Undercorrection Effect
When people are cognitively busy (e.g., self-regulating their own behavior), they are less able to use situational constraint information to correct their dispositional inferences about others, leading to overattribution of dispositions.
THE IDEA
The Effects of Self-Regulation
The undercorrection effect offers a picture of the way in which dispositional inference unfolds in everyday life. In the laboratory, people observe others without being observed; but outside, they are concerned with planning, conducting, and evaluating their own actions as well as understanding others. Attempts to find meaning in others' actions occur while interacting, and during those interactions, perceivers are often as concerned with regulating their own behavior as with understanding others. The model suggests that perceivers who devote substantial cognitive resources to self-regulation should be unable to devote these same resources to understanding those with whom they interact. As such, self-regulating perceivers can categorize their partners' behavior and characterize them in terms of that behavior, but cannot use situational constraint information to correct those characterizations.
In an initial investigation (Gilbert, Krull, & Pelham, 1988), participants regulated their gaze while watching silent clips of an interview where a female interviewee appeared depressed. Participants in a sad-questions condition learned the interviewee answered sadness-inducing questions; those in a happy-questions condition learned she answered happiness-inducing questions. Participants were told to form an impression of how dispositionally happy or sad she was. Under normal circumstances, participants in the sad-questions condition would attribute her sadness to the questions and make less extreme dispositional inferences. However, participants in a self-regulated condition were told they must keep their eyes focused on the woman's face and not look at words appearing on the screen, while unregulated participants were told they could ignore the words. As expected, unregulated participants used the situational constraint information (considering the actor dispositionally happier when answering sad questions vs. happy questions), but self-regulated participants did not (considering her equally happy in both conditions). Notably, self-regulated participants recalled the constraint information as well as unregulated participants.
In another series (Osborne & Gilbert, 1992), the mere prospect of having to regulate one's behavior made people cognitively busy and impaired accurate inferences. In one study, participants viewed an anxious woman video with anxiety-provoking or relaxing subtitles. After viewing, some were told they would interview the actor (active condition) while others would be interviewed (passive condition). The results confirmed that prospective interviewers (active role) did not recover from the undercorrection effect, while prospective interviewees did.
When to use it
Evaluating a job candidate during a busy hiring day: you might overattribute their behavior to personality rather than interview format.
Forming first impressions during a networking event while simultaneously managing your own presentation.
Assessing a friend's mood during a stressful group project where you are focused on your own tasks.
Witnessing a public figure's behavior in a high-stakes debate while multitasking.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Gaze Regulation Experiment
Participants watched a video of an interviewee appearing depressed. Some were told to keep their eyes on her face (self-regulated) while others could ignore on-screen words. Self-regulated participants failed to use situational constraint information (sad vs. happy questions) when rating her dispositional happiness, unlike unregulated participants.
Prospective Interviewer Experiment
Participants viewed a video of an anxious woman with either anxiety-provoking or relaxing subtitles. Those expecting to interview her (active role) showed undercorrection, while those expecting to be interviewed (passive role) recovered from the bias.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a time when you were extremely busy or distracted while trying to form an impression of someone. How might your cognitive load have influenced your judgment?
How can you deliberately slow down and consider situational factors when making judgments about others, especially in high-pressure interactions?
In what ways might the undercorrection effect affect your decisions in job interviews or performance evaluations?
Often confused with
References
- The Effects of Inferences of Dispositional Anxiety on Perception of Subsequent Behavior — Gilbert, D. T., & Osborne, R. E. (1989)
- Of Thoughts Unspoken: Social Inference and the Self-Regulation of Behavior — Gilbert, D. T., Krull, D. S., & Pelham, B. W. (1988)
- The Undercorrection Effect and the Self-Regulation of Social Interaction — Osborne, R. E., & Gilbert, D. T. (1992)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Heuristics and Biases The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment (Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, Daniel Kahneman)