INFLUENCE OF EXPECTANCY OF OPPONENTS COMPETENCE UPON INFORMATION-PROCESSING OF THEIR DISCRETE ATTRIBUTES

This paper suggests that the expectancy of an opponent's competence ca n make players conserve their attention towards the opponent's discret e attributes and make them confirm their expectancy with the attribute s. 11 male and 9 female undergraduate students expected to compete wit h a fictitious subject under three conditions; conditions created by t he opponent's record of four wins, four losses, or no record. Subjects made comments about the opponent's discrete abilities, some weaknesse s, and some strengths into a tape recorder. Both weaknesses and streng ths of the opponent with no record were attended to more than those wi th records. Concerning the opponents with records, a tendency to recon firm expectancies was detected, that is, the discrete abilities were l ikely to be attributed to the record.