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Uncertainty Orientation and Recall of Person-Descriptive Information

University of California, Santa Barbara

David L. Hamilton

University of California, Santa Barbara

Richard M. Sorrentino

University of Western Ontario

The effect of uncertainty orientation on the processing of expectancy-relevant information was investigated. Uncertainty orientation concerns the extent to which people seek out and integrate information about themselves, others, and their environment. Uncertainty-oriented persons use this information to attain clarity and understanding, whereas certainty-oriented persons use such information to maintain preexisting belief systems. Consistent with previous findings, overall subjects recalled a higher proportion of expectancy-incongruent than expectancy-congruent information. However, the strength of this effect was a function of subjects' uncertainty orientation. As predicted, the advantage in recall for incongruent information occurred for uncertainty-oriented, but not certainty-oriented, people. Establishing a point of interface between the information-processing and individual difference perspectives, these results indicate that personality variables can reflect natural variation in cognitive processes that mediate social phenomena, thereby modifying effects assumed to be characteristic of people in general.

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