Modeling: An analysis in terms of category accessibility

JOURNAL

OF EXPERIMENTAL

SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOGY

19, 403-421 ( 1983)

Modeling: An Analysis in Terms of Category Accessibility CHARLES S. CARVER AND RONALD J. GANELLEN University

of Miami AND

WILLIAM

J. FROMING AND WILLIAM

CHAMBERS

Received July 6, 1982 It is proposed that many of the releasing or disinhibiting effects caused by models can be accounted for by information-processing mechanisms, without recourse to the concept of reinforcement. More specifically, it is suggested that the process of viewing a model’s behavior involves the activation of an interpretive schema. This renders the information the schema incorporates more accessible for subsequent use. If the schema incorporates (or is closely related to) behaviorspecifying information, that information becomes more accessible as well. thus making it more likely to influence overt behavior. Two studies are reported that assessed the plausibility of this reasoning. In Experiment 1 subjects who had viewed an aggressive model perceived greater hostility in the behavior of an ambiguous stimulus person that they subsequently encountered than did control subjects. This finding is consistent with the assumption that the model’s behavior activated a conceptual schema for use in interpretation. In Experiment 2 subjects in whom an aggressive schema had been activated under a guise displayed greater aggression in their subsequent behavior in a different context than did control subjects. This tinding is consistent with the assumption that activating the conceptual schema also activated behavioral information. The discussion centers on the implications of the findings.

Watching another person do something often increases the likelihood that the observer will do it as well. This effect is part of a broad class (e.g., Bandura, 1971, 1977). When of phenomena termed “modeling” the behavior being observed is ordinarily restrained by social prohibitions We are grateful to Rich Brown and Beth Watchman, who served as actors in the videotapes used in Experiment I, to Thomas Srull, who generously provided us with experimental materials, and to two reviewers of the manuscript. whose comments helped improve it. Requests for reprints should be sent to Charles S. Carver, Department of Psychology. University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124. 403 0022-1031183 $3.00 Copyright @ 1983 by Academic Press. Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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of some sort, the modeling effect is sometimes referred to as disinhibition, or response contagion (cf. Wheeler, 1966). When no obvious prohibitions exist, the effect is sometimes referred to as response facilitation (Bandura, 1977). Because this distinction is relatively unimportant for present purposes, we will treat these phenomena as a single category, using the more general term modeling. We must, however, distinguish explicitly between the effects under discussion and a different modeling phenomenon, called observational learning. Observational learning involves the acquisition of new behavioral potentials. The effects under present examination, in contrast, involve variations in the likelihood that an already known behavior will occur. The impact of modeling upon social behavior is quite pervasive. A glance at any textbook in social psychology affirms that modeling effects have been demonstrated repeatedly in behavioral domains as diverse as aggression (cf. Geen, 1978) and helping (cf. Rushton, 1979). What is less clear is MJ~Vthese effects occur. Bandura (1977) has indicated that modeled actions often function simply as social “prompts.” But ultimately he seems to have assumed that these prompts have their effect because they provide information about social rewards (see Bandura, 1977, pp. 87-88). This assumption about the mediating role of anticipated social rewards is also made by many others (see, e.g.. Bryan & Test, 1967; Moss & Page, 1972). We do not intend to suggest that social rewards and punishments never play a role in this sort of modeling effect. But it is the purpose of this article to suggest a different way of accounting for many instances of modeling. In particular, we propose that they are often attributable to increased accessibility in memory of information specifying the behavioral acts, as a function of watching the model.’ Accessibility Several recent studies have demonstrated that activating a given informational category in memory makes that category more likely to be used again later on, even in an unrelated context (see Higgins & King ’ Though observational learning is not the focus of this article, we note in passing that observational learning itself appears to be construed more easily in information-processing terms than in terms of phenomena such as instrumental conditioning. That is, it is well established that the acquisition of a new behavior potential does not depend on reinforcement contingencies surrounding either the action or the observation. How, then, does it take place? Given what is known about the variables that facilitate and impede observational learning (Bandura. 1977). it would seem reasonable to characterize that process as involving one of two things: Observation either creates new links between and among preexisting segments of action patterns, or it creates new links between preexisting actions and semantic implications that were not previously associated with the actions. In either case. the effects would seem amenable to conceptualization in an information-processing framework. Broader treatment of this issue is beyond the scope of the present undertaking. however.

