Examined how communicators send mixed messages containing an explicit surface content and a covert hidden content. In Study 1, Ss wrote constrained essays presenting either an introverted or extraverted personality. Although authors reported manipulating essay credibility and readers reported relying on credibility to make their judgments, readers succumbed to correspondence bias. In Studies 2 and 3, Ss again prepared either constrained essays (Study 2) or constrained videotapes (Study 3) and included in them a hidden message that would be understood by only their friends but not by strangers. Observers then read these essays or watched these videotapes. Friends detected and decoded the hidden messages, whereas strangers did not. We discuss these findings in terms of social perception and strategic communication.

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We examined how features of the situation and the target's behavior in the attitude-attribution paradigm may lead observers to infer that the behavior was performed purposefully and how these perceptions may contribute to correspondence bias. Experiment 1 demonstrated that cues suggesting that essay assignment resulted from the target's purposeful action lead to correspondent inferences. When these cues were absent, observers' inferences were not correspondent. Experiment 2 demonstrated that observers are sensitive to cues emitted by the target (facial expressions of delight and disappointment) and that those cues' meaning depends on the context in which they take place. When the essay was freely chosen, the expression had little effect; observers judged that the essay accurately reflected the target's attitudes. When the essay assignment was constrained, observers used the expressions to discount the essay when judging the target's attitudes. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of correspondent inferences and correspondence bias.

The present study examined the impact of the interaction goals of perceivers and the characteristics of targets of a negative expectancy on the expectancy confirmation process. Perceivers were led to expect that their future interaction partner might have difficulty performing well under pressure. Perceivers were The order of authorship is alphabetical; each author contributed equally.

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