Interpetative thinking and impression formation in a prisoner's dilemma game

In three experiments we examined the notion that interpretative thinking guides impression formation when playing a prisoner's dilemma game. In a first experiment, we demonstrated that an interpretation goal is spontaneously triggered upon receiving ambiguous information about an interaction partner in the context of a prisoner's dilemma game. In Experiment 2, we examined whether in this context accessible knowledge is used as an interpretation frame for judging the interaction partner. Indeed, we found that subliminally primed extreme person exemplars led to an assimilation effect in person judgment in a prisoner's dilemma game, whereas they led to a contrast effect when person judgments were made in a control condition. Finally in experiment 3, priming a comparison goal before entering a prisoner's dilemma game led participants to use subliminally presented extreme exemplars again as a standard of comparison in the judgment of an interaction partner.status: publishe