Spontaneous Trait Inferences: Effects of Recognition Instructions and Subliminal Priming on Recognition Performance

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Abstract
The hypothesis that spontaneous trait inferences occur during encoding of behavioral descriptions was examined. Subjects studied sentences describing actors performing some action that implied a certain personality trait. For the explicit sentences, the trait implied by the action was explicitly stated, whereas for the implicit sentences, the trait was not stated. Subjects were assigned to either the memory or the impression formation condition. In Experiment I a change from fact to inference recognition instructions increased recognition accuracy for implicit trait items under the impression condition but decreased accuracy under the memory condition. In Experiment 2 subliminal presentation of relevant trait primes decreased recognition accuracy for implicit trait items but only under the impression condition. These data suggest that spontaneous trait inferences occur infrequently if at all during the encoding of behavioral descriptions.

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