Et. Higgins et Cm. Brendl, ACCESSIBILITY AND APPLICABILITY - SOME ACTIVATION RULES INFLUENCING JUDGMENT, Journal of experimental social psychology, 31(3), 1995, pp. 218-243
Individuals with varying levels of chronic accessibility for the const
ruct ''conceited'' read about a target person and gave their spontaneo
us impressions of the target's behaviors. The construct ''conceited''
was either contextually primed or not, and the priming-to-stimulus del
ay was either short or long. The stimulus behaviors also varied in app
licability to the construct ''conceited,'' with three different types
of non-''unambiguous'' stimuli being examined. The stimulus behaviors
were either only weakly related to ''conceited'' (vague), strongly and
equally related to both ''conceited'' and ''self-confident'' (ambiguo
us), or more strongly related to self-confident than to ''conceited''
(contrary). We found that the extremely vague target behaviors yielded
conceited-related spontaneous impressions when the accessibility of t
he construct conceited was maximized-contextual priming [without aware
ness], short priming-to-stimulus delay, and relatively high levels of
chronic accessibility. This result supports the ''activation rule'' th
at strong accessibility can compensate for weak applicability. Two oth
er activation rules were suggested by the results for the ambiguous an
d the contrary stimuli, respectively: (a) higher accessibility can yie
ld stronger judgments even when perceivers are aware of contextual pri
ming events if the additional contribution to activation from applicab
ility and chronic accessibility is sufficiently great, and (b) the rel
ation between higher accessibility and stronger judgments is constrain
ed when the applicability of a competing alternative construct is both
strong and stronger than the target construct's applicability. (C) 19
95 Academic Press. Inc.