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(I 981) for a review of this research; see also conceptually related findings reported by Carroll (1978); Ross, Lepper, Strack, & Steinmetz (1977); Tversky & Kahneman (1973, 1974)). The activation need not take the form of an orienting instructional “set.” It can also occur “passively” or automatically as a function of the processing of category-relevant information (Posner, 1978). The initial activation of the category (in whichever way it occurs) presumably renders it more accessible for use, and thus more likely to be used later on (cf. Bruner, 1957; Hebb, 1949). This line of argument is consistent with the kind of model of longterm memory which currently is common in cognitive psychology (see, e.g., Anderson, 1976; Anderson & Bower, 1973; Collins & Loftus, 1975). These models typically treat memory as an associative network of the semantic material that is used to represent perceptual and conceptual events. This material-whether an isolated bit of information or a schematically organized conceptual category-is activated whenever it is recalled or is used to recognize new input. This activation is assumed to dissipate gradually over time. It is this gradual reduction that gives rise to accessibility effects. That is, when still in a state of partial activation, the material represented by a particular node in memory is more easily reactivated than is potentially competing information. An additional assumption that becomes important later on in the article is that activating a given point or node in the network leads to a spreading effect, resulting in the partial activation of semantically related nodes (see Collins & Loftus, 1975). Because the recent studies of accessibility phenomena are important background to the present research, let us briefly review some of this literature. Higgins, Rholes, and Jones (1977) asked subjects to perform a complex cognitive task in which they had to encode several trait terms. Later, in what ostensibly was a second experiment on reading comprehension, the subjects were asked to read a passage about a target person, which had been constructed to be ambiguous as to his likability. After reading the passage, subjects made evaluative judgments about the target person. The previously encoded trait terms had a significant influence on these judgments, but only if the traits were applicable to the behaviors described in the passage. Presumably the initial activation of the conceptual category (for encoding) facilitated its later use in reading and interpreting the paragraph. But this did not occur unless the category was by its nature already somewhat applicable to the material in the paragraph. These findings were subsequently replicated and extended by Srull and Wyer (1979) using procedures that were somewhat less elaborate. Subjects in this research first did a task in which they were given lists of four words in a scrambled order. They were instructed to select and mark any three of the words that would form a sentence. Processing the meaning of the words in an item activates or “primes” the conceptual

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or schematic category to which the words belong. For example, forming a sentence from the words “cry, him, make, hurt” causes the incidental activation of the concept of hostility. By varying the number of such items that subjects received, Srull and Wyer (1979) were able to vary the degree to which this conceptual category had been primed. Subjects then went to a second task, which involved reading an ambiguous passage and making evaluative judgments about the protagonist of the passage. The results of this research extended and amplified upon the principle demonstrated by Higgins et al. (1977) in several respects. First. Srull and Wyer (1979) showed that it was not necessary to activate a specific trait by name in order to obtain the effect. Simply activating a conceptual schema associated with the trait dimension was sufficient. Second, they found that the degree of influence exerted by the conceptual schema upon the subsequent impressions of the target person was a direct function of the frequency with which the schema had been activated during the pretreatment. Third, they found that the priming effect diminished as the time interval between the two portions of the procedure increased. Another recent research project by Bargh and Pietromonaco (1982) has extended these findings even farther. This study appears to demonstrate that the priming effect does not require conscious recognition of the priming stimulus. Subjects in this study were briefly exposed (via a tachistoscope) to hostility-related words, under difficult viewing conditions, and without being told that the stimuli were even words. Control subjects allowed the authors to show that these conditions of presentation did not result in recognition of the stimuli at better than chance levels. Yet the priming effect. as assessed by evaluations of an ambiguously portrayed stimulus person, was replicated once again. Finally, a study by Higgins and Chaires (1980) demonstrates that priming can influence the use of semantic qualities that are less concrete than those used in the research just described. Specifically, Higgins and Chaires (1980) primed a particular relationship between pairs of stimuli, portraying them either as associated equals (e.g., a bowl and cereal) or as a nested combination (e.g., a bowl of cereal). Each subject was primed for one type of relationship several times, with the item pairs being constant across conditions. The priming exerted a significant influence on the ease with which subjects subsequently were able to solve an insight problem that requires a nested combination to be construed instead as associated equals (see Higgins & Chaires. 1980, for detail). Presumably earlier activation of the coequal relationship facilitated this construal. Taken together, these various findings offer substantial support for the notion that evoking an informational schema-even indirectly, and even without the subject’s awareness-makes that schema more accessible for use shortly thereafter. There do appear to be important limitations

