Implicit theories: Consequences for social judgments of individuals

The implications of implicit theories for social information processing wer e examined. Implicit theory proposes that entity theorists see others' trai ts as fixed and stable, whereas incremental theorists see others' traits as malleable and changeable. It was found that entity theorists formed on-lin e judgments and incremental theorists formed memory-based judgments of targ et individuals. These process differences were observed in amount of recall , primacy effects in recall, memory-judgment relations, and illusory correl ation formation using natural differences in perceivers' implicit theories (Experiment 1) and by manipulating their implicit theories (Experiment 2). Results indicate that implicit theories affect the process by which perceiv ers form impressions uf others. The implications of these findings for the relation between implicit theory and social perception are discussed. (C) 2 001 Academic Press.