Keywords: Negotiation, Integrative Agreements, Negotiation Outcomes, Breaks, Temporary Recess, Rumination, Distraction, Scrambled-Sentences Task

In the current research we investigate the effects of breaks -temporary recesses in which participants stop interacting and withdraw from the situation -on negotiation processes and outcomes. We conducted two laboratory experiments in which participants engaged in buyer-seller negotiations. Experiment 1 (N = 140) showed that dyads reached higherquality agreements after a break in which they were cognitively busy with a distraction task than after a break in which they could reflect upon the negotiation. Experiment 2 (N = 76) showed that competitive thinking during a break lead to lower-quality agreements than cooperative thinking during the break. It seems that the negative effects of competitive thoughts during a break can be compensated by turning one's mind to other issues than the negotiation, or by actively engaging in cooperative thinking.

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Breaks in Negotiations 3

Take a break! Or not?

The Impact of Mindsets During Breaks on Negotiation Processes and Outcomes Many social interactions involve negotiation, in which participants cooperate to achieve a mutually acceptable agreement but also compete to achieve an agreement that serves personal needs and desires. Although some interactions may be very short and only involve one or two rounds of negotiation, most evolve over longer periods of time and are characterized by breaks -temporary recesses in which participants stop interacting and withdraw from the situation. Discussions about who does what in the household may continue for days, interrupted by other activities (including household chores). Employees working on a joint task may temporarily halt their debate about the best working procedure to get some lunch, and politicians may stop debating policy implementation issues to attend to more pressing issues that require immediate action. In this research, we investigate the effect of breaks, and the mind-sets during these breaks, on the subsequent negotiation process and outcomes.

Behavio ral scientists have long argued that temporary breaks may help parties to switch from competitive to more cooperative interactions. For example, case analyses of labor-management negotiations [START_REF] Walton | A behavioral theory of labor negotiations: An analysis of a social interaction system[END_REF] as well as laboratory experiments [START_REF] Harinck | Negotiating interests or values and reaching integrative agreements; The importance of time pressure and temporary impasses[END_REF][START_REF] Olekalns | Moments in time: Metacognition, trust and outcomes in dyadic negotiations[END_REF] revealed that negotiation often follows a differentiation-before-integration pattern in which individuals start with competitive behavior, such as threatening the other party or arguing for one's own interests. Only after they realize that this competitive behavior merely escalates the conflict, they switch to more cooperative, integrative negotiation. Likewise, in international conflicts we see critical moments, or turning points, that can alter the

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Breaks in Negotiations 4 negotiation process. For example, during the Camp David talks (1978), held by US President Carter, between the Israelian Prime Minister Begin and Egyptian President Sadat, there was a famous break where they all went to Gettysburg battlefield, and had a nice time.

These research findings and case observations resonate well with the idea that temporary breaks in negotiation allow participants to cool off, to reflect upon the interaction process and to evaluate behavior and strategies. Indeed, [START_REF] Ury | Getting past no: Negotiating your way form confrontation to cooperation[END_REF] advises negotiators to frequently take a break, and to 'go to the balcony'; to detach oneself physically and mentally from the negotiation to evaluate it as if one were a third party.

On the balcony one is supposed to be better able to think constructively for both parties and to look for a mutually beneficial solution. As Ury (1991, p. 48) Despite the few case observations from international conflict resolution, and the intuitively appealing advice offered by [START_REF] Ury | Getting past no: Negotiating your way form confrontation to cooperation[END_REF], we know very little about the actual effects of taking a break. Past work has not addressed the influence of breaks on subsequent interaction processes and outcomes, and we have no knowledge of the processes that emerge during breaks that may account for its subsequent effects. This absence of systematic research is all the more unfortunate because withdrawing from conflict and avoiding interaction with the counterpart may lead to rumination and to increased levels of hostility and aggression [START_REF] Bushman | Chewing on it can chew you up: Effects of rumination on triggered displaced aggression[END_REF]. Thus, we need to test whether the putative effects of breaks on social interaction and negotiation processes are indeed positive, or whether taking a break

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Breaks in Negotiations 5 actually hurts constructive interaction and high-quality agreements. In this article, we present two laboratory experiments in which we examined the effects of breaks, and mental activities during those breaks, on the extent to which negotiators reach mutually beneficial, integrative agreements -agreements that generate greater joint gain than a simple fifty-fifty compromise, or a victory-for-one solution [START_REF] Pruitt | Negotiation in social conflict[END_REF].

Experiment 1

The goal of our first experiment was to examine the impact of breaks on the quality of negotiated agreement. As mentioned, qualitative analyses suggest that temporary recesses lead parties to reflect and to realize the dysfunctionality of the competitive strategies, he nce directing them towards more cooperative strategies aimed at reaching mutually rather than personally beneficial agreements [START_REF] Druckman | Turning points in international negotiation. A comparative analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Druckman | Departures in negotiation: Extensions and new directions[END_REF][START_REF] Putnam | Transformations and critical moments in negotiations[END_REF][START_REF] Mcginn | Transitions through out-of-keeping acts[END_REF][START_REF] Kolb | Staying in the game or changing it: An analysis of moves and turns in negotiation[END_REF][START_REF] Susskind | Ten propositions regarding critical moments in negotiation[END_REF][START_REF] Walton | A behavioral theory of labor negotiations: An analysis of a social interaction system[END_REF]. Taking a more quantitative approach, [START_REF] Olekalns | Moments in time: Metacognition, trust and outcomes in dyadic negotiations[END_REF] had participants in a dyadic negotiation task indicate critical moments and turning points in the negotiation process after the negotiation had taken place. The authors found that negotiation outcomes improved when the negotiation was characterized by more facilitating than inhibitory turning points. Similarly, [START_REF] Harinck | Negotiating interests or values and reaching integrative agreements; The importance of time pressure and temporary impasses[END_REF] showed that naturally occurring temporary recesses early in a negotiation related to more integrative behavior late in the negotiation.

These lines of research presume that participants reflect on their past and future behavior during the break. In other words, when participants take a break but do not or cannot reflect on the negotiation process, there should be no difference compared to a situation in which no break was taken. Thus, these lines of research, following the

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Breaks in Negotiations 6

"going-to-the-balcony logic", suggest that participants who reflect during a break resume in a more cooperative manner and are more likely to reach a high-quality, integrative agreement than participants who do not reflect during the break or who do not take a break at all (Balcony Hypothesis).

However, because turning points in Olekalns and Smith's work were identified retrospectively it may be that outcomes defined turning points, rather than that turning points determined outcomes. Similarly, the data used by [START_REF] Harinck | Negotiating interests or values and reaching integrative agreements; The importance of time pressure and temporary impasses[END_REF] were correlational and it cannot be excluded that their results were, at least in part, due to some unknown third variable. Thus, the above evidence for the putative positive effects of taking a break is indirect and correlational. This is problematic because an alternative reasoning, based on research into rumination, is available [START_REF] Bushman | Chewing on it can chew you up: Effects of rumination on triggered displaced aggression[END_REF][START_REF] Rusting | Regulating responses to anger: Effects of rumination and distraction on angry mood[END_REF][START_REF] Zillmann | The effect of affective states on selective exposure to televised entertainment fare[END_REF].

