EVALUATIVE KNOWLEDGE IN PERSON MEMORY

Three person memory experiments consisted of presenting subjects with behaviors associated with a target person. Half of them were target's behaviors (TB behaviors) and half were possible or necessary behaviors of others relative to such a target person (OB behaviors). According to the authors, TB behaviors provide descriptive knowledge and OB beha viors provide evaluative (utilitarian) knowledge of people. The behavi ors on the list were paired so as to instantiate very ''evaluative'' t raits or very ''descriptive'' traits. Thus, each trait was exemplified by both TB and OB behaviors. Results showed, as expected, that in a p ure memorization situation and in an impression formation situation, t here was a highly significant interaction between the nature of the in stantiated trait (descriptive vs evaluative) and the type of behavior recalled (TB vs OB). Subjects remembered more TB behaviors which insta ntiated the so-called descriptive traits and more OB behaviors which i nstantiated the so-called evaluative traits.