Sh. Babey et al., THE ROLE OF EXPECTANCY VIOLATING BEHAVIORS IN THE REPRESENTATION OF TRAIT KNOWLEDGE - A SUMMARY-PLUS-EXCEPTION MODEL OF SOCIAL MEMORY, Social cognition, 16(3), 1998, pp. 287-339
The authors propose a summary-plus-exception model of trait knowledge.
According to this model, (a) knowledge of a target's traits consists
of abstract trait summaries to which are linked memories of specific i
nstances in which the target's behavior was inconsistent with generali
zations contained in a summary, and (b) summary-inconsistent behaviora
l memories are activated along with trait summary knowledge when a tra
it judgment is made. The authors test these ideas using a variant of t
he priming procedure developed by Klein and Loftus (e.g., Klein & Loft
us, 1993a; Klein, Loftus, & Burton, 1989; Klein, Loftus, Trafton, & Fu
hrman, 1992). Their findings offer strong support for a summary-plus-e
xception model: Across six studies, comprising a variety of experiment
al conditions, the authors consistently find that judgments about a ta
rget's traits facilitate the subsequent retrieval of summary-inconsist
ent behaviors performed by the target, but not summary-consistent ones
. The authors then show how a summary-plus-exception model can shed li
ght on the processes involved in impression change. Finally, the autho
rs discuss implications of their model for theories of social memory.