Flexible Correction Processes in Social Judgment: Correcting for Context-Induced Contrast

Abstract Previous studies of correction processes in social judgment have suggested that contextual contrast is a more cognitively effortful process than contextual assimilation because contrast results from efforts to correct for assimilation biases. These studies appear to assume that assimilation is the natural or default effect of a context and that instigation of correction processes leads to displacement of judgments away from the context. In Experiment 1, we showed that people believe that either contrast or assimilation can be the natural effect of a context depending upon the specific context and target items paired. In Experiment 2, we employed a context that subjects believed would naturally produce a contrast effect, and as expected, contrast was produced in the "no-correction" condition. When an explicit instruction to correct for the context was made, subjects adjusted their judgments toward rather than away from the contextual items. Experiment 3 showed that corrections observed with explicit instructions were not due to changes in response language. Finally, in Experiment 4, more subtle correction cues produced the same correction effects. We argue that it is premature to conclude that movement away from a context (i.e., judgmental contrast) is invariably the result of context correction processes. Rather, people are more flexible in their corrections. In situations where contrast is the expected effect of a context, correction processes result in movement toward rather than away from the context.