Effects of Distraction on Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: A Social Interaction Test of the Cognitive Busyness Hypothesis

Previous research has indicated that people who are distracted, or “cognitively busy,” are more likely to rely on stereotypes and engage in biased information processing. The purpose of the present study was to extend this literature to an interpersonal context by testing whether cognitively busy perceivers are more likely to elicit a self-fulfilling prophecy from a target about whom they hold either a positive or negative expectancy. Results supported this hypothesis, with targets of cognitively busy perceivers responding more negatively when the perceiver held a negative expectancy about them. Targets of non-busy perceivers, on the other hand, tended to compensate for the negative expectancy. Implications for recent social psychological models of social perception are discussed.