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on this effect. For example, the application of the schema in the second context must be plausible, and the effect is subject to time constraints. It is important to note that all of the effects just described appear to reflect the use of schemas for perception. That is, this research shows that prior use renders a knowledge structure more likely to be used in the process of perceiving a target person or construing a problem. But the findings stop short of demonstrating a direct effect on the person’s overt behavior.’ It is obviously necessary to shed more light on this additional link, if we are to make a credible case for our hypothesis. Though early use of the schema construct emphasized motor schemas rather than conceptual or perceptual schemas (Bartlett, 1932; see also Adams, 1976; Schmidt, 1976). the cognitive psychologists whose ideas underlie the recent interest in social cognition have typically not emphasized overt behavior in their writing. It is implicit in most theories, however, that behavior-specifying information contributes to schematic knowledge structures in very much the same way as does strictly perceptual-cognitive information. A few theorists have even noted this possibility explicitly. For example, Rosch and Mervis (1975) found that subjects who were asked to list “attributes” of an object spontaneously reported behaviors that are normally evoked by the object. And Schank and Abelson (1977) have argued that the knowledge structures they term “scripts” are used both to understand events as they are perceived, and to provide information about how to act in such events. Based upon these various precedents, we have assumed that many interpretive or conceptual schemas (though perhaps not all) either incorporate, or are closely associated with, information that specifies behavior or qualities of behavior (see Carver & Scheier, 1981a, Chap. 7). If so, activating the conceptual schema should also render the behavioral information more accessible. This in turn would make the behavioral information more likely to be incorporated into ongoing action. Accessibility

and Modeling

It is this line of reasoning that leads us to suggest that many modeling effects represent “accessibility” phenomena. Observing a model’s behavior causes the activation of some interpretive schema to understand, classify, or simply perceive the behavior (cf. Neisser, 1976). It is our hypothesis that if that schema is tied to a behavioral specification, that specification then becomes more accessible, and the behavior is more likely to occur. The result, in some cases at least, is a modeling effect. ’ In a sense, of course, all of these findings do involve behavior. But the principal effect of the prime in each case appears to have been to influence mental constructions of situations or persons. That is, in an insight problem it is perceiving the relationship that is critical, rather than acting; in person perception the judgment is critical, rather than the marking of the rating scale.

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The viability of this reasoning was examined in the two experiments reported below. The two experiments are tests of the two links in our inferential chain. In the first study, subjects were exposed to a filmed model who either did or did not display aggressive behavior. Subjects then were exposed to an ambiguous description of a stimulus person (adapted from Srull & Wyer (1979)). If behavioral cues emitted by a model do cause the activation of an interpretive schema in the observer, the schema should thereby be rendered more accessible afterward. It thus should be more likely to be used in forming an impression of the ambiguous target person. In the second study, we investigated the notion that priming a conceptual schema could directly influence overt behavior. Subjects’ conceptual schemas for aggression were activated to varying degrees, using Srull and Wyer’s priming technique (1979). We then observed subjects’ overt behavior in a paradigm widely used to study aggression. It was predicted that activating the abstract knowledge structure would result in the overt manifestation of the behavioral quality to which the knowledge structure is related. Such an outcome would suggest that the conceptual schema does incorporate-or is closely associated with-elements specifying behavioral qualities for execution as well as elements specifying category attributes for recognition. EXPERIMENT

1

Method Subjects Subjects were 40 male and 38 female undergraduates from the University of Miami subject pool, who completed experimental sessions in groups of 8 to IO. Each group was randomly assigned to one of two model conditions, described below. One other subject completed the procedures, but was excluded from data analysis because she accurately reported the connection between the two procedures used in the session.

Procedure The sign-up sheet for the experiment stated that all participants would complete an initial group session, and then would have to return individually a week later for a second session. When the experimenter greeted each group of subjects at the experimental site, he began by restating this requirement. and asking anyone who would be unable to fulfill the requirement to withdraw from the experiment (none did). He then went on to explain the reason for the requirement: specifically, that the study (ostensibly) was an investigation of memory processes and how they operate over relatively long periods of time. During this first session, subjects would be viewing a short videotape of a social interaction. They were to observe the tape carefully and to remember as much of it as they could. A week later. they presumably would be asked some questions concerning the interaction. Mode/ manipula?ion. Subjects were seated in a fairly sizable viewing area with at least three seat-widths separating them from each other. Once the purpose of the session had been explained and informed consent obtained, the experimenter started one of two videotapes. Each tape portrayed an interaction between a businessman and his secretary, in which he

