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A brief summary regarding the representations of attitudes and how they have a profound impact on what we think about attitudes, attitude change, and the attitude-behavior relationship is illustrated. This review of attitude is made by analyzing the model of attribute representation in a distributed and connectionist memory system.

Recent advances in understanding prejudice and intergroup behavior have made clear that emotions help explain people's reactions to social groups and their members. Intergroup emotions theory (D. M. Mackie, T. Devos, & E. R. Smith, 2000; E. R. Smith, 1993) holds that intergroup emotions are experienced by individuals when they identify with a social group, making the group part of the psychological self. What differentiates such group-level emotions from emotions that occur purely at the individual level? The authors argue that 4 key criteria define group-level emotions: Group emotions are distinct from the same person's individual-level emotions, depend on the person's degree of group identification, are socially shared within a group, and contribute to regulating intragroup and intergroup attitudes and behavior. Evidence from 2 studies supports all 4 of these predictions and thus points to the meaningfulness, coherence, and functionality of group-level emotions. Keywords: intergroup emotions, consensus, prejudice, group identification, appraisals

An experiment is conducted to investigate the relation between implicit and explicit measures of person impressions. It is suggested that implicit measures reflect simple associations stored in a 'slow-learning' memory system while explicit measure reflect a combination of these associations stored in 'fist-binding' memory system.

The present article focuses on the automatic evaluation of exemplars whose category membership has been learned in the past. Studies 1 and 2 confirmed the hypothesis that once an exemplar has been encoded as a member of a given group, at a later encounter the evaluation associated with the group will be unintentionally retrieved from memory, even when no perceptual cue indicates the exemplar's category membership. Study 3 extended the results to the domain of in-group/out-group differentiation. In addition, Studies 4 and 5 confirmed the hypothesis that stored evaluations can be retrieved and affect responses even when the semantic information on which the evaluations were originally based is no longer available for retrieval. Finally, Study 6 investigated spontaneous approach--avoidance behavior tendencies. Overall, results demonstrate the pervasive effects of person-based representations, and they are discussed in terms of recent models of person perception and out-group discrimination.

A distributed connectionist network can account for both bookkeeping (M. Rothbart, 1981) and subtyping (M. B. Brewer, V. Dull, & L. Lui, 1981; S. E. Taylor, 1981) effects. The finding traditionally regarded as demonstrating subtyping is that exposure to moderate (compared with extreme) disconfirmers leads to subsequent ratings of the group that are less stereotypic. Despite learning that is incremental and analogous to bookkeeping, the simulations replicate this finding and suggest that the 'subtyping' pattern of results will be drastically reduced if disconfirmers are encountered before the stereotype is well-established. This novel prediction holds with human participants and offers a tantalizing suggestion: Although moderate disconfirmers may produce more stereotype change, stereotype development might be discouraged by exposure to either extreme or moderate disconfirmers.

Issues are discussed regarding possible overlapping of cognitive representations of the self and in-group. By extension, the match/mismatch reaction time effect is found to extend to attitudes as well as to traits, and the size of this effect correlates positively with several explicit measures of group identification.

Connectionist models contrast in many ways with the symbolic models that have traditionally been applied within social psychology. In this article the authors apply an autoassociative connectionist model originally developed by J. L. McClelland and D. E. Rumelhart (1986) to reproduce several well-replicated and theoretically important phenomena related to person perception and stereotyping. These phenomena are exemplar-based inference, group-based stereotyping, the simultaneous application of several stereotypes to generate emergent characteristics, and the effects of recency and frequency of prior exposures on accessibility (the probability of a representation's use). Though many of these phenomena are explained by current theories in social psychology, the simulation contributes to parsimony and theoretical integration by showing that a single, very simple mechanism can generate them all. The model also predicts a new phenomenon - rapid recovery of accessibility after it has declined to zero.

