The Preoccupational Hazards of Social Life

Prospective interaction is often considered an antidote to inferential error because perceivers may expend effort making inferences about those with whom they expect to interact. These studies examined the possibility that prospective interaction may prevent error by motivating perceivers who have formed biased impressions of a partner to revise those impressions, but that it may also promote error by causing perceivers to spend resources preparing their own behavior rather than revising their biased impressions. Three experiments suggested that key features of a prospective interaction (e.g., role activity, goal familiarity, and partner novelty) determine whether people will become preoccupied with the preparation of their own behavior and thereby determine whether the prospect of interaction will prevent or promote inferential error.

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