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asked several questions about arrangements for his trip to an upcoming convention, Each videotape lasted approximately a minute and a half. In the hostile model condition. the businessman emitted a series of hostile remarks. derogating the secretary’s competence and intelligence after she informed him that his reservations had not yet been made. These comments were written in such a way as to portray anger. annoyance. and hostility. The actor’s nonverbal behavior also expressed these qualities. In a neutral model control condition. the secretary and her employer had a calm interaction on the same topic. Both the dialogue and the nonverbal behaviors of the businessman in this condition were designed to depict a relaxed working relationship. devoid of hostility. Person perceptiontusk. After the videotape had ended, the experimenter apologetically announced that he was going to have to ask the subjects to do one more thing for him in this session. He indicated that he had been requested by his supervising professor to give out a short questionnaire for him. The professor knew that the experimenter’s sessions were going to be short enough that there would be a lot of time left over. And he wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to collect data for his own project. This excuse was designed to minimize the likelihood that the two tasks would be seen as related, After assuring the subjects that this second task would take only a few minutes. the experimenter passed out a second consent form. along with a person perception questionnaire. The instructions at the top of the page indicated that the research was investigating how people form impressions from written material. The subjects were to read a paragraph describing the activities of a hypothetical person. After they had done so. they were to turn the page over and answer several questions about that person. The paragraph was an adaptation of an ambiguous description used by Srull and Wyer t1979), portraying a series of events involving a target person, occurring over the course of an afternoon. Several behaviors that were ambiguous with regard to the presence or absence of hostility were incorporated into the paragraph. For example, the target person mentioned IL. that he was refusing to pay his rent until the landlord had his plumbing repaired.” This might be viewed as reflecting hostility on the target person’s part; but it could also be construed as simply being an attempt to obtain equity. This paragraph was identical to the one used by Srull and Wyer (1979), with one exception. Because pilot data indicated that subjects from the University of Miami perceived more hostility (overall) on the part of the target person than did subjects from the University of Illinois. we deleted or softened several of the more obviously hostile elements in the description. After reading the paragraph and turning the page over, subjects encountered the printed instruction to rate the person in the description (without going back to refresh their memories) on 12 dimensions (from Srull & Wyer (1979)). Each consisted of a question accompanied by a IO-point rating scale. Half of them pertained rather directly to hostility (e.g., “How unfriendly would you rate Donald?“). The remainder, though evaluative, were not directly related to hostility (e.g., “How boring would you rate Donald?“). Mnnipulatim check and debriefing. After everyone had completed these rating scales, the experimenter announced that he had forgotten to do one thing earlier in the session. He then asked subjects to make a judgment about the behavior of the businessman seen in the videotape. Specifically, subjects were asked to rate how obnoxiously the businessman had acted. This rating was intended to serve as a check on the manipulation of modeled hostility. As a filler item, to establish the credibility of the request for this rating, subjects were also asked to rate how efficient the secretary had been. Each rating was to be made by choosing a number from 1 to 7 (with 1 indicating “not at all” and 7 indicating “extremely”). These ratings were to be written on the informed consent form that had been used for the videotape segment of the session. Finally, because the procedures of this study are somewhat open to criticism on the grounds of experimental “demand” tome, 1962). we took special care to ascertain whether subjects had drawn any connection between the two procedures that they had undergone.

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After everyone had completed the final two ratings, the experimenter asked all subjects to write (on the bottom of their rating sheets) a brief description of what they thought the experimental session had been studying. He then asked whether anyone thought that there had been any connection between the first part of the session and the second part. Anyone who answered in the affirmative was instructed to write down what the connection was. After additional probing, the experimenter explained the true purpose of the study, and solicited the subjects’ cooperation in keeping the purpose a secret. Examination of subjects’ written responses indicated that only one subject accurately perceived the connection between the two procedures. Two additional subjects reported perceiving a connection, but their written statements revealed that they had not actually guessed the study’s purpose. The connection that they saw was that one part of the session had concerned impressions gathered from printed materials and that the other part had concerned impressions gathered from visually presented material. Data from these latter two subjects were retained for analysis, though data from the first subject were discarded.

Results A 2 (model condition) X 2 (sex of subject) analysis of variance of subjects’ ratings of the filmed model’s behavior indicated that the hostility manipulation had been effective. The only effect to attain significance was the main effect for model condition, F(1, 74) = 20.03, p < .OOl, the model’s behavior being viewed as more obnoxious in the hostile condition (M = 5.69) than in the control condition (M = 4.19). The dependent measure of greatest interest was subjects’ ratings of the ambiguous stimulus person. Following the procedures of Srull and Wyer (1979), we summed the ratings made on the six hostility-relevant items (hostile, unfriendly, dislikable, kind, considerate, thoughtful) and summed the ratings made on the other evaluative dimensions (dependable, boring, interesting, conceited, intelligent, narrow-minded). These totals (coded such that higher totals reflected greater negativity) then were submitted to separate analyses of variance. Analysis of the hostilityrelevant items yielded one significant effect: Subjects rated the stimulus person as being more hostile if they had previously been exposed to a hostile model (M of summed scales = 38.83) than if they had been exposed to a neutral model (M = 35.14), F(1, 74) = 5.58, p < .03. No difference among groups emerged from the analysis of the other evaluative items, however. This differential influence of the priming manipulation on item type was further confirmed by a between-within analysis, which yielded a significant interaction between those two variables, F( 1, 74) = 5.61, p < .03. Discussion As predicted, subjects exposed to a filmed model who displayed cues of hostility reported perceiving more hostility in a subsequently encountered ambiguous stimulus person than did subjects in a control condition. Unlike the findings of Srull and Wyer (1979), this difference did not generalize to evaluative items that were unrelated to hostility.