Rumination is defined as thoughts and behaviors that focus the individuals' attention on the negative mood, the causes and consequences of this mood, and selfevaluations related to the mood [START_REF] Rusting | Regulating responses to anger: Effects of rumination and distraction on angry mood[END_REF]. Specifically, [START_REF] Rusting | Regulating responses to anger: Effects of rumination and distraction on angry mood[END_REF] found that rumination can increase anger, whereas distraction decreased or had no effect on anger. They brought participants in an angry mood via a scenario. Then, participants had 8 minutes to think of several issues. In the rumination condition, participants focused on themselves with questions like "why do people treat you the way they do". In the distraction condition, participants focused on an external non-emotional event such as the "the layout of the local post office". Results showed that anger ratings increased significantly following rumination, whereas anger stayed at the same level after distraction [START_REF] Rusting | Regulating responses to anger: Effects of rumination and distraction on angry mood[END_REF]. Thus,

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Breaks in Negotiations 7 engaging in rumination while in an angry mood can increase feelings of anger and hostility, even displaced hostility towards innocent out-siders [START_REF] Bushman | Chewing on it can chew you up: Effects of rumination on triggered displaced aggression[END_REF].

Distraction on the other hand, seems to decrease feelings of anger and hostility.

Zillmann and colleagues [START_REF] Zillmann | Mood management: Using entertainment to full advantage[END_REF][START_REF] Zillmann | The effect of affective states on selective exposure to televised entertainment fare[END_REF]) have shown that negative emotions can be reduced by highly distracting activities, such as exposure to non-hostile humor, such as watching situation comedies or game shows. The idea is that these distracting activities relief the individual (at least temporary) from the emotionarousing situation [START_REF] Zillmann | The effect of affective states on selective exposure to televised entertainment fare[END_REF]. Thus, rumination research suggests that participants who reflect during the break resume in a more competitive manner and are less likely to reach a high-quality, integrative agreement than participants who do not reflect during the break, or who do not take a break at all (Rumination Hypothesis).

In Experiment 1, we tested the Balcony Hypothesis and the Rumination Hypothesis and examined the effect on integrative agreements when participants take a break and reflect compared to when they take a break and are distracted during the break and compared to when they do not take a break.

Method Design and Participants

The experiment had three between-dyad conditions; a reflect condition, a distraction condition, and a no-break condition (control condition). In the reflect condition, participants experienced a break and were able to reflect upon the negotiation.

In the distraction condition, participants were less able to reflect upon the negotiation because they had to count backwards during the entire break. Finally, the no-break condition served as the control condition in which participants did not experience a break.

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Breaks in Negotiations 8

Main dependent variables were amount of task-related reflection, strategy change, and joint outcomes.

One hundred and forty undergraduate students participated (28 men and 112 women). Their mean age was 23.3 years. They received course credit or money (€ 5.50, equivalent to $ 6.50) for their participation. The study was run in dyads with 22 to 24 dyads randomly allocated to each condition. Type of reward, or the dyad's gender composition had no effects and is not considered any further.

Negotiation Task

The negotiation task was adapted from De Dreu, [START_REF] De Dreu | Unfixing the fixed pie: A motivated information-processing approach to integrative negoation[END_REF]. Each participant took the role of car seller or car buyer. Participants had to negotiate in dyads, to reach agreement on six issues (warranty, delivery date, color, price, extras and radio).

Participants had 15 minutes to negotiate. Each negotiator received a pay-off schedule with information about his or her personal outcomes, but not about the other negotiator's outcomes (see Appendix). The task contained integrative potential because issues that were important to the car seller (delivery date and extras) were less important to the car buyer, and issues that were important to the car buyer (warranty and radio) were less important to the car seller. By making large concessions on less important issues and small concessions on important issues (logrolling), negotiators could reach a maximum joint outcome of 22,800 that exceeded the fifty-fifty compromise of 16,800 points. To motivate participants to negotiate seriously and to prevent them from agreeing immediately, we followed a standard procedure to provide participants with a limit -they were told not to accept agreements that resulted in less than 8,000 points individually [START_REF] Carnevale | The influence of positive affect and visual access on the discovery of integrative solutions in bilateral negotiation[END_REF][START_REF] Pruitt | Development of integrative solutions in bilateral negotation[END_REF].

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Procedure and Break Manipulations

Participants entered the laboratory in randomly paired dyads and were placed face-to-face at a table. The experimenter gave participants written instructions about their role in the negotiation and their pay-off schedule. After reading the instructions, they started negotiating. After 5 minutes, the experimenter stopped the negotiation for three minutes. In the reflect-break condition, the participants were told that they had three minutes to reflect upon the negotiation and to think about how they wanted to continue the negotiation. They were left alone for these three minutes, but were not allowed to communicate with each other. In the distraction condition, the participants had three minutes to do a distraction task. They had to count backwards from 3600 in steps of 13 for three minutes. They had to carefully write down each step. The break time was identical to the reflection break, but participants in the distraction condition were less able to reflect consciously upon the negotiation, due to the backwards counting. After the break, the participants continued the negotiation for 10 more minutes. In the no-break condition, the participant did not experience a break and negotiated without interruption.

The negotiation was stopped when the 15 minutes were over or when agreement was reached on all six issues. Participants then filled out a questionnaire, were debriefed, paid and thanked for their participation.

Dependent Variables

The questionnaire contained a manipulation check for reflection possibilities. The item was 'I was able to reflect upon the negotiation during the break'. Answers could be given on a seven-point scale (1 = 'absolutely not', to 7 = 'yes, absolutely'). Strategic change. To assess whether breaks resulted in changes in strategies before vs. after the break, we included two items: (1) "After the break I used a different strategy than before" and ( 2) "I behaved similarly before and after the break (reverse scored) (both 1 = 'not at all', to 7 = 'a whole lot'). Ratings were correlated, r = .53, p < .001, and averaged into one index.

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Breaks in Negotiations 10

To get at the content of behavioral strategies used during the negotiation, we asked participants (1) "I was more cooperative after the break" and (2) "I was more competitive after the break" (both 1 = 'absolutely not', to 7 = 'yes, absolutely').

Joint outcomes. The quality of the negotiated agreement was assessed by calculating the joint outcomes by summing the points of the buyer and seller for those issues on which they reached an agreement (range = 16,800 --22,800). While all dyads reached agreement on at least four issues, 3 dyads (all in the reflect-break condition) did not settle all six issues within the time allotted. In line with past work, we assigned these no-agreement issues the 50-50 split outcome (assigning a score of zero points would lead to severe heterogeneity of variance) [START_REF] Ben-Yoav | Resistance to yielding and the expectation of cooperative future interaction in negotiation[END_REF][START_REF] Pruitt | Development of integrative solutions in bilateral negotation[END_REF].

Note that alternative ways of dealing with this issue led to similar results and identical conclusions.

