Previous research has shown that thinking about some attitude object results in more polarized attitudes than being distracted from thinking about the object. In this study, 64 subjects indicate their attitudes toward fictitious persons. After thinking about the person or being distracted from thinking about the person, they again scaled their…

Other-directed (interpersonally sensitive) or inner-directed (interpersonally less sensitive) students (N=80) observed a videotape of a person acting in either a role-consonant or a role-deviant manner. As expected, there was significantly less variance among the ratings when other-directed observers viewed role-deviant behavior than in the other…