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The results of Experiment 1 provide support for the first step in the line of reasoning with which we began. Activating interpretive knowledge structures in the process of perceiving and classifying the behaviors of a model apparently renders those knowledge structures more accessible for later use in perceiving someone else. Let us then consider the second step in our reasoning. Does priming an interpretive or conceptual schema influence the nature of subsequent action? There are several findings in the literature that might easily be construed as supporting this hypothesis. For example, some years ago Loew (1967) investigated whether reinforcing subjects for saying hostile-versus-nonhostile words would influence their subsequent aggression. Participants received a long series of word-choice trials in which they were reinforced for consistently choosing either aggressive words or nonaggressive words. Because subjects learned quickly to choose words from the appropriate category, they chose (and spoke verbally) primarily aggressive and nonaggressive words, respectively. Thus it might be argued that the procedure caused differential priming of this conceptual category.3 Following this procedure, each subject had an opportunity to shock an ostensible cosubject. Subjects who had been reinforced for aggressive choices displayed higher shock levels than did subjects who had been reinforced for nonaggressive choices. One might argue that this finding indicates a priming effect. But the emphasis on an overt reinforcement procedure during the pretreatment makes it impossible to know which process-the activation of the category or the experimenter’s approval of aggressive choices-was responsible for the behavioral difference. More recent evidence on the question comes from a project conducted by Wilson and Capitman (1982). Unlike Leow (1967), these researchers from the outset were interested in priming effects, rather than in conditioning processes. Wilson and Capitman had male subjects read prose passages (under a guise) that either did or did not incorporate a “boy meets girl” script. The subject then was joined by an attractive female confederate. Unobtrusive observation revealed more script-related behavior among subjects in whom the script had been primed than among control subjects. The Wilson and Capitman (1982) research appears to make the case that action qualities can be primed in much the same fashion as qualities involved in perceptual or cognitive events. We regard that evidence as quite useful. However, in our view the conceptual question is sufficiently important that it seems desirable to obtain independent verification of ’ Even this argument is a bit tenuous. Exactly the same word sets were presented verbally to all subjects: thus all words had to be processed by all subjects for recognition. If differential priming did occur, it would have been by virtue of the extra processing involved in choosing and repeating a word. Though it is plausible that this would produce a priming effect, we know of no independent verification of the point.

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the point, using different procedures so as to establish the phenomenon’s generality. Experiment 2 serves this function. In it we used a manipulation that activates a particular conceptual category in memory. This manipulation has previously been validated as a priming technique by research showing that it influences subsequent perception (Srull & Wyer, 1979). The question addressed by our own second study is whether the same manipulation will also influence the character of subjects’ actions. As in Experiment 1, the behavioral quality chosen for examination in Experiment 2 was aggression. Our prediction was based on the assumption that activating the category in memory corresponding to hostility or aggressiveness partially activates semantically related information as well (Collins & Loftus, 1975). There would appear to be several distinct types of information associated with the conceptual category of aggressiveness. That is. the category is involved in perceiving or construing aggressiveness on the part of others. But it is also involved in creating the behavioral quality of aggressiveness in oneself. That is, just as information stored in memory allows one to recognize aggression, information must be stored in memory that allows us to do aggression. Given the obvious semantic relation between these two sets of information, it seems reasonable that activating the general conceptual category of aggressiveness creates a partial activation of the information specifying the behavioral quality. Thus our prediction is not based upon the assumption that priming the conceptual schema of aggression will cause subjects to see the other person in the interaction as aggressive. Rather, we assume that the prime will tend to activate the behavioral quality (as well as the perceptual quality) for potential use, and that once activated, it will tend to find expression. EXPERIMENT 2 Method Subjects in this study were 31 male undergraduates from the University of Florida. Each was contacted by phone and recruited to participate in what was ostensibly a study of “learning” processes. Two other subjects were recruited, but were eliminated from data analysis for reasons described below. When the subject arrived at the designated room he was met by an experimenter, who obtained informed consent, showed the subject the research apparatus, and explained what would be happening during the session. Subjects were told that they would be teaching a concept to a (male) cosubject by presenting problems and administering rewards and punishments via the apparatus (cf. Buss. 1961). The reward for a correct response was the onset of a light (labeled “correct”) in front of the cosubject. The punishment for an incorrect response was an electric shock. There were IO shock buttons on the machine, which corresponded to linearly increasing shock intensities. It was made clear to the subject that he could choose any shock intensity he wished for any given punishment. His only instructions were to try to teach the problem to the learner as effectively as possible.

