Observational goals and schema activation: A theoretical framework for behavior perception

Distinctiveness and the salience of social category memberships: Is there an automatic perceptual bias towards novelty?

“…It is a striking feature of these results that the task manipulation created almost opposite patterns of salience under identical stimulus conditions, providing clear evidence that the purpose for which information is sought within a stimulus context can have a determining influence on the categorization process (Bruner, 1957;Tajfel, 1972). In this respect, the present findings are congruent with some recent personality research which has demonstrated a functional relationship between task orientation and the way in which social information is organized (Cohen, 1981, p. 50;Cohen and Ebbesen, 1979;Hoffman, Mischel and Maze, 1981;Jeffery and Mischel, 1979).…”

Determinants of executive beliefs: comparing functional conditioning and social influence

“…Janis and King (1954) and Watts (1967), for example, found that the roles people play tend to change their beliefs such that their beliefs are consistent with the demands of their roles. Similarly, Cohen and Ebbesen (1979) found that goals that are salient during a task tend to amplify the salience of information relevant to those goals. Thus, it follows that executives working in a functional area are likely to be influenced by information relevant to their functional goals and develop beliefs consistent with their func-tional roles.…”

Components of Objects and Events

“…But although there is abovechance agreement among participants as to where the divisions occur, participants can also vary the divisions easily to produce finer or coarser segments. Moreover, segment size and number of segments vary with the observers' purposes (Cohen & Ebbesen, 1979). Mental events like planning or reasoning are probably even less likely to have clear parts.…”

“…Lack of clear-cut boundaries between segments makes this task more difficult than in the case of objects. The studies cited in the introduction to this paper (e.g., Newtson, 1973) suggest that people reliably segment events, but that the segments vary with their goals and interests (Cohen & Ebbesen, 1979). This uncertainty may be abetted by two further facts: First, event parts are usually not copresent, making a comparison between them difficult.…”