10.1177/0146167203254611 ARTICLEPERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETINTobin, Weary / BEHAVIOR RECATEGORIZATION An On-Line Look at Automatic Contrast and Correction of Behavior Categorizations and Dispositional Inferences

The current study examined on-line behavior recategorization as a mechanism underlying corrections for contextual influences in dispositional inferences. After watching an initial comparison video that portrayed either a successful or unsuccessful perfor-mance on a spatial ability task, cognitive load and no load par-ticipants watched and made real-time ratings of a target perfor-mance. The comparison video was expected to exert a contrastive influence on participants ’ automatic impressions of the perfor-mance (behavior categorizations) and the child’s intelligence (dispositional inferences). Load participants ’ on-line and post-video performance and ability ratings showed this expected effect, as did no load participants ’ initial on-line performance ratings. However, no load participants ’ later on-line and post-video ratings did not. These findings support the notion that corrections for contextual influence can occur at the level of behavior identification as perceivers encode behavioral cues