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In order to be familiar with the range of shock intensities available, the subject was asked to administer sample shocks to himself from buttons 2 and 5. Button I was portrayed as delivering no pain at all, but serving only as a signal. Shock intensity 5 was intended to be moderately painful. Immediately after receiving the sample shock from button 5. the subject was asked to rate that shock on an 8-point scale. ranging from “barely feel it” to “unbearable.” If the subject’s rating did not fall between “slightly painful” and “definitely painful.” the overall machine voltage was readjusted and the sample shocks and rating were repeated. This sequence continued until the perception of the shock fell inside the desired range. One subject was eliminated at this point because (after repeated trials) his ratings of the shock never fell within the acceptable range. By prearrangement, the ostensible cosubject (actually a confederate of the experimenter) always arrived late for the experiment. This provided a justification for assigning the subject to the teacher role in the procedure outlined above (i.e.. that that role took longer to explain). The confederate arrived a few moments before the experimenter finished instructing the subject.

Priming Manipulation At about the time the experimenter was concluding his instructions to the subject, he was interrupted by another experimenter. This second experimenter explained in the presence of the subject and the confederate that she was at the very end of her master’s project and had to finish soon. However, the participants in her study had not been showing up as scheduled. Somewhat apologetically, she asked if it would be possible for some of the participants in this study to help her by filling out a simple form. After being assured that this would not require much additional time, the first experimenter asked the subject if he would be willing to help out, given that there would be a delay anyway, while the confederate was informed about his role in the ostensible learning procedure. After indicating his willingness to help, the subject was escorted to a second room, where the priming manipulation took place. This manipulation was the scrambled sentence task used by Srull and Wyer (1979). The instructions portray the task as “a test of how people perceive word relationships according to their first immediate impressions.” Subjects were to work rapidly through the sentences, marking three of the four words that would form a sentence for each item, and basing their responses on their first impressions. Each subject completed 30 items. In the hostile priming condition, 80% of the items incorporated hostile content (e.g., “hits he her them”) and 20% had neutral content (e.g.. “the door open fix”). In the neutral priming condition, only 20% of the items incorporated hostile content. (The first experimenter always remained blind to priming condition.) After finishing the items and being thanked by the second experimenter, the subject returned to the initial room.

Aggression Measure Upon his return. the subject was seated on the teacher’s side of the apparatus and the confederate was seated on the learner’s side. The two were separated from each other by a wooden partition. Once seated, the confederate secretly disconnected the shock mechanism and lifted a trap door on the top of the machine. which revealed a row of numbers from I to 10. When lighted. these numbers indicated the level of shock being administered by the subject. The confederate’s task was to give a prearranged series of correct and incorrect responses and to record the shock level used for each punishment administered. There were 34 learning trials in the session. Of these, the confederate was incorrect (and thus received a shock) on 20. Upon completion of the teaching task, the subject was debriefed by an experimental assistant. The assistant began with a general probing of the subject’s understanding of the events of the experiment. After some initial questioning about how the subject felt things

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had gone and how effective he had been as a teacher, the subject was asked if he saw any relationship between the teaching task and the scrambled sentence task. None of the subjects reported seeing the two as related in any way. One subject, however, reported not believing that he had been actually delivering shocks to the learner. This subject was eliminated from data analysis.

Results and Discussion Shock intensities were averaged over the twenty trials on which the confederate had made incorrect responses. These mean shock intensities served as the dependent measure of the study. A comparison between groups revealed that the average shock intensity delivered by subjects in the hostile priming condition 04 = 3.31) was significantly greater than the average intensity delivered by control subjects (M = 2.24); t(29) = 2.24; p < .05. The results of the study thus supported our prediction. GENERAL

DISCUSSION

In Experiment 1, viewing an aggressive model caused subjects to perceive greater hostility in subsequently confronted ambiguous descriptions of behavior than was true of control subjects. This finding is consistent with the reasoning that observing the model’s aggressive behavior activated an interpretive schema in memory, and that activation of the schema rendered it more easily reactivated (i.e., more accessible) later on. When a behavior that was reasonably assimilable to the schema was encountered, then the schema was preferentially used to interpret the behavior. This finding may be viewed as a conceptual replication of previous priming effects in person perception (Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982: Higgins et al., 1977; Srull & Wyer, 1979), using a filmed model rather than words as the priming stimulus. In Experiment 2, activating a conceptual schema by means of a previously validated priming manipulation caused subjects’ behavior to reflect the primed quality to a greater degree than occurred in a control group (cf. Wilson & Capitman, 1982). This finding is consistent with the reasoning that abstract knowledge structures often incorporate (or are closely associated with) information specifying conceptually similar action qualities, as well as information that serves a more purely recognitory function. When the knowledge structure has been activated, then the information specifying the behavioral quality is also rendered more accessible and more likely to be reflected in overt action. Taken together, these various findings appear to indicate the viability of the approach to modeling effects with which we began (as well as the viability of our line of argument more generally). Observing a model do a behavior seems to enhance one’s access to the mental records specifying the behavior, thereby making it more likely to occur in one’s own action. Though certain instances of modeling may well be mediated by information regarding reinforcement contingencies (Bandura, 1977), it seems not un-

