Suchergebnisse

Reeder (Reeder, 1985; Reeder & Brewer, 1979) posited a schematic model of dispositional attributions to explain negativity effects in social cognition. However, in Reeder's schematic model of dispositional attributions, it is assumed that social perceivers' processing objective is to form an impression of a social actor. Based on Reeder and Brewer's hierarchical schema, it was predicted that mock jurors processing testimony under impression-set conditions would rate a witness to be more deceptive if the witness testified truthfully before lying than when the witness was caught lying first before telling the truth. Under memory-set conditions, based on the availability heuristic, mock jurors were predicted to rate the witness to be more deceptive when the witness lied first before telling the truth compared to when the witness told the truth first before lying. To test the hypothesis, subjects played the roles of mock jurors and watched a videotape of a witness presenting testimony during a trial. The witness was caught perjuring him- or herself by the attorney either on the first response to the attorney's queries or on the fourth response. Results confirmed the hypothesis. When subjects processed the attorney-witness interaction under impression-set objectives, subjects formed stronger judgments of the witness's deceptiveness when he or she lied on the first answer; the pattern was reversed under memory-set conditions.