Trait hostility: the breadth and specificity of schema effects

This study examined the limits of information processing biases associated with trait hostility. Ninety-eight participants processed information to evaluate its descriptiveness of themselves, and of actual antagonists and friends whom they knew well. For both self- and other-referent information, dependent measures included evaluations, response latencies, and memory. Results were consistent with the interpretation that trait hostility is associated with cognitive schemata that produce negative biases in the processing of information about others in general, both antagonists and friends. Specifically, hostile individuals evaluated others more harshly, made favorable judgments more slowly, and recalled less favorable information. By contrast, when evaluating hostile and friendly information for self-descriptiveness, hostile individuals did not exhibit biased processing, suggesting that the operation of hostility-related schemata may be limited to the processing of other-referent information. However, hostile individuals did generally tend to respond more slowly when making self-descriptiveness judgments of both clearly hostile and clearly friendly trait adjectives, perhaps reflecting less clarity in their self-concepts with respect to this dimension of personality.