Rim, S., Min, K., Uleman , J., & Chartrand , T.L. (under review)

1. A Functional Approach to the Stages of Spontaneous Impression Formation: How Affiliation Goals Affect Trait Activation and Binding Rim, S., Min, K., Uleman, J., & Chartrand, T.L. (under review) Past research shows that the explicit goal to affiliate with others can positively bias explicit impressions (e.g., Berscheid, Graziano, Monson, & Dermer, 1976; Goodwin, Fiske, Rosen, & Rosenthal, 2002). The present research examined effects of an affiliation goal on two stages leading to the formation of spontaneous trait inferences (STIs): implicit trait activation, and implicit trait binding to specific actors in memory. At the early activation stage (Experiment 1), we found that an affiliation goal (vs. no goal) led perceivers to hone in on activated positive and negative traits of actors by reducing the accessibility of non-trait concepts. We refer to this as implicit trait focusing. In Experiment 2, perceivers with an affiliation goal spontaneously linked activated positive traits to actors more than they did negative traits, compared to those without this goal. So a positivity bias occurred at the stage of trait binding. Experiment 3 provided evidence that the effects in Experiment 2 are driven by a motivational state, by showing that this positivity bias occurs only when a perceiver’s goal to affiliate remains unfulfilled and not when it becomes satiated. These studies are the first to pinpoint when and how positivity biases occur as a result of an affiliation goal. In addition, they are the first to show that spontaneous trait inferences are sensitive to perceivers’ social goals and are, in this way, functional during the impression formation process.

2. Experiment 1 No positivity bias at the activation stage of impression formation; suppression of non-trait concepts when primed with an affiliation goal Experiment 2 Affiliation goal produced more of a positivity bias than either no goal or positive semantic priming Experiment 3 Participants primed with affiliation goal but unable to obtain goal (Cyberball exclusion) formed more positive vs negative STIs

3. Automatic Goal InferenceHassin et al. (2005) The social psychological literature on automatic social inferences has focused on one construct that helps explaining human behavior—traits (e.g., Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988; Trope, 1986; Winter & Uleman, 1984). The dispositional roots of behavior, however, go beyond relatively stable constructs such as traits to include more transient causes such as one’s intentions and goals. Evidence from young infants and adult chimpanzees, knowledge acquired in the text-comprehension literature and hypotheses derived from the Automatic Causal Inferences framework (Hassin, Bargh, & Uleman, 2002), seems to converge: they all suggest that perceivers may automatically infer goals from behaviors. This paper reports four studies that examine this hypothesis. The first two use surprise cued-recall, and look at goal inferences when the road to goal achievement seems straightforward and when it seems blocked. Studies 3 and 4 use on-line methodologies—probe recognition task and lexical decision—to examine whether these inferences are made at encoding.

4. Study 3 • Short scenarios of goal, control and filler scenarios were appeared 2.5s row of asterisks, immediately followed by the test word  indicate whether the word appeared or not • 2 (Scenario: Goals vs. Control) x 2 (Order: control/goal vs. goal/control) • Example • - The girl buys tools at the DIY shop • The girl sells tools at the DIY shop (cue: manual labor) Study 1 • Read short scenarios of goal/no goal conditions Filler task : rate 16 faces A surprised cued-recall task for the previous scenarios • 2 (Scenario: Goals vs. Control) x 2 (Cue: Goal vs. Repetition) ANOVA • Example • - The student is riding his bicycle to the university as fast as he can • - The student is riding his bicycle away from the university as fast as he can (cue: attend lecture, riding) Study 4 • Lexical decision task • 2 (Scenario: Goals vs. Control) x 2 (Order: control/goal vs. goal/control) • Discussion • Extended automatic causal inference to “goals” • Online paradigm of direct evidence for inference at encoding state of processing behavioral information Study 2 • test the goals are inferred when they don’t predict future event • 2 (Scenario: Goal attainment Easy vs. Blocked) x (Cue: Goals vs. Repetition) ANOVA

5. Abstract Inferences from faces can predict important real-world outcomes. But little is known about the stability of these effects. Here the authors find that inferences of power from photos of the faces of the managing partners of America’s top 100 law firms significantly corresponded to their success as leaders, as measured by the amounts of profits that their firms earned. More interesting, this relationship was also observed when judgments were made based on photos of the leaders taken from their undergraduate yearbooks, before they began their careers or entered law school. Facial cues to success may therefore be consistent across much of the lifespan (approximately 20–50 years).

