In this chapter, we describe how a simple attentional mechanism can account for a wide variety of phenomena in social perception. According to Attention Theory (Kruschke, 1996, 2003), people preferentially attend to differentiating information in order to maximize category learning. When learning multiple social categories, people attend to all features that characterize the first-learned category but shift their attention to features that uniquely distinguish a later-learned category from the first. As a result, they form a stronger impression of the later-learned social category. First, we review research on attentional processes in stereotype formation and group categorization. We show how Attention Theory can account for both category accentuation and illusory correlation in the formation of majority and minority group stereotypes. We then explain how attention shifting influences face perception and racial categorization. Second, we describe attentional processes as they relate to context-based impression formation and the influence of individual- and group-based expectancies on context-based impressions. Last, we discuss implications for impression change.

The current research examined how people form context-based trait impressions and why some of these impressions are stronger than others. This research drew from principles of attention theory (Kruschke, 1996, 2001) in order to account for the processes underlying impression formation in context. According to attention theory, the traits expressed by an individual target person in a rarely occurring context should be more strongly associated with that context than the traits expressed in a commonly occurring context are associated with the common context. That is, people form stronger impressions of others' behavior in rare compared to common contexts. Four experiments provide support for these predictions. The current study is one of the first to examine the cognitive mechanisms by which perceivers form trait impressions of individuals across different contexts and to explain why some of these impressions are stronger than others. Implications of the nature of these impression formation processes are discussed.

Initial evaluations generalise to new contexts, whereas counter-attitudinal evaluations are context-specific. Counter-attitudinal information may not change evaluations in new contexts because perceivers fail to retrieve counter-attitudinal cue-evaluation associations from memory outside the counter-attitudinal learning context. The current work examines whether an additional, counter-attitudinal retrieval cue can enhance the generalizability of counter-attitudinal evaluations. In four experiments, participants learned positive information about a target person, Bob, in one context, and then learned negative information about Bob in a different context. While learning the negative information, participants wore a wristband as a retrieval cue for counter-attitudinal Bob-negative associations. Participants then made speeded as well as deliberate evaluations of Bob while wearing or not wearing the wristband. Internal meta-analysis failed to find a reliable effect of the counter-attitudinal retrieval cue on speeded or deliberate evaluations, whereas the context cues influenced speeded and deliberate evaluations. Counter to predictions, counter-attitudinal retrieval cues did not disrupt the generalisation of first-learned evaluations or the context-specificity of second-learned evaluations (Experiments 2-4), but the counter-attitudinal retrieval cue did influence evaluations in the absence of context cues (Experiment 1). The current work provides initial evidence that additional counter-attitudinal retrieval cues fail to disrupt the renewal and generalizability of first-learned evaluations.