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reasonable to suggest that many other instances reflect this simple mechanism, which does not involve reinforcement at all. Implications

for Behavior

Theory

Why have we gone to the trouble of trying to develop an alternative account of modeling phenomena? Why should evidence of the account’s plausibility be regarded as interesting? What are the implications of the fact that a mechanism other than reinforcement contingencies accounts easily for the overt manifestation of behavioral qualities in ongoing action? These questions introduce an issue that is far broader than the focus of the present article. The issue, stated plainly, is what metatheoretical assumptions are most useful in discussing human behavior. The literature of personality and social psychology over the last 25 years has been dominated by theories derived from the concepts of conditioning. But during the intervening period two things have happened. The first is that learning-based theories of behavior have evolved farther and farther away from the conceptual elements from which they began. The result is that the current “social-learning theories” have only the most tenuous conceptual connection to the early learning theories (cf. Carver & Scheier, 1981a, Chapter 18). The second occurrence is the gradual emergence of an alternative set of assumptions (adopted from cognitive science and other sources) about the nature of human functioning. The phrase most commonly used to refer to this emerging framework for examining behavior is “information processing.” Information processing theories take many forms (inasmuch as cognitive scientists are no more unanimous than are social psychologists about precisely what form theory construction should take). But the essence of that position comprises a focus on issues such as memory function, organization of information in memory. and control systems regulating choices and actions. One reason why we regard the research and reasoning presented here as interesting is that they stem from this emergent frame of reference. Both the concept of accessibility and the methods by which accessibility is manipulated empirically are drawn from a general theory of memory processes. The relevant elements of that theory appear to account nicely for the disinhibiting effects of models. Nor is this the only instance in which an information processing approach has provided a highly plausible account of phenomena traditionally discussed in terms derived from learning theory (see Carver & Scheier, 1981b, for another such instance), In brief, the present research is another step in the attempt to portray human social behavior within the framework of information-processing ideas. Whether this approach is more useful than that stemming from the concepts of conditioning is something that only time will tell. Among the elaborations that this approach clearly needs is a statement on boundary

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conditions for its component processes. Because the application of the accessibility concept to overt behavior is so new, any discussion of boundary conditions is speculative. But at least one speculation does seem directly implied by the ideas discussed here, taken together with complementary ideas discussed in a variety of other places. Specifically, it seems reasonable that people who are engaged in a task ordinarily monitor their activities along one dimension much more carefully than along other dimensions (cf. Shallice, 1978).4 We would venture the suggestion that as long as a primed behavioral quality does not intrinsically conflict with the quality that is being monitored, the primed quality is likely to be reflected in behavior. If, on the other hand, there is a conflict (i.e., exhibiting the primed quality implies simultaneously failing to exhibit the quality being monitored), the prime is much less likely to have a behavioral effect (cf. Bower, 1981). Such a principle would be quite analogous to the boundary condition demonstrated by Higgins et al. (1977) with regard to impression-formation effects-that is, that a previously primed category was used only if its use was plausible (i.e., did not contradict information provided in the person-perception stimulus itself). In the procedure used to measure aggression in Experiment 2, subjects presumably were monitoring the quality of their “teaching,” inasmuch as that is the activity in which they believed themselves to be engaged. Aggressiveness has no inherent conflict with this activity, and the primed quality thus was manifest in behavior. If subjects had instead been led to construe their task differently, or had been given a task which by its nature was antithetical to aggressiveness, the effect of the prime might have been very different. We embarked upon this discussion in an attempt to indicate a possible boundary condition for accessibility effects on behavior. But it is of more than a little interest that our speculation also appears to describe a boundary condition on modeling effects. That is, it seems likely that disinhibitory effects due to models are likely to occur only if the modeled quality fails to conflict with the behavioral dimension that is receiving the greatest degree of monitoring. Interpreting

Other Research

We should point out quite specifically that the effects created by a priming stimulus depend entirely upon what knowledge structures are activated by processing the stimulus (see Higgins & King (1981) for a broader discussion of some of the issues involved). It is relatively easy 4 This is not quite the same distinction as that made between automatic and effortful processing (e.g.. Hasher & Zacks. 1979; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977). The statement made above would seem to be applicable whether the task is one requiring focused and effortful processing or is instead one in which little attention need be devoted to monitoring even the primary dimension of concern.

