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The authors used the processing characteristics of the left and right cerebral hemispheres to gain some insight into the relation between self-affirmation and stereotyping. In Study 1, self-affirmation led to greater stereotyping (of a librarian) and to greater left hemisphere activation, which in turn mediated the self-affirmation/stereotyping relationship. Study 2 replicated these results but also found that self-affirmation decreased stereotyping for a stigmatized target. However, relative hemisphere activation did not mediate this self-affirmation-stereotyping relationship. These studies showed that self-affirmation can either increase or decrease stereotyping depending on the star us of the target and that relative hemisphere activation may provide clues as to underlying processes of stereotyping. In both studies, relative hemisphere activation was assessed using a line bisection task. Discussion focuses on possible mechanisms of different kinds of stereotyping and on the ways in which a consideration of relative hemisphere activation could help researchers gain insights into those mechanisms. Keywords: hemispheric asymmetries; stereotyping; self-affirmation; motivation; stigma

In three studies, the authors show that unconscious expressive cues can lead to opposite evaluations, depending on the context in which they. occur. In Study 1, brow (vs. cheek) tension reduced preferences in an easy judgment context but increased preferences in a difficult context. In Study 2, head shaking (vs. nodding) either increased or decreased prosocial affect depending on the context in which the judged character was presented. In Study 3, a subliminal smile (vs. frown) led to higher self-ratings of performance when paired with one's own actions but to lower self-ratings of performance when paired with a competitor's actions. Together, these results suggest that the meaning of unconscious expressive cues is not fixed. Keywords: nonconscious processing; affect; evaluation; bodily expressions

Participants were either informed that contextual influences bias their judgment and asked to correct for the unspecified influence (blatant warning) or they were instructed that they should correct for the unspecified influence if they felt that there may be biasing influences (conditional warning). Whereas blatantly warned participants corrected under all conditions (Study 2), conditionally warned participants corrected their judgements when the source of bias was salient but not when the source was subtle (Studies 1 to 3). Implications for models of theory-driven correction are discussed., In the course of a normal day, people are likely to make numerous evaluations. For example, they may hire someone based on an evaluation of the candidate's research ability, teaching [...]

Three hypotheses were tested: that feedback from facial expressions can provide the valence of an emotional reaction, that one 's level of arousal can provide the felt intensity of that reaction, and that people use these sensations as information when appraising a stimulus that provides no clear valence of its own. Subjects read a story to which either understanding or anger was a possible reaction. While reading the story, all subjects were induced to hold their faces in expressions of either happiness or anger. In addition, one group of subjects engaged in 2 min of vigorous exercise immediately before reading the story. Another group engaged in the exercise 90 s before reading the story. The control group read the story without having exercised. Nonaroused subjects tended to report more favorable reactions when smiling than when holding an angry expression. This difference was significant when there was a delay between the exercise and the rating task and was reduced to nonsignificance when there was no delay. These results are discussed in the context of a theory of private self-perception in which people use their bodily sensations as information when making judgments.

This study examined the effects of induced mood on susceptibility' to question-framing effects. Participants were placed in either a happy, sad, or neutral mood and performed an impression-formation task under different phrasings of Martin, Ward, Achee, and Wyer's (1993) stop rule instructions. For the enjoy rule, participants were told to stop reading behaviors either when they no longer enjoyed the task or when they became bored with the task. For the performance-based rule, participants were told to stop either when they had enough information to form an impression of the target or when, they did not need to collect additional information. Results indicated that neutral mood participants were strongly influenced by the framing of the stop rule. Participants in valenced moods, however, were unaffected by framing, suggesting that they based their decisions about when to stop solely on the informational value of their moods. The implications of these results are discussed.