Differences between Spontaneous and Intentional Trait Inferences

chpter reviews evidence—from brain activation to memory organization to correlations with behavior—that the cognitive processes underlying intentional impressions of others based on their behavior differ from those of spontaneous impressions. Intentional inferences are conscious, explicit, and public; spontaneous inferences are nonconscious, implicit, and private. Spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) can be based on actors' behaviors, their social groups via stereotypes, and other cues such as faces. Past research found that when trait implications of behaviors conflict with those of stereotypes, STI activation is inhibited, relative to that from behaviors alone. This chapter presents new evidence that full STIs (i.e., implicit cognitive representations of actors) show this same effect when behaviors and stereotypes conflict. Yet explicit trait ratings from this same information show no inhibition and even some enhancement. These results fit Biernat's shifting standards model for explicit person judgments from counter-stereotypic behaviors. Why might spontaneous and intentional trait inferences from behavior differ? For conflicting behaviors and stereotypes, it is as if the shifting standards that stereotypes trigger does not occur for spontaneous inferences. Some speculations are offered on other mechanisms, and how to test them, that may underlie other differences between intentional and spontaneous impressions.