IMPLICIT THEORIES AND EVALUATIVE PROCESSES IN PERSON COGNITION

Evaluative processes are often considered to be a cornerstone of socia l perception. The present study seeks to understand an individual-diff erence factor that is linked to evaluative processing. Specifically, p ast studies have shown that individuals who believe that people have f ixed traits (''entity theorists'') are more inclined to diagnose trait s from person information than are those who believe that people's per sonality is malleable (''incremental theorists''). Because evaluation is typically an integral part of trait diagnosis, we hypothesized that relative to incremental theorists, entity theorists would process per son information in a more evaluative manner. To test this, subjects we re presented with the test scores of a fictitious pilot trainee. Later , they were asked to perform on a priming task in which the test score s were used as primes on some trials. As predicted, entity theorists' response times indicated that they attached evaluative meaning to the test scores, but those of incremental theorists did not. In addition, subjects' judgments of the trainee's performance and recall of his tes t scores suggested different processing strategies among entity theori sts than among incremental theorists. (C) 1997 Academic Press.