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Processing bias: Individual differences in the cognition of situations
Author(s) -
Dworkin Robert H,
Goldfinger Steven H
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1985.tb00378.x
Subject(s) - psychology , affordance , cognition , cognitive psychology , information processing , anticipation (artificial intelligence) , perception , social cognition , personality , trait , situational ethics , need for cognition , social psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , neuroscience , programming language
An approach to investigating individual differences in the cognition of situations is presented Situations are characterized in terms of Gibson s notion of affordances, and it is suggested that individuals differ in the extent to which they differentially process information specifying certain types of affordances rather than others This differential cognitive processing of a situational affordance is termed a “processing bias” It is proposed that processing biases are manifest in an individual's anticipation, perception, and memory of situations To illustrate the approach, a processing bias for social vs nonsocial affordances is investigated within and among these three cognitive domains The relationship of this processing bias to two facets of the personality trait dimension of sociability—overall level and self‐schemata—is also examined Such research on processing biases may help to clarify the role of cognition in person‐situation interactions The greatest strength of the approach is that its characterization of individual differences in cognition and behavior is complementary to a general approach to describing human environments