SOCIAL INFERENCE AND INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN AGGRESSION - EVIDENCE FOR SPONTANEOUS JUDGMENTS OF HOSTILITY

This research examined the hypothesis that aggressive vs. nonaggressiv e individuals differ in their spontaneous trait inferences, i.e., infe rences made without any conscious intention of inferring characteristi cs of an actor. We anticipated that spontaneous processing conditions would be more revealing of aggressive/nonaggressive differences than w ould conditions that prompt deliberate inference processes, We used a cued-recall paradigm. Aggressive and nonaggressive subjects were instr ucted to memorize sentences that were open to either hostile or nonhos tile interpretations. Sentence recall was then cued by either hostile dispositional terms or by words that were linked semantically to the e lement of the sentences. Within the spontaneous inference condition, s emantic cues prompted twice as much recall as hostile cues among nonag gressive subjects, whereas dispositional cues aided recall more than s emantic cues among aggressive subjects. As predicted, within the delib erate inference conditions there were no aggressive/nonaggressive diff erences. The nature of spontaneous vs. deliberate inferential processe s and the advantages of spontaneous inference paradigms for testing pr edictions about schema-based processing in aggression are discussed. ( C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.