Js. Uleman et Gb. Moskowitz, UNINTENDED EFFECTS OF GOALS ON UNINTENDED INFERENCES, Journal of personality and social psychology, 66(3), 1994, pp. 490-501
Three studies investigated unintended effects of goals on spontaneous
trait inferences (STIs). Ss read trait-implying sentences to memorize
them, to analyze sentence features, or to make social judgments. Cued
recall revealed unintended (spontaneous) trait and behavioral-gist inf
erences. They were equally frequent with all the social judgment goals
and absent or infrequent with feature analysis goals. Memorizing the
sentences while ignoring their meaning reduced, but did not eliminate,
STIs. Goals also affected whether traits were linked directly to acto
rs in explicit memory. Social inferences can occur without intentions
or awareness, even when meanings are intentionally ignored, as inciden
tal results of analyzing stimulus details, and as intermediate but unn
oticed results of other social judgments. Goals affect these inference
likelihoods.