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Breaks in Negotiations 11

Results and Discussion

Because individual observations within dyads were not independent, we averaged ratings on questionnaire items within dyads and used the dyad as unit of analys is. Joint outcome data were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with break condition (reflect vs. distraction vs. no break) as a three-level between-dyad factor. Because questionnaire items were collected in the two break conditions only, questionnaire data were analyzed using t-tests for independent samples.

From the descriptive statistics in Table 1 it can be seen that the amount of taskrelated reflection was positively related to strategy change and negatively related to joint outcomes. This runs against the Balcony Hypothesis, which implied that task-related reflection during the break would lead to higher, not lower joint outcomes. Interestingly, the manipulation check for reflection correlated positively with cooperative change, which seems at odds with the negative correlation between the manipulation check for reflection and task-related reflection on the one hand, and joint outcomes on the other.

However, the same manipulation check item also correlated positively with competitive change (albeit not significantly). Perhaps reflection breaks induced a tendency to employ both cooperative and competitive strategies and tactics to a greater degree; however, because competitive tactic use tends to impact the negotiation process more than cooperative tactics, we may see a disparity between people reporting more cooperation, yet achieving less integrative outcomes. Obviously, this rather speculative and requires follow-up research to enable more conclusive statements.

As expected, dyads in the reflect condition (M = 6.02, SD = .81) were more able to reflect upon the negotiation during the break than dyads in the distraction condition (M

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Breaks in Negotiations 12 = 2.80, SD = 1.52), t(42) = 8.63, p < .001. Furthermore, participants in the reflect condition reported more task-related reflection than participants in the distraction condition, M = 4.33, SD = 0.43 vs. M = 3.26, SD = .95; t(42) = 4.74, p < .001. Finally, dyads in the reflect condition reported larger strategy changes (M = 3.53, SD = 1.01) than dyads in the distraction condition (M = 2.91, SD = 1.10), t(42) = 1.98, p < .054 (marginal).

Thus far, results are in line with the idea that breaks facilitate reflection on the negotiation process and that this results in strategy changes. However, and quite contrary to past theorizing, dyads in the reflect condition were more competitive after the break (M = 3.75, SD = 1.13) than dyads in the distraction condition (M = 3.10, SD = .97), t(42) = 2.04, p < .05, and did not report more or less cooperation after the break (M = 4.14, SD = 1.00, vs. M = 3.70, SD = 1.20, t(42) = 1.34, ns).

Although not very strong, this pattern resonates with the findings for joint outcome. A Chi-Square test showed no effect of break condition on the number of agreements reached, χ 2 (6, N = 70) = 8.66, ns. However, there was an effect of break condition on the joint outcomes, F(2, 67) = 3.13, p < .05. Planned contrasts showed that dyads reached lower joint outcomes in the reflect condition (M = 19,096, SD = 1,459) than dyads in the distraction condition (M = 20,033, SD = 1,208), t(67) = 2.35, p < .05, and than dyads in the no-break condition (M = 19,873 SD = 1,416), t(67) = 1.93, p < .06.

The distraction condition and the no-break condition did not differ, t(67) = .38, ns.

The results for competitive behavior and for joint outcomes go against the Balcony Hypothesis, and support the Rumination Hypothesis. To better understand this result, we conducted a series of mediation analyses using the task-related reflection scale

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Breaks in Negotiations 13

as mediator of the difference in joint outcome between the two break conditions (recall that we had no questionnaire items in the no-break condition), see also Figure 1. A first regression with joint outcomes as criterion and break conditions (reflect break vs. distraction break) as predictor showed a significant effect of break, B = 937.68, t = 2.39, p < .05. A second regression analysis with task-related reflection as criterion and break condition (reflect break vs. distraction break) as predictor also showed a significant effect of break, B = -1.00, t = -4.66, p < .001. A third regression with joint outcomes as criterion and task-related reflection as predictor showed an effect of task-related reflection, B = -539.79, t = -2.42, p < .05. Finally, a regression analysis with the joint outcomes as criterion and break (reflect break vs. distraction break) and task-related reflection as predictors, showed that the effect of break on joint outcomes became non-significant, B = 590, t = 1.25, ns, when controlling for the level of task-related reflection. The reduction in explained variance was significant, Sobel z = 2.15, p < .05 [START_REF] Preacher | Calculation for the Sobel test: An interactive calculation tool for mediation tests[END_REF]. Dyads in the reflect-break condition thus achieved lower joint outcomes because they engaged in more task-related reflection than the dyads in the distraction condition.

Experiment 2

Study 1 showed that dyads that could reflect on the negotiation during the break reported more task-related reflection during the break, reported more change in strategy after the break. Ho wever, contrary to predictions, they also reported more competitive change and achieved lower joint outcomes than those dyads that either had no break at all, or were distracted during the break. This result clearly undermines [START_REF] Ury | Getting past no: Negotiating your way form confrontation to cooperation[END_REF] advice to "go to the balcony" because doing so appears to hurt rather than help the development of mutually beneficial, integrative agreement.

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Breaks in Negotiations 14

It is likely that the content of the thought developed during a temporary recess is pivotal in determining whether breaks help or hinder high-quality agreement. Although not directly shown, the data from Experiment 1 suggest that participants in the reflect break engaged in competitive strategizing, using their breaktime to design additional and perhaps new strategies to win from their counterpart. This explanation fits work showing that individuals often perceive a negotiation as zero-sum and a win-lose game [START_REF] De Dreu | Unfixing the fixed pie: A motivated information-processing approach to integrative negoation[END_REF][START_REF] Pruitt | Problem solving and cognitive bias in negotiation: A commentary[END_REF][START_REF] Thompson | Social perception in negotiation[END_REF]. Similarly, pro-social negotiators, who are focused on fairness and collective outcomes, achieve higher joint outcomes than pro-self negotiators, who are focused on personal outcomes and winning, especially when they engage in deep and systematic information processing [START_REF] De Dreu | Motivated information processing, strategic choice, and the quality of negotiated agreement[END_REF][START_REF] De Dreu | Motivational bases of information processing and strategy in conflict and negotiation[END_REF].

The above suggests that when individuals have a cooperative mindset and engage in cooperative strategizing during the break they achieve higher joint outcomes than when they engage in competitive strategizing, or do not take a break at all. Furthermore, the above suggests that when individuals have a competitive mind-set and engage in competitive strategizing during a break they do worse in terms of agreement quality than those not taking a break at all (cf., Rumination-Hypothesis). Testing these predictions was the goal of Experiment 2.