Every person or object can be categorized in multiple ways. For example, a person can be categorized (and hence stereotyped) by gender, age, race, or occupation. Earlier research demonstrated that objects toward which people have highly accessible attitudes attract attention when they are present in the visual field. On the basis of that work, the authors hypothesized that categories toward which people have highly accessible attitudes are preferentially applied to multiply categorizable objects. Three experiments, with cued recall and categorization response time as dependent variables, support the hypothesis. Categories toward which people's attitudes had been rendered accessible by an earlier task were more readily produced in response to multiply categorizable objects serving as a cue, or could more quickly be verified as fitting the object. These results demonstrate the power and functional value of accessible attitudes in shaping basic categorization and judgmental processes.

Social psychologists can benefit from exploring connectionist or parallel distributed processing models of mental representation and process and also can contribute much to connectionist theory in return. Connectionist models involve many simple processing units that send activation signals over connections. At an abstract level, the models can be described as representing concepts (as distributed patterns of activation), operating like schemas to fill in typical values for input information, reconstructing memories based on accessible knowledge rather than retrieving static representations, using flexible and context-sensitive concepts, and computing by satisfying numerous constraints in parallel. This article reviews open questions regarding connectionist models and concludes that social psychological contributions to such topics as cognition-motivation interactions may be important for the development of integrative connectionist models.

In 2 experiments, Ss judged whether numerous behaviors implied a target trait (intelligent or friendly) and then, on an ostensibly unrelated questionnaire, evaluated the overall desirability of some behaviors. Repeated behaviors were judged more quickly than new ones, even with 7 days between presentations. In addition, evaluations of previously judged behaviors that had evaluatively mixed implications were dominated by their implications for the practiced trait. This implicit memory effect occurred over a 7-day delay, even when Ss did not recognize that they had previously seen the behavior. Just as a general construct (eg., a trait) can be made accessible by an individual's past experiences, a specific cue-construct linkage (e.g., a tendency to interpret a specific behavior in terms of a particular trait) can be facilitated for a long time, independent of conscious awareness, by making a single judgment.

The 'illusory correlation' effect occurs when perceivers make memory-based judgments about two unequal-sized groups of people after receiving information about their behaviors. The stimulus information includes equal proportions of positive and negative behaviors by members of each group, but perceivers generally perceive an association between membership in the smaller group and the less frequent type of behavior. A quantitative model of long-term memory, implemented as a computer simulation, reproduces several known properties of the effect. The simulation uses D. L. Hintzman's memory model, which involves the storage and retrieval of specific experiences but no differential attention or distinctiveness-based encoding or retrieval biases. Besides generating the basic effect, the model also reproduces several detailed patterns of results that have been interpreted as supporting the traditional account for the phenomenon in terms of distinctiveness-biased encoding. This demonstration that there is no more than one viable theoretical explanation for the effect has several implications for future research and theory on illusory correlation. An Appendix briefly describes failures to replicate the same effect using several PDP (distributed memory) models.

Subjects who differed on relevant measures of prejudice examined photographs and trail descriptions of job candidates. Gender or racial stereotypes were cued by the photographs of the applicants, and to assess the impact of individuating information on stereotype use, the trait description concerning the applicants were manipulated so that they were either primarily stereotype-consistent, stereotype-inconsistent, or neutral. After forming an impression of each applicant, subjects completed a number of evaluative trait ratings, a liking measure, and two process-oriented measures - an information search task and a recall measure. The counter-stereotypic hiring recommendations were not mediated by the impression formed of the candidate, suggesting self-presentational concerns influenced these judgments; hiring choices were based solely on the photograph in the gender case, and on both the photograph and traits in the race case. On the evaluative trait ratings, subjects appeared relatively uninfluenced by the stereotype, although the more subtle process-oriented measures showed effects that are consistent with stereotype-guided processing. Based on the results, a model of the role of stereotypes in social decision-making is presented.

Three studies were conducted to investigate the emotional consequences of satisfying or thwarting emotionally induced intergroup behavioral intentions. Results demonstrate that responding in accord with the emotionally induced action tendency dissipates that emotion and generates satisfaction, compared to responding inconsistently or unsuccessfully to an emotion-linked behavioral tendency.

