Two Faces Are Better Than One: Eliminating False Trait Associations With Faces

Abstract

Traits spontaneously inferred from behaviors bind to actors' faces (spontaneous trait inferences, or sTI), and can inappropriately bind to faces of persons deemed irrelevant to the behaviors (spontaneous trait transference, or sTT). Experiments 1 and 2 showed that sTT effects, while weaker than sTI, nevertheless occurred in the face of clear irrelevance instructions. Experiment 3 showed that sTT-but not sTI-can be eliminated when faces and behaviors are separated perceptually. Experiments 4, 5, and 6 found no sTT when a relevant and an irrelevant actor were presented simultaneously, suggesting that inferred traits bind exclusively to faces of relevant targets when these targets are present and bind to irrelevant targets only when relevant targets are absent and irrelevant targets are present. The experiments rule out an attentional account of this phenomenon, demonstrating sTT elimination when attention to concomitant face-behavior pairs was ensured. The findings suggest a spontaneous attributional process. Imagine that you run into Jill, and during the course of conversation, she mentions that a friend of hers, Jackie, never gives tips at restaurants. Perhaps surprisingly, you now get a sense that Jill is stingy, having inferred this from her description of Jackie and having misattributed it to Jill instead. This is precisely what studies on spontaneous trait transference (STT) show (Carlston, Skowronski, & Sparks, 1995; Skowronski, Carlston, Mae, & Crawford, 1998). Traits spontaneously inferred from behaviors can become associated with the wrong face. Although this association is inappropriate, if people have the goal of forming impressions, they would use Jill's description of Jackie to form an evaluative impression of Jill (Wyer, Budesheim, Lambert, & Swan, 1994). What happens when the face is clearly irrelevant to the person description? That is, what happens if Jill does not know Jackie and just happened to be around when Jackie was described as stingy? We wish to thank Manish Pakrashi and Valerie Loehr for helping with data collection.

Sowing the seeds of stereotypes: Spontaneous inferences about groups.

“…In fact, Todorov and Uleman (2002, 2004Goren & Todorov, 2009) demonstrated exactly that effect in a series of experiments. Their results reflect the fact that the implied trait was spontaneously inferred by the participant during the learning phase.…”

The automatic and co-occurring activation of multiple social inferences

“…Furthermore, although from their perspective the biases that are most typically observed in social inference research could most readily be conceptualized as resulting from the selection of a particular attribution from among those that had been automatically activated, this perspective also illuminates the possibility of more subtle biases that could arise from the mere association of other automatically activated inferences with others involved with this behavior (see also Goren & Todorov, 2009). …”

Inferências espontâneas de traço: Os quatro paradigmaschave

“…Um maior número de falsos reconhecimentos nos ensaios emparelhados do que nos ensaios desemparelhados indica que o traço foi inferido espontaneamente e que ficou associado ao actor. Este padrão foi obtido pela primeira vez por Todorov e Uleman (2002) e tem sido replicado em estudos posteriores (Goren & Todorov, 2009;Todorov & Uleman, 2003, 2004. (Clayes, 1990;Uleman, Moskowitz, Roman, & Rhee, 1993;Winter, Uleman, & Cunniff, 1985).…”

“…Este efeito designa-se por transferência espontânea de traço (TET) e tem suscitado um grande número de estudos (Carlston & Skowronski, 2005;Crawford, Skowronski, Stiff, & Leonards, 2008;Crawford, Skowronski, Stiff, & Scherer, 2007;Mae, Carlston, & Skowronski, 1999;Skowronski et al, 1998). Neste contexto, surgiram estudos que apresentam juntamente com a fotografia do actor, uma fotografia de uma pessoa irrelevante ou de um objecto, de forma a explorar a ocorrência simultânea de IETs e de TETs (Brown & Bassili, 2002;Goren & Todorov, 2009;Todorov & Uleman, 2004). Enquanto que nalguns destes estudos a presença simultânea do actor relevante e do actor irrelevante elimina o efeito de TETs Goren & Todorov, 2009), noutros verifica-se a ocorrência tanto de IETs como de TETs, embora o efeito de IETs seja mais forte (Brown & Bassili, 2002;.…”

“…Neste contexto, surgiram estudos que apresentam juntamente com a fotografia do actor, uma fotografia de uma pessoa irrelevante ou de um objecto, de forma a explorar a ocorrência simultânea de IETs e de TETs (Brown & Bassili, 2002;Goren & Todorov, 2009;Todorov & Uleman, 2004). Enquanto que nalguns destes estudos a presença simultânea do actor relevante e do actor irrelevante elimina o efeito de TETs Goren & Todorov, 2009), noutros verifica-se a ocorrência tanto de IETs como de TETs, embora o efeito de IETs seja mais forte (Brown & Bassili, 2002;.…”