To manipulate task-related reflection during the break, we used a priming procedure. Research has shown that participants who were subconsciously primed with cooperative or competitive thoughts also behaved more cooperatively or competitively in a subsequent social dilemma game [START_REF] Hertel | Affective and cognitive influences in a social dilemma game[END_REF]1998;[START_REF] Smeesters | Do not prime hawks with doves: The interplay of construct activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative behavior[END_REF]. In the research by [START_REF] Smeesters | Do not prime hawks with doves: The interplay of construct activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative behavior[END_REF],

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Breaks in Negotiations 15 for example, participants filled out a so-called Scrambled Sentences Task [START_REF] Srull | The role of category accessibility in the interpretation of information about persons: Some determinants and implications[END_REF], a supraliminal priming technique. Participants had to make grammatically correct sentences with four out of five words presented in a scrambled order. Within these scrambled sentences, there were priming words. In the cooperative-prime condition, these words were associated with cooperation, such as cooperative, helpful and constructive. In the competitive-prime condition, these words were associated with competition, such as winning, striving and dominant. [START_REF] Smeesters | Do not prime hawks with doves: The interplay of construct activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative behavior[END_REF] showed that participants were more willing to cooperate after they completed the cooperative scrambled sentences than after the competitive scrambled sentences.

Method Design and Participants

The experiment had three between-dyad conditions; a competitive-thoughts condition, a cooperative-thoughts condition and no-break condition (control condition). Main dependent variable was joint outcome.

Seventy-six undergraduate students participated. Their mean age was 20.7 years.

They received money (€ 5.50, equivalent to $ 6.50) for their participation. The study was run in dyads with 12 to 14 dyads randomly allocated to each condition. Gender had no effects and is not considered any further.

Task, Procedure and Break Manipulations

The negotiation task and experimental procedures were similar to Study 1. In the two break conditions, the experimenter stopped the negotiation after five minutes. In the competitive-thoughts (cooperative-thoughts) break condition, the participants filled out the competitive (cooperative) version of Smeesters et al's scrambled-sentences task

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Breaks in Negotiations 16 [START_REF] Smeesters | Do not prime hawks with doves: The interplay of construct activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative behavior[END_REF] 1 . The scrambled-sentences task consisted of 30 items. Each item consisted of five words, in a random order. Participants had to make correct grammatical sentences with four out of the five words. For example, the item: "him, saw, animal, she, often" would result in "she saw him often". In fifty percent of the items, there were priming words. In the competitive-thoughts condition, these words were associated with competition, such as 'winning', 'striving' and 'dominant'. In the cooperative-thoughts condition, these words were associated with cooperation, such as 'cooperative', 'helpful' and 'constructive'.

Participants in the break conditions were left alone for five minutes to do the scrambled-sentences task, but were not allowed to communicate with each other. None of the participants finished the task before the five minutes ran out, so each participant engaged in the task for the full five minutes. In the no-break condition, the participants did not experience a break and negotiated without interruption. The negotiation was stopped when the 15 minutes were over or when the negotiators reached agreement on all six issues. Participants then filled out a questionnaire, were debriefed, paid and thanked for their participation.

Dependent Variables

To assess the adequacy of the priming manipulation, we assessed cooperative orientation with three items (a = .84 before the negotiation, and a = .84 after the negotiation). An example of an item was "I think it is very important to take other's interests into account" (1 = 'totally disagree', 7 = 'totally agree').

The joint outcomes were calculated as in Study 1. Whereas all dyads settled at least four out of the six issues, in 4 cases dyads settled on only 4 or 5 issues (3 in

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Breaks in Negotiations 17 competitive-thoughts condition and 1 in the cooperative-thoughts condition). Their missing data were treated as in Experiment 1, and exploratory analyses revealed that alternative substitution procedures did not lead to different conclusions.

Results and Discussion

As in Experiment 1, questionnaire data were averaged within dyads to account for interdependence of observation. Data were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with break condition (competitive vs. cooperative vs. no break) as betweendyad factor.

Cooperative orientation was analyzed with a 3 (break condition: competitive vs. cooperative vs. control) by 2 (time: before vs. after the negotiation) repeated measures ANOVA with time as a within-dyad factor. There was a marginal effect of break, F(2, 32) = 2.86, p < .072, qualified by an interaction of break and time, F(2,32) = 3.48, p < .05. Simple main effects showed that there was a significant decrease in cooperative orientation in the competitive-thoughts condition (M before = 4.18, SD = .54 vs. M after = 3.61, SD = .70), F(1,32) = 6.85, p < .05. There was no difference between cooperative orientation before and after the negotiation in the cooperative-thoughts condition, F(1,32) = .35, ns., or in the control condition, F(1,32) = .35, ns.

Joint outcomes. As in Experiment 1, there was no effect of experimental condition on the number of agreements reached, χ 2 (2, N = 38) = 2.47, ns. As expected, however, joint outcome varied as a function of break condition, F(2, 35) = 3.18, p = .05 (see Figure 2). Planned contrasts showed that dyads in the competitive-thoughts break reached lower joint outcomes (M = 18,783, SD = 1503) than dyads in the cooperative-thoughts condition (M = 19,900, SD = 1223), t(35) = 2.17, p < .05, and also lower than dyads in

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the no-break condition (M = 19,885, SD = 1049), t(35) = 2.22, p < .05. Dyads in the cooperative-thoughts condition and the no-break condition did not differ significantly, t(35) = 0.29, ns. These results support the Rumination Hypothesis, and the Balcony Hypothesis thus needs to be rejected.

Conclusions and General Discussion

Although behavioral scientists assumed that taking a break during negotiation might be beneficial and help disputants to create mutually beneficial agreements, the two experiments presented here suggest otherwise. Experiment 1 showed that taking a break and engaging in task-related reflection impeded joint outcomes from the negotiation, compared to a no-break condition or a break condition in which participants could not reflect on the negotiation process. Experiment 2 showed that cooperative thinking during the break has no beneficial effects (compared to a no-break control), and that competitive thinking during the break undermined the development of mutually beneficial, integrative agreements. In short, the present study shows that taking a break doesn't help, and is likely to hurt constructive negotiation.

That cooperative thinking during a break did not improve constructive ne gotiation may seem at odds with other findings showing that negotiators with a pro-social motive do better collectively when they are also motivated to engage in deep and systematic information processing [START_REF] De Dreu | Motivational bases of information processing and strategy in conflict and negotiation[END_REF][START_REF] De Dreu | Motivated information processing, strategic choice, and the quality of negotiated agreement[END_REF]. Perhaps the task used in the current study was relatively easy to do, so that a little bit of cooperation already led to high joint outcomes. This explanation is consistent with the findings in Experiment 1; a distraction break in which participants were cognitively busy produced equally high joint outcomes as the no-break control condition. Alternatively, it may be

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Breaks in Negotiations 19

that the scrambled-sentence task used in the break conditions of Experiment 2 produced a cooperative vs. competitive mindset, but not the high levels of subsequent systematic information processing needed for pro-social orientation to produce its truly beneficial effects. Future research could test these possibilities by using a more difficult task and to manipulate epistemic motivation independently of the mindset activated during the break.

A third possible explanation for the set of results reported here is that it is not so much whether cooperative thoughts are activated, but rather that competitive thoughts are prevented or suppressed. Both the distraction condition in Experiment 1 and the cooperative-thoughts condition in Experiment 2 may have prevented participants from engaging in competitive strategizing, something they spontaneously in the reflect condition of Experiment 1, and were induced to do in the competitive-thoughts condition of Experiment 2. This third possibility resonates with work by [START_REF] Bushman | Chewing on it can chew you up: Effects of rumination on triggered displaced aggression[END_REF], and others, who showed that rumination increases angry feelings and hostility, while distraction from these negative thoughts decreases those angry feelings and hostility.