Two experiments revealed repeated exposure to information about a target person reduces individuation and thereby increases stereotyping of the target person based on social group memberships. The first experiment demonstrated that a brief former exposure to a subset of information about a target person could increase stereotyping of that target, even in the presence of counter-stereotypic individuating information.

Three studies tested the idea that when social identity is salient, group-based appraisals elicit specific emotions and action tendencies toward out-groups. Participants' group memberships were made salient and the collective support apparently enjoyed by the in-group was measured or manipulated. The authors then measured anger and fear (Studies 1 and 2) and anger and contempt (Study 3), as well as the desire to move against or away from the out-group. Intergroup anger was distinct from intergroup fear, and the inclination to act against the out-group was distinct from the tendency to move away from it. Participants who perceived the in-group as strong were more likely to experience anger toward the out-group and to desire to take action against it. The effects of perceived in-group strength on offensive action tendencies were mediated by anger.

The cognitive processess involved in making social judgments (e.g., judgments about whether behaviors imply a particular trait) become more efficient and faster with practice. This paper investigates three aspects of practice effects for behavior-trait judgments and for a nonsocial comparison task. General practice effects make trait judgments faster even for new behaviors, last at least 24 h, and are largely transferable to a new target trait but not to a different task. Specific practice effects make judgments concerning a previously seen behavior faster than judgments for comparable new ones. They also last at least 24 h and are independent of conscious recognition of the repeated behavior as old. They do not appear when the target trait is changed, but are evident across a change of task in at least one case. The pattern of effects supports the proceduralization mechanism of J. R. Anderson's ACT* over two theoretical alternatives (facilitation of reading the stimulus word or storage and retrieval of a stimulus--response pair). Finally, practice influences the contents (as well as the speed) of social judgment, the evaluation of behaviors on a questionnaire administered after the experiment was ostensibly complete. Practice-induced changes in efficiency of the processes underlying social judgments--including the remarkably specific and long-lasting component identified by this study-may have major implications for social judgments in person perception, stereotyping, and other areas.

Three experiments identified conditions under which trait judgments made about a behavior were more likely to influence later judgments of the behavior. In Experiment 1, participants made trait judgments about numerous behaviors presented with photos of actors. Some behaviors were repeated, paired with the same or a different actor. All repeated behaviors were judged faster than new behaviors. Facilitation was greatest when repeated behaviors were paired with the same actor, suggesting greater influence of prior judgments in this condition. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect, and the pattern of response times (RTs) suggested a stronger association between the actor and behavior when a prior impression of the actor had been formed (Experiment 2) and when the behavior was stereotypic of the actor's group (Experiment 3). Level of prejudice moderated RT patterns in Experiment 3. Implications for context effects, the nature of trait inferences, and stereotype change are discussed.

Aspects of people's identification with groups may be understood by borrowing theoretical ideas and measurement strategies from research on attachment in close relationships. People have mental models of the self as a group member and of groups as sources of identity and esteem. These models affect thoughts, emotions, and behaviors related to group membership. Three studies show that two dimensions of attachment to groups, attachment anxiety and avoidance, can be assessed with good reliability, validity, and over-time stability. These factors are distinct from relationship attachment and from other measures of group identification. Group attachment predicts several important outcomes, including emotions concerning the group, time and activities shared with a group, social support, collective self-esteem, and ways of resolving conflict. This conceptualization provides new insights into the nature of people's psychological ties to groups.

Five studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between how people communicate about social events and how representations of these events are stored in memory. It was hypothesized that more distant events in memory would be described with more abstract linguistic predicates, and recent events with more concrete language. The 1st study supported this hypothesis. The 2nd and 3rd experiments demonstrated that abstract predicates used as prompts elicit memories that are significantly more removed in time than concrete predicates. Two final experiments showed that these outcomes are not merely a function of the type of semantic cue but an interaction between memory and preferential predicate use. The findings illustrate a link between memory and communicative behavior of a type that has not been previously studied. The results are discussed in terms of a recent, well-supported model of 2 separate fast-learning and slow-learning memory systems.