Goals in social information processing: The case of anticipated interaction.

Examined the role of anticipated-interaction instructions on memory for and organization of social information.In Study 1, Ss read and recalled information about a prospective partner (i.e., target) on a problem-solving task and about 4 other stimulus people.The results indicated that (a) Ss recalled more items about the target than the others, (b) the target was individuated from the others in memory, and (c) Ss were more accurate on a name-item matching task for the target than for the others.Study 2 compared anticipated interaction with several other processing goals (i.e., memory, impression formation, self-comparison, friend-comparison).Only anticipated-interaction and impression formation instructions led to higher levels of recall and more accurate matching performance for the target than for the others.However, the conditional probability data suggest that anticipated interaction led to higher levels of organization of target information than did any of the other conditions.Discussion considers information processing strategies that are possibly instigated by anticipated-interaction instructions.Imagine that you are attending your first day of classes, and students are nervously and excitedly introducing themselves to each other.On this occasion, you spot your "dream date."Although there are several people around, the prospective date may take on particular importance to you because you hope to have future interactions with him or her.The importance assigned to the dream date may affect what you remember about him or her and about the other students in the class and how that information is organized in memory.Alternatively, imagine that you are interviewing a job candidate.The very real possibility of future interaction with this person may influence how you think about this person, what you remember about him or her, and how you organize that information.These examples suggest that the goals individuals bring to bear on social situations may have an important effect on their perceptions of and memory for others.The present research, with its focus on how goals affect social information processing, reflects the renewed interest in the interaction between motivation and cognition in social perception (Neuberg & Fiske, 1987;Sorrentino & Higgins, 1986; Srull & Wyer, 1986).