaction to Help: Theory Development and Empirical Validation Arie Nadler and Jeffrey D. Fisher The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo Natural Experiments on the Effects of Mass Media Violence on Fatal Aggression: Strengths and Weaknesses of a New Approach David P. Phillips Paradigms and Groups Ivan D. Steiner Social Categorization: Implications for Creation and Reduction of Intergroup Bias David A. Wilder Index Volume 20 Attitudes, Traits, and Actions: Dispositional Prediction of Behavior in Personality and Social Psychology Icek Ajzen Prosocial Motivation: Is It Ever Truly Altruistic? C. Daniel Batson Dimensions of Group Process: Amount and Structure of Vocal Interaction James M. Dabbs, Jr. and R. Barry Ruback The Dynamics of Opinion Formation Harold B. Gerard and Ruben Orive Positive Affect, Cognitive Processes, and Social Behavior Alice M. Isen

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CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES

Between Hope and Fear: The Psychology of Risk Lola L. Lopes Toward an Integration of Cognitive and Motivational Perspectives on Social Inference: A Biased Hypothesis-Testing Model Tom Pyszczynski and Jeff Greenberg Index Volume 21 Introduction Leonard Berkowitz Part I. The Self as Known Narrative and the Self as Relationship Kenneth J. Gergen and Mary M. Gergen Self and Others: Studies in Social Personality and Autobiography Seymour Rosenberg Content and Process in the Experience of Self William J. McGuire and Claire V. McGuire Information Processing and the Study of the Self John F. Kihlstrom, Nancy Cantor, Jeanne Sumi Albright, Beverly R. Chew, Stanley B. Klein, and Paula M. Niedenthal Part II. Self-Motives Toward a Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model of Social Behavior Abraham Tesser The Self: A Dialectical Approach Carl W. Backman The Psychology of Self-Affirmation: Sustaining the Integrity of the Self Claude M. Steele A Model of Behavioral Self-Regulation: Translating Intention into Action Michael F. Scheier and Charles S. Carver Index Volume 22 On the Construction of the Anger Experience: Aversive Events and Negative Priming in the Formation of Feelings Leonard Berkowitz and Karen Heimer Social Psychophysiology: A New Look John T. Cacioppo, Richard E. Petty, and Louis G. Tassinary

Self-Discrepancy Theory: What Patterns of Self-Beliefs Cause People to Suffer? E. Tory Higgins Minding Matters: The Consequences of Mindlessness-Mindfulness Ellen J. Langer The Tradeoffs of Social Control and Innovation in Groups and Organizations Charlan Jeanne Nemeth and Barry M. Staw Confession, Inhibition, and Disease James W. Pennebaker A Sociocognitive Model of Attitude Structure and Function Anthony R. Pratkanis and Anthony G. Greenwald Introspection, Attitude Change, and Attitude– Behavior Consistency: The Disruptive Effects of Explaining Why We Feel the Way We Do Timothy D. Wilson, Dana S. Dunn, Dolores Kraft, and Douglas J. Lisle Index Volume 23 A Continuum of Impression Formation, from Category-Based to Individuating Processes: Influences of Information and Motivation on Attention and Interpretation Susan T. Fiske and Steven L. Neuberg Multiple Processes by Which Attitudes Guide Behavior: The MODE Model as an Integrative Framework Russell H. Fazio PEAT: An Integrative Model of Attribution Processes John W. Medcof Reading People’s Minds: A Transformation Rule Model for Predicting Others’ Thoughts and Feelings Rachel Karniol Self-Attention and Behavior: A Review and Theoretical Update Frederick X. Gibbons Counterfactual Thinking and Social Perception: Thinking about What Might Have Been Dale T. Miller, William Turnbull, and Cathy McFarland Index

CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES Volume 24 The Role of Self-Interest in Social and Political Attitudes David O. Sears and Carolyn L. Funk A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior: The Psychological Functions of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski Mood and Persuasion: Affective States Influence the Processing of Persuasive Communications Norbert Schwarz, Herbert Bless, and Gerd Bohner A Focus Theory of Normative Conduct: A Theoretical Refinement and Reevaluation of the Role of Norms in Human Behavior Robert B. Cialdini, Carl A. Kallgren, and Raymond R. Reno The Effects of Interaction Goals on Person Perception James L. Hilton and John M. Darley Studying Social Interaction with the Rochester Interaction Record Harry T. Reis and Ladd Wheeler Subjective Construal, Social Inference, and Human Misunderstanding Dale W. Griffin and Lee Ross Index Volume 25 Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries Shalom H. Schwartz Motivational Foundations of Behavioral Confirmation Mark Snyder A Relational Model of Authority in Groups Tom R. Tyler and E. Allan Lind You Can’t Always Think What You Want: Problems in the Suppression of Unwanted Thoughts Daniel M. Wegner Affect in Social Judgments and Decisions: A Multiprocess Model Joseph Paul Forgas

435

The Social Psychology of Stanley Milgram Thomas Blass The Impact of Accountability on Judgment and Choice: Toward a Social Contingency Model Philip E. Tetlock Index Volume 26 Attitudes toward High Achievers and Reactions to Their Fall: Theory and Research Concerning Tall Poppies N. T. Feather Evolutionary Social Psychology: From Sexual Selection to Social Cognition Douglas T. Kenrick Judgment in a Social Context: Biases, Short-comings, and the Logic of Conversation Norbert Schwarz A Phase Model of Transitions: Cognitive and Motivational Consequences Diane N. Ruble Multiple-Audience Problems, Tactical Communication, and Social Interaction: A Relational-Regulation Perspective John H. Fleming From Social Inequality to Personal Entitlement: The Role of Social Comparisons, Legitimacy Appraisals, and Group Membership Brenda Major Mental Representations of Social Groups: Advances in Understanding Stereotypes and Stereotyping Charles Stangor and James E. Lange Index Volume 27 Inferences of Responsibility and Social Motivation Bernard Weiner Information Processing in Social Contexts: Implications for Social Memory and Judgment Robert S. Wyer, Jr. and Deborah H. Gruenfeld

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CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES

The Interactive Roles of Stability and Level of Self-Esteem: Research and Theory Michael H. Kernis and Stephanie B. Waschull Gender Differences in Perceiving Internal State: Toward a His-and-Hers Model of Perceptual Cue Use Tomi-Ann Roberts and James W. Pennebaker On the Role of Encoding Processes in Stereotype Maintenance William von Hippel, Denise Sekaquaptewa, and Patrick Vargas Psychological Barriers to Dispute Resolution Lee Ross and Andrew Ward Index Volume 28 The Biopsychosocial Model of Arousal Regulation Jim Blascovich and Joe Tomaka Outcome Biases in Social Perception: Implications for Dispositional Inference, Attitude Change, Stereotyping, and Social Behavior Scott T. Allison, Diane M. Mackie, and David M. Messick Principles of Judging Valence: What Makes Events Positive or Negative? C. Miguel Brendl and E. Tory Higgins Pluralistic Ignorance and the Perpetuation of Social Norms by Unwitting Actors Deborah A. Prentice and Dale T. Miller People as Flexible Interpreters: Evidence and Issues from Spontaneous Trait Inference James S. Uleman, Leonard S. Newman, and Gordon B. Moskowitz Social Perception, Social Stereotypes, and Teacher Expectations: Accuracy and the Quest for the Powerful Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Lee Jussim Jacquelynne Eccles, and Stephanie Madon Nonverbal Behavior and Nonverbal Communication: What do Conversational Hand Gestures Tell Us? Robert M. Krauss, Yihsiu Chen, and Purnima Chawla Index

Volume 29 Counterfactual Thinking: The Intersection of Affect and Function Neal J. Roese and James M. Olson Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews: Empirical Assessments and Conceptual Refinements Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski The Flexible Correction Model: The Role of Naı¨ve Theories of Bias in Bias Correction Duane T. Wegener and Richard E. Petty Self-Evaluation: To Thine Own Self Be Good, to Thine Own Self Be Sure, to Thine Own Self Be True, and to Thine Own Self Be Better Constantine Sedikides and Michael J. Strube Toward a Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Robert J. Vallerand Volume 30 Promotion and Prevention: Regulatory Focus as a Motivational Principle E. Tory Higgins The Other ‘‘Authoritarian Personality’’ Bob Altemeyer Person Preception Comes of Age: The Salience and Significance of Age in Social Adjustments Joann M. Montepare and Leslie A. Zebrowitz On the Perception of Social Consensus Joachim Krueger Prejudice and Stereotyping in Everyday Communication Janet B. Ruscher Situated Optimism: Specific Outcome Expectancies and Self-Regulation David A. Armor and Shelley E. Taylor Volume 31 Affect and Information Processing Robert S. Wyer, Jr., Gerald L. Clore, and Linda M. Isbell Linguistic Intergroup Bias: Stereotype Perpetuation through Language Anne Maass

CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES Relationships from the Past in the Present: Significant-Other Representations and Transference in Interpersonal Life Serena Chen and Susan M. Anderson The Puzzle of Continuing Group Inequality: Piecing Together Psychological, Social, and Cultural Forces in Social Dominance Theory Felicia Prano Attitude Representation Theory Charles G. Lord and Mark R. Lepper Discontinuity Theory: Cognitive and Social Searches for Rationality and Normality— May Lead to Madness Philip G. Zimbardo

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Ambivalent Sexism Peter Glick and Susan T. Fiske Videotaped Confessions: Is Guilt in the Eye of the Camera? G. Daniel Lassiter, Andrew L. Geers, Patrick J. Munhall, Ian M. Handley, and Melissa J. Beers Effort Determination of Cardiovascular Response: An Integrative Analysis with Applications in Social Psychology Rex A. Wright and Leslie D. Kirby Index Volume 34

Volume 32 The Nature and Function of Self-Esteem: Sociometer Theory Mark R. Leary and Roy F. Baumeister Temperature and Aggression Craig A. Anderson, Kathryn B. Anderson, Nancy Dorr, Kristina M. DeNeve, and Mindy Flanagan The Importance of Being Selective: Weighing the Role of Attribute Importance in Attitudinal Judgment Joop van der Pligt, Nanne K. de Vries, Antony S. R. Manstead, and Frank van Harreveld Toward a History of Social Behavior: Judgmental Accuracy from Thin Slices of the Behavioral Stream Nalini Amabady, Frank J. Bernieri, and Jennifer A. Richeson Attractiveness, Attraction, and Sexual Selection: Evolutionary Perspectives on the Form and Function of Physical Attractiveness Dianne S. Berry Index Volume 33 The Perception–Behavior Expressway: Automatic Effects of Social Perception on Social Behavior Ap Dijksterhuis and John A. Bargh A Dual-Process Cognitive-Motivational Theory of Ideology and Prejudice John Duckitt

Uncertainty Management by Means of Fairness Judgments Kees van den Bos and E. Allan Lind Cognition in Persuasion: An Analysis of Information Processing in Response to Persuasive Communications Dolores Albarracin Narrative-Based Representations of Social Knowledge: Their Construction and Use in Comprehension, Memory, and Judgment Robert S. Wyer, Jr., Rashmi Adaval and Stanley J. Colcombe Reflexion and Reflection: A Social Cognitive Neuroscience Approach to Attributional Inference Matthew D. Lieberman, Ruth Gaunt, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Yaacov Trope Antecedents and Consequences of Attributions to Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Advances Brenda Major, Wendy J. Quinton, and Shannon K. McCoy A Theory of Goal Systems Arie W. Kruglanski, James Y. Shah, Ayelet Fishbach, Ron Friedman, Woo Young Chun, and David Sleeth-Keppler Contending with Group Image: The Psychology of Stereotype and Social Identity Threat Claude M. Steele, Steven J. Spencer, and Joshua Aronson Index

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CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES

Volume 35 Social Identity and Leadership Processes in Groups Michael A. Hogg and Daan van Knippenberg The Attachment Behavioral System in Adulthood: Activation, Psychodynamics, and Interpersonal Processes Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver Stereotypes and Behavioral Confirmation: From Interpersonal to Intergroup Perspectives Olivier Klein and Mark Snyder

Motivational Bases of Information Processing and Strategy in Conflict and Negotiation Carsten K. W. De Dreu and Peter J. Carnevale Regulatory Mode: Locomotion and Assessment as Distinct Orientations E. Tory Higgins, Arie W. Kruglanski, and Antonio Pierro Affective Forecasting Timothy D. Wilson and Daniel T. Gilbert Index

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 36 (Advances in Experimental Social Psychology)

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 20

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 31

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 6

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 23

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 4

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 1

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 18

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 34

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 28

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 25

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 22

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 34

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 42