Although our results cast doubt on the balcony hypothesis, it should be emphasized that our results do not necessarily generalize to the intense, high-stake negotiations that [START_REF] Ury | Getting past no: Negotiating your way form confrontation to cooperation[END_REF] has in mind when offering his advice to go to the balcony. Indeed, it may very well be that when emotions run high, and reason flies out of the window, going to the balcony may be more helpful than continuing the negotiation. In a similar vein, [START_REF] Zartman | Regional conflict resolution[END_REF] has suggested that conflicts may escalate up to a "point of ripeness" where parties start to realize that negotiating may be in their own and mutual interests more than continued hostility. Thus, the intervention by President Carter, during

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Breaks in Negotiations 20 the Camp David talks, to take a break and visit Gettysburg, may indeed have been pivotal in turning hostility into constructive negotiation.

Future research may continue to investigate the boundary conditions under which taking a break is helpful, or instead fueling hostility. One way to study this issue would be to ask participants in a difficult negotiation to take a five-minute break when they feel the negotiation is in an impasse or is at the verge of escalating. The present findings show, at the very least, that other processes than constructive thinking may emerge during temporary breaks, and that the social and cognitive activities during such temporary breaks are vital in turning escalated conflict into constructive negotiation, or vice versa, turning moderately competitive interactions into exceedingly hostile exchanges.

Our results have rather straightforward implications for third party interventions, where mediators assisting the negotiators may call for a break and ask parties to reflect, in private, on the process and the ways they wish to continue. Without explicit instructions driving parties away from competitive strategizing, negotiators are likely to use their private time to do exactly that --design new strategies that foster personal gain and relative advantage, rather than fairness and collective gain. Rather than returning to the bargaining table with a more constructive and open mind, negotiators return after a break well armed to pursue, with refreshed energy, a competitive strategy.

Taken together, and unlike popular advice, this research showed that the quality of negotiated agreement suffers when parties take a break to reflect upon the negotiation.

The competitive thoughts during a break reduce concern for the other party's interests, tend to increase the use of competitive strategies, and result in less integrative negotiated

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Breaks in Negotiations 30

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Breaks in Negotiations 31

  noted: "If you need more time to think, you should take a break. [...]. Negotiations are more productive when they are broken up by frequent time-outs."

  Task-related reflection. The amount of task-related reflection during the break was measured with six items, derived from prior work on task-reflexivity (De Dreu, in press; Somech, 2006) and adapted for current purposes. Sample items are: 'During the break I thought about different strategies for the rest of the negotiation', and 'During the break I lined up the facts'. Answers were given on a seven-point scale (1 = 'absolutely not', to 7 = 'yes, absolutely'). Ratings were averaged into one index (α = .82).

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. The effect of break on joint outcomes is mediated by task-related reflection

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2. Joint outcomes as a function of break (Study 2).

Table 1

 1 Correlations between Joint Outcomes and Main Dependent Variables in Study 1 (N = 44 dyads, Reflect condition and Distraction Condition)

		1	2	3	4	5	6
	1. Reflection (MC)	--
	2. Number of agreements	-.12
	3. Joint outcomes	-.28 +	.44**
	4. Strategy change	.17	-.18	-.13
	5. Competitive change	.21	-.16	.06	.47**
	6. Cooperative change	.32*	.14	-.06	.32*	.15
	7. Task-related reflection	.56**	.00	-.34*	.32*	.06	.24

** p < .01, * = p < .05, + p < .10

The original scrambled-sentences tasks by[START_REF] Smeesters | Do not prime hawks with doves: The interplay of construct activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative behavior[END_REF] were used. These tasks were originally in Dutch, so no translation was needed.

ß = -.57** ß = -.34* ß = .34* (ß = .21, ns)

Joint outcomes

No break

Competitive thoughts

Cooperative thoughts


Davy Lerouge
email: d.lerouge@uvt.nl

Dirk Smeesters

Luk Warlop

Siegfried Dewitte

John Skowronski

Post-Priming Effects

Knowledge Activation After Information Encoding: Implications of Trait Priming on Person Judgment

Keywords: Trait priming, person judgment, encoding goal, memory-based judgment, online judgment, and assimilation

It is widely assumed that traits primed after the encoding of person information do not lead to assimilation effects on the judgment of that person. The authors challenge this view by providing evidence that post-encoding trait primes can result in assimilative person judgments under certain conditions. In Experiments 1 and 2, we identify the conditions under which these assimilation effects occur. Experiment 1 shows the importance of participants' goals during person information encoding: assimilation is observed when person information is encoded as part of a memorization goal (as opposed to an impression formation goal). The findings of Experiment 2 further reveal that the encoded person information should imply trait concepts rather than being merely vague with respect to the primed trait category. Finally, the results of Experiment 3 suggest that the obtained assimilation effect is driven by differential accessibility for prime-congruent person information.

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 3 Knowledge Activation After Information Encoding:

Implications of Trait Priming on Person Judgment

There is strong evidence that person judgments are often a combination of the type of knowledge one possesses of that person and accessible cognitive concepts, such as traits (e.g., [START_REF] Stapel | Similarities and differences between the impact of traits and expectancies: What matters is whether the target stimulus is ambiguous or mixed[END_REF]. Several studies have shown that trait concepts activated (e.g., through priming) before the encoding of person information often lead to assimilation effects on subsequent judgments of that person (e.g., [START_REF] Higgins | Category accessibility and impression formation[END_REF][START_REF] Srull | The role of category accessibility in the interpretation of information about persons: Some determinants and implications[END_REF]. That is, person judgments shift in a trait consistent manner because that person's information is interpreted and encoded in terms of the activated trait concept. Little is known about the effects of trait concepts primed after the encoding of person information on subsequent person judgments. Previous research suggests that post-encoding primes are unlikely to induce assimilation given that they cannot serve as an interpretation frame during encoding (Stapel, Koomen, & van der Pligt, 1997). This should be particularly true in the case of vague target information (i.e., behavioral information that does not clearly represent a personality trait), but not in the case of mixed target information (i.e., behavioral information that exemplifies opposing poles of a personality trait, e.g., kind and unkind). We predict that priming trait concepts after the encoding of mixed target information will still lead to assimilative person judgments when this information is encoded as part of a memorization goal (but not as part of an impression goal). We argue that this assimilation effect should occur due to selective accessibility of previously encoded person information congruent with the primed trait (cf., [START_REF] Winter | When are social judgments made? Evidence for the spontaneousness of trait inferences[END_REF].

