Disposition-based categories: Structure and salience effects on memory

Two experiments investigated whether disposition-based categories influence the retrieval of behaviors related or unrelated to those categories. In Experiment 1, subjects studied a set of behaviors in order to form an impression of a target person. Impression ratings indicated which category had been activated. In an unexpected recognition test, accuracy was better for category-inconsistent information than for category-consistent behaviors. That result suggested that the structure of disposition-based categories includes qualitatively different representations of consistent and inconsistent acts related to the category. In Experiment 2, subjects rated behaviors with reference to a relevant or irrelevant disposition category. In an unexpected recall test, an advantage for category-inconsistent behaviors was found only when the behaviors had been studied from the perspective of the relevant category. It was concluded that categories are not represented in a form analogous to the representation of category-inconsistent behaviors.