ON THINKING FIRST AND RESPONDING FAST - FLEXIBILITY IN SOCIAL INFERENCE PROCESSES

Numerous models of the social inference process have been proposed, bu t research has not specifically investigated the order in which dispos itional and situational information is considered. A paradigm was deve loped to investigate when people think dispositionally and when they t hink situationally. Three investigations assessed perceivers' reaction times to answer dispositional, situational, and behavior interpretati on questions about an individual behaving in an anxious or a sad manne r. Participants were instructed to diagnose either the individual's di sposition (dispositional-focus condition) or the individual's situatio n (situational-focus condition). The results indicate that perceivers are flexible in their inference processes in that they are able to dra w either dispositional or situational inferences initially. Implicatio ns are discussed.