Activated Trait Concepts

The way accessible information exerts its influence on person judgment mainly follows two stages: an encoding and a judgment stage [START_REF] Stapel | Categories of category accessibility: The impact of trait concept versus exemplar priming on person judgments[END_REF]. Trait concepts ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT primed before encoding person information can influence the processing of that information. First, trait concepts activated at encoding can be used to interpret vague or ambiguous behavioral information. Priming hostility (kindness) concepts before individuals encode vaguely hostile person information induces more hostile (kind) judgments [START_REF] Srull | The role of category accessibility in the interpretation of information about persons: Some determinants and implications[END_REF]. Also, when encoding ambiguous target information (i.e., information applying to at least two alternative concepts such as adventurous and reckless), individuals use previously activated and applicable concepts to characterize that person [START_REF] Higgins | Category accessibility and impression formation[END_REF]. Second, priming a trait can result in selective processing of trait-congruent information during encoding [START_REF] Sherman | Priming and the differential use of dimensions in evaluation[END_REF]. [START_REF] Stapel | Similarities and differences between the impact of traits and expectancies: What matters is whether the target stimulus is ambiguous or mixed[END_REF] showed that priming positive words before exposing individuals to positive and negative (i.e., mixed) person information resulted in more positive judgments compared to priming negative words. Thus, making trait concepts accessible before encoding person information generally leads to assimilation effects on person judgment.

What happens when trait concepts are primed after the encoding stage? The current belief is that priming trait concepts does not affect person judgment once person information has been encoded [START_REF] Stapel | Categories of category accessibility: The impact of trait concept versus exemplar priming on person judgments[END_REF][START_REF] Stapel | Let' s not forget the past when we go to the future: On our knowledge of knowledge accessibility effects[END_REF][START_REF] Stapel | Assimilation and contrast as a function of context-target similarity, distinctness, and dimensional relevance[END_REF]. It has been shown that priming hostility or kindness concepts after the encoding of vaguely hostile person information does not have any effect on subsequent person judgments [START_REF] Srull | Category accessibility and social perception: Some implications for the study of person memory and interpersonal judgments[END_REF][START_REF] Stapel | Categories of category accessibility: The impact of trait concept versus exemplar priming on person judgments[END_REF]. We agree that activated traits cannot serve as an interpretation frame for previously encoded, vague person information.

However, we suggest that activated trait concepts can still affect person judgment when the encoded person information is, for instance, mixed in nature. Research illustrated that trait concepts serve as effective retrieval cues for behavioral information that implies this particular trait (e.g., [START_REF] Srull | Organizational and retrieval processes in person memory: An examination of processing objectives, presentation format, and the possible role of self-generated retrieval cues[END_REF][START_REF] Uleman | Unintended effects of goals on unintended inferences[END_REF]. [START_REF] Winter | When are social judgments made? Evidence for the spontaneousness of trait inferences[END_REF] showed that helpful served as a retrieval cue for the following behavioral instance:

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 5 "The librarian carries the old woman's groceries across the street". Thus, it is very likely that priming a particular trait (e.g., kindness) makes previously encoded trait-congruent (e.g., kind) person information more accessible. As a result, if the encoded person information is mixed (e.g., containing both kind and unkind behavioral instances), then priming applicable trait concepts at the judgment stage should lead to an assimilation effect. Further, we argue that this assimilation effect will occur when individuals have the goal to memorize the mixed information, rather than the goal to form an impression of the target person.

Encoding Goal

Individuals who have an impression formation goal are likely to encode a person's behavioral information in terms of higher order trait impressions [START_REF] Hastie | The relationship between memory and judgment depends on whether the judgment task is memory-based or on-line[END_REF].

In other words, when individuals encode behavioral information related to a target person's kindness as part of an impression formation goal, they will very likely form an on-line kindness judgment about that person. This has also been observed for mixed person information. [START_REF] Chartrand | Automatic activation of impression formation and memorization goals: Nonconscious goal priming reproduces effects of explicit task instructions[END_REF], for instance, found strong evidence that individuals who read a target person description consisting of both honest and dishonest behaviors make an on-line judgment about that person's honesty when an impression formation goal is activated. Once such an overall trait impression has been made, individuals are unlikely to use the original behavioral information during later judgment.

Instead, they will simply retrieve the trait impression that was already formed during prior information encoding [START_REF] Carlston | The recall and use of traits and events in social inference processes[END_REF][START_REF] Ostrom | Cognitive organization of person impressions[END_REF]. As a result, priming trait concepts (kindness vs. unkindness) will not affect the judgment of a person whose behaviors have been encoded during an impression formation task.

What happens when individuals do not have an impression formation goal when encountering behavioral person information? Research on spontaneous trait inferences

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 6 argues that even when no impression formation goal is activated, trait judgments are made on-line whenever one encodes person information (see [START_REF] Uleman | People as flexible interpreters: Evidence and issues from spontaneous trait inference[END_REF], for a review). However, more recent studies challenged the notion that spontaneous on-line judgments are so pervasive and concluded that spontaneous trait inferences are unlikely to occur unless situational or chronic circumstances encourage spontaneous trait judgments (e.g., D [START_REF] D' Agostino | A reevaluation of the evidence for spontaneous trait inferences[END_REF][START_REF] Tormala | On-line versus memory-based processing: The role of "need to evaluate" in person perception[END_REF]. For instance, individuals are typically found to spontaneously form trait impressions when the behavioral descriptions strongly imply one specific trait valence [START_REF] Carlston | Savings in the relearning of trait information as evidence for spontaneous inference generation[END_REF][START_REF] Moskowitz | Spontaneous trait inferences as self-generated primes: Implications for conscious social judgment[END_REF][START_REF] Todorov | The person reference process in spontaneous trait inferences[END_REF]). However, if information is mixed and not encoded as part of an impression formation task, then judgments are found to be formed memory-based instead of on-line (e.g., [START_REF] Lichtenstein | Processing objectives as a determinant of the relationship between recall and judgment[END_REF][START_REF] Mackie | On-line and memory-based modification of attitudes: Determinants of message recall-attitude change correspondence[END_REF]. Indeed, [START_REF] Chartrand | Automatic activation of impression formation and memorization goals: Nonconscious goal priming reproduces effects of explicit task instructions[END_REF] observed that individuals switched from on-line to memory-based person judgments when a memorization goal (instead of an impression formation goal) was activated during the encoding of mixed honest and dishonest behavioral information.

In sum, when individuals encode mixed information about a person's kindness as part of a memorization task, they are not expected to spontaneously form an overall impression about that person's kindness. This implies that when individuals are asked to judge the person's kindness during a later judgment task, they cannot rely on a kindness judgment that is stored in memory. Instead, they need to rely on other instances of person information that are most accessible at that particular time. As discussed above, priming trait concepts can make previously encoded trait-congruent person information more accessible. Thus, if mixed (kind and unkind) behavioral instances are encoded during a memorization task, then priming the concept kindness (unkindness) during a later judgment task should make the kind (unkind) instances more accessible, resulting in more (less) positive kindness judgments of the target person. We will provide evidence for this process in three experiments.

Pretest

We constructed two different (i.e., mixed and vague) target person descriptions that provide behavioral information about a target person in six different situations.