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to restrict the conceptual dimensions that are evoked by stimuli in the context of a controlled laboratory procedure. But generalizing these processes to the broader domain of social interaction results in much greater complexity. Most social events are amenable to several alternative interpretations, and relatively subtle variations in the elements comprising the event can dramatically change the perceptions that result. Such variations in construal can have behavioral manifestations as well. As an example, Berkowitz and Alioto (1973) exposed previously provoked subjects to films in which models’ aggression was portrayed either as motivated by anger and a desire for revenge, or as motivated by reasons other than anger. The revenge-motivated model elicited increased aggression from subjects, replicating a large number of studies in which the model’s motivation had not been an issue (see, e.g., Geen & Berkowitz, 1967). When the model’s behavior was portrayed as unrelated to anger, however, aggression did not increase. These findings are entirely consistent with the assumption that a variation in orienting instructions caused the activation and use of different organizations of knowledge (though in this case the effect was produced by an active set rather than a passive prime). A similar line of reasoning would apply to cases in which a model’s aggression was portrayed as justified versus unjustified (e.g., Berkowitz & Geen, 1967). Certainly these findings reflect an important source of complexity that must be taken into account in considering the effects of schema activation upon either perception or behavior. This illustration is drawn from a broader literature bearing on Berkowitz’s (e.g., 1971) hypothesis that “aggressive cues” elicit aggressive behavior from people who are already prepared to aggress due to a provocation. The situation focused on by that hypothesis differs substantially from the one studied in the present research: it assumes a previous provocation, which did not take place in the present study. We would, however, like to make one brief comment about the relationship between the Berkowitz theory and the ideas that underlie the present studies. In Berkowitz’s view, stimuli become aggressive cues by being associated with aggression via classical conditioning. Yet the literature spawned by the Berkowitz hypothesis often involves the use of cues for which such a mechanism of association seems extremely implausible (see Zillmann (1979, pp. 145147, 223-228) for a thorough discussion of this point). On the other hand, the assumption of a network of semantically related information (described earlier) would seem to provide a rather straightforward way of discussing such cues. Consider, for example, a study (Berkowitz & Geen, 1967) in which provoked subjects watched a movie fight scene involving Kirk Douglas. Later on, it was mentioned that the name of the subject’s provoker was Kirk. Activating the “Kirk” node by naming the provoker should also activate semantically related material, particularly if that material had

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been activated recently. Related and recently activated material would include the actor Kirk Douglas; related to that node would be elements of the fight scene. The result of this spreading activation would be (and indeed was) more aggression to an antagonist named Kirk than to an antagonist named Bob. This interpretation of such effects would suggest a potentially important link between a large body of research on aggressive cues and a large area of research and theory in cognitive psychology. Aggression Our choice of aggression as the behavioral quality for examination in this research was based primarily upon the ready availability of experimental procedures for priming the aggression schema and for measuring aggressive behavior. We are not attempting to present a comprehensive account of the dynamics of aggression, a behavior that obviously is influenced by many variables not considered here (see Baron, 1977; Zillman, 1979). Nevertheless, the choice of aggression as a behavioral category seems fortuitous in that the findings do appear to have implications for aggression per se. Consider, for example, the phenomenon of displacement, i.e., directing aggression toward a person other than the instigator. Several studies have verified that displacement occurs (e.g., Fenigstein & Buss, 1974; Holmes, 1972). But what mechanism underlies it? Our results suggest two separate contributors (though once again we hasten to point out that this discussion is not intended to be exhaustive). First, an initial provocation probably increases the likelihood that someone else’s subsequent behavior, if ambiguous, will also be interpreted as provoking (see also Higgins et al., 1977; Srull & Wyer, 1979). This, in turn, would lead to an (inappropriate) aggressive response to what really might have been completely benign behavior on the part of the other person. Second, the present data (when joined with findings such as those of Srull & Wyer (1979) and Wilson & Capitman (1982)) suggest that once primed, a behavioral quality is likely to find expression in overt action should an opportunity be encountered before the prime dissipates. If aggression against one’s antagonist is somehow prevented, the behavioral quality may simply be displayed elsewhere. This argument is consistent with data from at least one study in which subjects provoked by a third party had a significant preference for shocking a person to whom they could deliver intense shocks, compared to a person for whom the shocks were weak (Fenigstein & Buss, 1974). More specifically, that effect occurred despite the fact that the subject did not interact with the shock recipients after being provoked, and thus had no opportunity to interpret their behavior as being hostile to him. The reasoning that we have applied to displacement of aggression also fits with the finding that exposure to media violence is associated with

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