Assimilation and contrast as a function of people's willingness and ability to expend effort in forming an impression.

Abstract

Set/reset (Martin, 1986) hypothesis that contrast demands more cognitive effort than does assimilation was examined. In Exp. 1, the impressions of distracted Ss showed assimilation toward blatantly primed concepts, whereas the impressions of nondistracted Ss showed contrast. In Exp. 2, Ss told that their ratings would be lumped into a group average showed assimilation, whereas Ss told that their ratings would be examined individually showed contrast. In Exp. 3, the impressions of Ss low in need for cognition showed assimilation, whereas the impressions of Ss high in need for cognition showed contrast. Exp. 1 also showed that the results were not due to differences in recall of the target information, and Exp. 3 showed that the results were not due to differences in recall of the priming stimuli. Together, the results suggest that the processes involved in contrast demand more cognitive effort than do the processes involved in assimilation.

Affect as a Decision-Making System of the Present

“…Although this particular finding was not originally expected, it is not entirely inconsistent with our conceptualization. Previous studies have shown that when people consciously attempt to exclude from their judgments contextual inputs (e.g., incidental feelings) that are readily accessible, they sometimes over-correct, resulting in a contrast effect in the final judgment (Martin, Seta, and Crelia 1990;Ottati and Isbell 1996;Schwarz and Bless 1992). It is therefore possible that when participants with an experiential motive attempted to disregard their otherwise relevant feelings in the distant-future condition, they over-corrected for the influence of their mood state, resulting in mood-incongruent intentions.…”

Contextual contrast in evaluative judgments: A test of pre- versus postintegration models of contrast.

“…Schwarz and Bless (1992) have argued that there are processes guiding contrast effects other than changes in standards. For example, Martin and his colleagues (Martin, 1986;Martin, Seta, & Crelia, 1990) have explored the cognitive processes involved in one type of contrastive process, which they refer to as a reset or category inhibition process. The reset process appears to demand more cognitive resources than associative-based assimilation processes.…”

Working memory and spatial judgments: Cognitive load increases the central tendency bias

“…The memorization tasks manipulate available working memory. Extensive literature documents that cognitive resources are bounded and that increasing CL can affect judgments (Cornelissen, Dewitte, & Warlop, 2011;Hinson, Jameson, & Whitney, 2003;Swann, Hixon, SteinSeroussi, & Gilbert, 1990;Van den Bos, Peters, Bobocel, & Ybema, 2006), limit the ability to process information (Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988), decrease self-control (Mann & Ward, 2007;Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999;Ward & Mann, 2000), affect strategic behavior (Allred, Duffy, & Smith, 2016;Duffy & Smith, 2014;Duffy, Owens & Smith, unpublished), increase the assimilation effect (Martin, Seta, & Crelia, 1990), affect duration judgments (Block, Hancock, & Zakay, 2010), and prompt stereotyping (Wigboldus, Sherman, Franzese, & van Knippenberg, 2004).…”