270 Social Cognition
load or by the dissipation of the motivation required for its
activity (being a relatively effortful, controlled process), this
in turn can lead to rebound effects.
Additional ironic implications of stereotype suppression
were uncovered in subsequent research. For example, trying
not to think stereotypical thoughts about an elderly target re-
sulted in better memory for the most stereotypical characteris-
tics displayed by the target (Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, &
Wheeler, 1996). Moreover, these effects are not limited to sit-
uations in which an overt, external requirement for thought
suppression is imposed; even when suppression motivation
was self-generated in a relatively spontaneous manner, ironic
effects were observed to result (Macrae, Bodenhausen, &
Milne, 1998). Other research suggests that rebound effects of
this sort are more likely to emerge in high-prejudice persons
(Monteith, Spicer, & Toomen, 1998) and in situations in
which the perceiver is unlikely to have chronically high levels
of suppression motivation (Wyer, Sherman, & Stroessner,
2000). These qualifications are quite consistent with general
idea that even the process of mental control itself is subject to
some degree of automation. With practice, the initial effortful-
ness of stereotype suppression may be replaced by relative
efficiency.
Another form of controlled processing that has received
considerable attention from social cognition researchers is
judgmental correction. When perceivers suspect that their
judgments have been contaminated by unwanted or inappro-
priate biases, they may take steps to adjust their judgments in
a manner that will remove the unwanted influence (e.g.,
Wilson & Brekke, 1994). Whereas the initial processes
that produced the bias are likely to be automatic ones, the
processes involved in correcting for them are usually consid-
ered to be effortful. Hence, they require perceiver motivation
and processing capacity for their deployment. One particu-
larly noteworthy domain in which such hypotheses have been
investigated is research on person perception. In particular, it
has long been established that people are susceptible to a cor-
respondence bias,in which they tend to perceive the behav-
ior of others to be a reflection of corresponding internal
dispositions—even when there are clear and unambiguous
situational constraints on the behavior (e.g., Jones & Harris,
1967; Gilbert & Malone, 1995). The previously described
research on spontaneous trait inference is consistent with the
idea that people often immediately assume that behavior
reflects the actor’s dispositions. In an influential theoretical
assessment of this bias, Gilbert (e.g., 1998) proposed that dis-
positional inferences involve three distinct stages. In the cat-
egorizationstage, the observed behavior is construed in
terms of its trait implications (e.g., Hannah shared her
dessert with her brothercould be categorized as kind). Then
the inferred trait is ascribed to the actor in the characteriza-
tionstage. Both of these stages are assumed to be relatively
automatic —that is, they occur spontaneously, efficiently, and
without intention. In a third correctionstage, individuals may
consider the situational constraints that might have influ-
enced the behavior (e.g., Mommy threatened Hannah with
retribution if she failed to share her dessert) and adjust their
dispositional inferences accordingly (e.g., perhaps Hannah
isn’t so kind after all). This correction process is assumed to
be a controlled activity that requires motivation and process-
ing capacity for its execution.
In numerous experiments, Gilbert and colleagues have
pursued the implications of this model by demonstrating that
situational constraints are often not taken into account when
perceivers are given a taxing mental task to perform that oc-
cupies their central executive resources (e.g., rehearsing a
random digit string). For example, when watching a nervous-
looking woman, people spontaneously assume that she is an
anxious person; only subsequently do they correct this initial
assumption in light of the fact that she is in an anxiety-
provoking situation (e.g., a job interview). If they have to
watch the seemingly nervous person while rehearsing a digit
string, they still automatically infer the trait of anxiety,
but they no longer engage in corrective adjustments in light
of the situational constraint. This pattern of results is quite
consistent with the idea that correction is a controlled,
resource-dependent process. When attentional resources are
diminished, the automatic tendencies of the system remain
unchecked by more effortful control mechanisms.
A more general treatment of the nature of correction
processes has been provided by Wegener and Petty (1997) in
their flexible correction model. According to this model, cor-
rection processes operate on the basis of lay theories about
the direction and extent of biasing influences. When people
suspect that they may have fallen prey to some untoward in-
fluence, they rely on their intuitive ideas about the nature of
the bias to make compensatory corrective adjustments. For
example, if they believe that their judgments of a particular
person have been assimilated to stereotypes about the per-
son’s gender group, then they would adjust those judgments
in the opposite direction to make them less stereotypical in
nature. Conversely, if they believe that their judgment of a
target has been contrasted away from a salient standard of
comparison, they will make adjustments that result in judg-
ments in which the target is seen as more similar to the com-
parison standard. Several points are important to keep in mind
with regard to this correction process. First, it requires that
the perceiver detect the biasing influence before the process
can initiate (Stapel, Martin, & Schwarz, 1998; Strack &
Hannover, 1996). Many automatic biasing influences are