Do situational expectations produce situational inferenes? The role of future expectations in directing inferential goals.
Little is known about the conditions that lead observers to adopt different inferential goals in the context of their everyday lives. Four studies examined whether future expectations created situational inferential goals. In 2 quasiexperimental studies, students made more situational inferences for targets in their expected future careers. In 2 experiments, situational expectations were manipulated, and participants made more situational inferences when they expected to be in the same situation as the target. This tendency was stronger when observers devoted minimal cognitive effort to their inferences, suggesting that when observers have situational expectations, making situational inferences is less effortful than making dispositional inferences.
Lee
F
F
Department of Psychology and School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-1109, USA. fionalee@umich.edu
Hallahan
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012938:Social Perception