Trait memory and behavior memory: the effects of alternative pathways on impression judgment response times.

Carlston (1980a) and Lingle (1983) argued that remembered behaviors, previous trait inferences, or both may be accessed and used in making new trait inferences, depending on a variety of factors. In this article we relate this argument to a spreading activation model of memory and suggest factors that should affect the relative accessibility of inferences and behaviors during trait judgment processes. In our study we varied several of these factors and assessed accessibility, using response-time methods. The results of this study strongly support the model's prediction that prompting inference formation facilitates subsequent trait judgment response times, but only when relevant behavior memories have not been recently primed. We theorize that the inference manipulations used in this study strengthened the direct pathway to a relevant trait concept, but that the strength of this pathway was immaterial to judgment response times when a "proximal prime" directed retrieval efforts along an alternative "behavioral" route to the trait information. The results also suggest that the proximal behavior prime facilitated trait responses among subjects who had not been induced to make trait inferences, but slowed trait responses among subjects who had previously been induced to make trait inferences.