Although situations are identical for both descriptions, the behaviors that the target person manifests in these situations vary in terms of implied kindness. Specifically, the mixed target person is described as acting kind in three situations and unkind in the other three situations, while the vague target person exhibits behaviors that are vaguely related to kindness for all six situations. This implies that we needed three situations for which we have both a kind and vague behavioral description of the target person and three situations with both an unkind and vague behavior.

We compiled a set of 15 different situational descriptions (e.g., "Diederik is talking with a group of friends, when they see a girl hurry, stumble and fall. Diederik makes his friends aware of this."). For each situation, we constructed three different behavioral episodes: (1) a behavior that is vaguely related to kindness (e.g., "They see that the girl hurries back on her feet and they continue their conversation."), (2) a behavior implying kindness (e.g., "Diederik hurries to the girl, helps her back on her feet and asks if she has hurt herself."), and (3) a behavior implying unkindness ("And they all start laughing. Ashamed, the girl hurries up and leaves."). Seventy respondents randomly rated one behavioral description of each situation along a scale from 1 (not at all kind) to 7 (extremely kind). Based on these data, we selected six situational descriptions applying two criteria. First, the kindness rating of the vague behavior did not differ significantly from the neutral point on the scale (i.e., four), and second, the kindness rating of the vague behavior was significantly higher (lower) than its unkind (kind) variant. This resulted in and three situations that had a vague (M = 3.67) and unkind (M = 1.81) version. Procedure. Participants were placed in individual cubicles. They were told that they would participate in several unrelated studies. At the end of the session, participants were probed for awareness and suspicion about any relatedness among the priming procedure and judgment task (cf., [START_REF] Chartrand | Automatic activation of impression formation and memorization goals: Nonconscious goal priming reproduces effects of explicit task instructions[END_REF]. None of the participants indicated any suspicion.

Reading and filler task. Participants received the mixed description of Diederik consisting of three kind and three unkind behavioral descriptions. Participants were either asked to memorize the behavioral instances or to form an impression of Diederik. All participants were asked to perform this task dedicatedly as they would receive questions about Diederik later in the session. After finishing this reading task, they handed in their booklet and proceeded to an unrelated filler task (i.e., counting backwards by threes from 90 to 0). This filler task was added to make the relation between the different phases of the experiment less ostensible.

Subliminal priming procedure. After participants finished the filler task, they were presented with a word-recognition task consisting of 14 trials. Half of these trials contained existing words 1 , the other half contained non-existing words. Participants had to decide as quickly as possible whether or not a string of letters was an existing word. Each word was preceded by subliminal primes. These primes were words that were presented for 17 ms and masked by a row of X's remaining on the screen for 225 ms. All participants were exposed to 7 different prime words, each used twice. The prime words were presented to the participants in Dutch. In the kindness priming condition the words were: liked, good-hearted, sympathetic, kind, polite, helpful and pleasant. In the unkindness priming condition the words were: disliked, evil-hearted, unsympathetic, unkind, impolite, unhelpful and unpleasant. Participants were randomly assigned to one

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 10 of the two priming conditions. Judgment task. Finally, participants were asked to judge Diederik on a 7-pointscale with respect to kindness. We embedded this rating in a questionnaire containing 11 personality judgments to make it less obvious that kindness was the focal trait. To minimize the effect of the other trait judgments on the kindness rating, it was second on the list, after the trait intelligence.

Results and Discussion

We performed a 2 (Encoding Goal: memorization vs. impression formation) x 2 (Prime Valence: kindness vs. unkindness) between-participants ANOVA on the kindness ratings. The data showed a marginally significant main effect of prime valence, F( 1 First, participants were instructed to carefully read and memorize information that described the target person in six different situations. Participants were randomly assigned to the mixed or vague person description condition. In the mixed condition, the target person was described as acting kindly in three situations and unkindly in the remaining three situations. In the vague condition, the six behaviors were all vaguely

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 12 related to kindness. Next, participants performed an unrelated filler task, followed by the same subliminal priming procedure and judgment task as in Experiment 1. Finally, a funneled debriefing procedure revealed that none of the participants retrieved any of the primes or were suspicious.

Results and Discussion

A 2 (Target Description: mixed vs. vague) x 2 (Prime Valence: kindness vs. unkindness) between-participants ANOVA was conducted on the kindness judgment of the target person. We obtained a significant main effect of prime valence, F(1, 73) = 5.02, p < .03, 2 = .06. Kindness ratings were more positive in the kindness condition (M = 4.29) than in the unkindness condition (M = 3.81). Prime valence interacted significantly with target description, F(1, 73) = 8.85, p < .01, 2 = .10 (see Figure 2). As predicted, we obtained an assimilation effect in the mixed person description condition: kindness judgments were more positive when kindness was primed (M = 4.59) than when unkindness was primed (M = 3.47), F(1, 73) = 13.67, p < .001, 2 = .16. In the vague person description condition, no difference was obtained between the kindness and the unkindness priming condition (M kind = 3.94 and M unkind = 4.11), F < 1.

These findings confirm that priming a trait concept results in assimilation effects when participants memorized mixed information about the target person. Interestingly, no assimilation effect was observed when participants memorized person information that is only vaguely related to that trait category. This suggests that activated trait concepts cause assimilation effects at the judgment of a target person through selective accessibility of previously stored trait-congruent person information.

Experiment 3

In this final experiment, we provide more direct evidence for the underlying process that drives the observed assimilation effects. More specifically, we predict that encoding person information as part of a memorization instead of an impression formation task induces more memory-based (instead of on-line) target person judgments. To test this prediction, we will use two different measures, commonly applied in the literature: judgment episode-accessibility correlations (e.g., [START_REF] Hastie | The relationship between memory and judgment depends on whether the judgment task is memory-based or on-line[END_REF][START_REF] Lichtenstein | Processing objectives as a determinant of the relationship between recall and judgment[END_REF][START_REF] Tormala | On-line versus memory-based processing: The role of "need to evaluate" in person perception[END_REF] and response latencies (e.g. [START_REF] Lingle | Retrieval selectivity in memory-based impression judgments[END_REF][START_REF] Mackie | On-line and memory-based modification of attitudes: Determinants of message recall-attitude change correspondence[END_REF][START_REF] Tormala | On-line versus memory-based processing: The role of "need to evaluate" in person perception[END_REF]. Given that individuals who have a memorization goal do not form on-line kindness impressions and need to retrieve stored behavioral episodes during later kindness ratings, we expect a strong and significant correlation between the valence of the most accessible episodes and the kindness judgments in the memorization condition. Individuals with an impression formation goal make on-line kindness impressions during the encoding of person information and rely on that impression during later kindness ratings. Therefore, we expect the judgment episodeaccessibility correlation to be weak or nonsignificant in the impression formation condition. We also predict larger response latencies on kindness judgments in the memorization condition than in the impression formation condition. Individuals having a memorization goal must retrieve behavioral episodes, evaluate this information, and compute an overall kindness judgment during the judgment task, whereas individuals with an impression formation goal already formed a kindness impression during encoding and simply need to retrieve it at judgment.