6. To examine whether inferences of people’s power based on their appearance predict their success as leaders and whether these effects are stable over time. Purpose: Recent picture High school yearbook picture Participants rated the pictures on power (dominance and facial maturity) and warmth (likeability and trustworthiness) DVs: Measures of profit (profit margin, profitability index, profits per equity partner) Ratings of power (but not warmth) of both recent and high school pictures were positively associated with greater profit margins. Results:

7. “Doing Is for Thinking! Stereotype Activation by Stereotypic Movements” Thomas Mussweiler (2006) ABSTRACT—Three studies demonstrate that stereotypic movements activate the corresponding stereotype. In Study 1, participants who were unobtrusively induced to move in the portly manner that is stereotypic of overweight people subsequently ascribed more overweight-stereotypic characteristics to an ambiguous target person than did control participants. In Study 2, participants who were unobtrusively induced to move in the slow manner that is stereotypic of elderly people subsequently ascribed more elderly-stereotypic characteristics to a target than did control participants. In Study 3, participants who were induced to move slowly were faster than control participants to respond to elderly-stereotypic words in a lexical decision task. Using three different movement inductions, two different stereotypes, and two classic measures of stereotype activation, these studies converge in demonstrating that stereotypes may be activated by stereotypic movements.

8. Hypothesis: if stereotypic movements activate the associated stereotype, then participants will be more likely to use the activated stereotypes when ascribing attributes to a target person compared with controls, and will be more likely to have stereotypical facilitation on a lexical decision task • Study 1 – life jacket with weights (portly) or not (control) • Performed physical activity • Results: stereotypical characteristics attributed to a non-specific target between the groups • Results: individuals in the portly condition ascribed more stereotypic, but not nonstereotypic, words to target than controls • Study 2 – pedal bike slowly vs. normal speed for 5 minutes • Measured likelihood to attribute stereotypic (forgetfulness) vs. non-stereotypic (friendliness) characteristic to non-specific target • Results: individuals in the slow condition rated target higher on stereotypic characteristic (forgetfulness) than controls, but no difference between groups on nonstereotypic (friendliness) characteristic • Study 3 – walk slow vs. normal speed for 5 minutes • Measured performance on lexical decision task using elderly-specific target words vs. non-elderly specific targets • Results: individuals in the slow condition were faster at responding to elderly-specific words than controls, but no difference between groups on non-stereotypic words

9. I Like Myself but I Don’t Know Why: Enhancing Implicit Self-Esteem by Subliminal Evaluative Conditioning ApDijksterhuis, JPSP 2004 On the basis of a conceptualization of implicit self-esteem as the implicit attitude toward the self, it was predicted that implicit self-esteem could be enhanced by subliminal evaluative conditioning. In 5 experiments, participants were repeatedly presented with trials in which the word I was paired with positive trait terms. Relative to control conditions, this procedure enhanced implicit self-esteem. The effects generalized across 3 measures of implicit self-esteem (Experiments 1–3). Furthermore, evaluative conditioning enhanced implicit self-esteem among people with low-temporal implicit self-esteem and among people with high-temporal implicit self-esteem (Experiment 4). In addition, it was shown that conditioning enhanced self-esteem to such an extent that it made participants insensitive to negative intelligence feedback (Experiments 5a and 5b). Various implications are discussed.

10. Dijksterhuis 2004, Studies 5a & 5b