Accessing Information in Memory-Based Impression Judgments: Incongruity versus Negativity in Retrieval Selectivity.

摘要

The nature of selective cognitive search for information in memory-based person judgments is explored by examining an incongruity hypothesis and a negativity hypothesis. The incongruity hypothesis predicts that people search memory for incongruent or disconfirming information; the negativity hypothesis posits that they selectivity search for negative information. Two studies are reported that use decision time to determine the types of information subjects search for in making occupation suitability judgments. Although it has been shown that people weigh negative information more heavily when making overall impression evaluations, subject's retrieval strategies reflected a search for disconfirming, rather than negative, information. The preferential search for disconfirming, evidence, however, was found to depend on the ability to functionally encode the potential congruity of descriptive information at the time the information was first encountered. (Author)