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 14 episodes, which again leads to more (less) kind judgments in the memorization condition.

Assuming that individuals with an impression formation goal do not rely on their memory for behavioral person information, no such mediation is expected in the impression formation condition.

Method

One hundred twenty-two undergraduates (50 females, 72 males) participated for €7 payment. The experimental design consisted of two between-participants factors: encoding goal (memorization vs. impression formation) and prime valence (kindness vs. unkindness). The procedure was similar to Experiment 1, with the following exceptions.

First, we collected response latencies for the kindness judgment. In order to get undistorted response latencies, the kindness judgment was presented first followed by ten other trait ratings. Second, participants also performed a free recall task, in which they were asked to write down as many behavioral episodes as they could remember about Diederik. Participants were asked to be as detailed as possible. Following the recall task, participants were asked to return to each recalled episode and rate it with a "-" indicating unkind, "0" indicating neutral, or "+" indicating kind. All recalled items captured the essential meaning of the behavior episodes and were rated by the participants according to the trait valence they were assumed to imply.

Measurement of episode accessibility

Recall was very high (M = 5.20; 45% recalled all behaviors). Therefore, we decided to base our accessibility measurement only on the first three episodes recalled, given that the mixed person information consisted of three kind and three unkind behaviors and that more accessible episodes are recalled first [START_REF] Taylor | Getting inside the head: Methodologies for process analysis[END_REF].

Thus, for each participant, we collected the first three recalled episodes and divided the number of behaviors implying kindness by the total number behaviors (e.g., [START_REF] Hastie | The relationship between memory and judgment depends on whether the judgment task is memory-based or on-line[END_REF][START_REF] Reyes | Judgmental biases resulting from differing availabilities of arguments[END_REF]. This enables to create an accessibility measure of episodes implying kindness varying from 0 to 1. This means that if a person recalled the three kind instances before the three unkind instances, this person would get a score of 1.0, which means high accessibility of the kind instances. If a person recalled the three unkind instances before the three kind instances, then this person would get a score of 0.0, which means high accessibility of the unkind instances.

Results and Discussion

Kindness ratings. A 2 (Encoding Goal: memorization vs. impression formation) x 2 (Prime Valence: kindness vs. unkindness) between-participants ANOVA was conducted on the kindness ratings. We observed a marginally significant main effect of prime valence, F(1, 118) = 2.78, p < .10, η 2 = .02. The ratings for the kindness trait were higher in the kindness condition (M = 4.44) than in the unkindness condition (M = 4.08). As expected, this effect was qualified by a significant encoding goal × prime valence interaction, F(1, 118) = 4.63, p < .04, η 2 = .04. This interaction is presented in Figure 3. Prime valence had a significant effect on kindness judgments in the memorization condition (M kind = 4.60 and M unkind = 3.81), F(1, 118) = 7.41, p < .01, η 2 = .06, but not in the impression formation condition (M kind = 4.27 and M unkind = 4.37), F < 1.

Judgment episode-accessibility relationship. Simple correlation coefficients between episode accessibility and kindness judgments were computed to test if a relationship exists between memory and judgment (cf., [START_REF] Hastie | The relationship between memory and judgment depends on whether the judgment task is memory-based or on-line[END_REF][START_REF] Tormala | On-line versus memory-based processing: The role of "need to evaluate" in person perception[END_REF]. As predicted, the obtained correlation was positive and substantial (r = .42, p < .01) in the memorization condition, but nonsignificant in the kindness condition (r = .04, p = .74). The difference between both correlations reached significance (p = .03).

These results already provide strong support for the assumption that participants, who were memorized the target person information, made memory-based kindness judgments.

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 16

Recall latencies. To reduce the distorting effect of outliers, we removed response latencies that were at least three standard deviations above or below the mean. The reaction times were submitted to an ANOVA containing encoding goal and prime valence as between-participants variables 2 . As expected, participants in the memorization condition (M = 6.08 s) needed more time to rate Diederik's kindness than those in the impression formation condition (M = 2.68 s), F(1, 110) = 4.87, p = .03 η 2 = .04.

Mediation analyses. The data of this experiment again confirm that kindness judgments assimilate towards the primed trait concepts in the memorization condition.

Furthermore, judgment episode-accessibility correlations and response latencies both indicate that these assimilated judgments are formed memory-based rather than on-line.

We wanted to further demonstrate that the observed effect of prime valence on kindness judgments was mediated by the selective accessibility of prime-congruent episodes in the memorization condition but not in the impression formation condition. Following [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations[END_REF], we performed three regression analyses (prime valence was recoded as 0 = unkind and 1 = kind) for both the memorization and impression formation condition.

The results for the analyses with accessibility as mediator are presented in Figure 4.

For the memorization condition, we observed that prime valence had a significant effect on kindness judgments, β = .32, t(60) = 2.60, p = .01. Next, we found that prime valence had a significant effect on episode accessibility, β = .34, t(60) = 2.76, p < .01. A third regression, including both prime valence and episode accessibility as predictors, revealed a significant effect of episode accessibility on the target judgment, β = .35, t(59) = 2.83, p < .01, whereas the effect of prime valence became nonsignificant, β = .20, t(59) = 1.62, ns. Moreover, using a bootstrap method as proposed by [START_REF] Preacher | SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models[END_REF] we can conclude that the indirect effect of prime valence on kindness judgments via episode accessibility was significant (p < .05).

In the impression formation condition, prime valence appeared not to predict kindness judgments, β = .13, t(58) = -.36, ns. We could already conclude that there was no mediation in the impression formation condition because prime valence did not affect the kindness judgments in the first place. Therefore, we did not need to perform any further mediation steps.

Together the results of the current experiment provide converging evidence that, when individuals memorize behavioral person information at encoding, they base personality judgments on behavioral episodes that, at that time, are most accessible in memory. Furthermore, given that activated trait concepts turn congruent episodes more accessible, this ultimately results in an assimilative shift of the trait judgments.

General Discussion

It is well accepted in the social cognition literature that accessible trait concepts only have an effect on encoding person information lacking evaluative clarity. Trait knowledge activated at the encoding stage leads to either disambiguating vague behavioral descriptions or selective processing of mixed person information [START_REF] Stapel | Similarities and differences between the impact of traits and expectancies: What matters is whether the target stimulus is ambiguous or mixed[END_REF], both resulting in an assimilation effect on subsequent person judgments. Beyond the encoding stage, accessible trait knowledge should not affect person judgments (e.g., interpretation/comparison model of [START_REF] Stapel | Categories of category accessibility: The impact of trait concept versus exemplar priming on person judgments[END_REF]. The current results, however, show that accessible trait concepts can have an assimilation effect after the encoding stage.

Three experiments demonstrate that trait concepts primed after the memorization of mixed person information lead to an assimilative person judgment. First, participants memorized kind and unkind behavioral descriptions about a target person. Before judging this person, they were primed with either kindness or unkindness concepts. It was consistently found that participants perceived the target person to be more kind (unkind) when kind (unkind) related trait concepts were activated. These findings were not obtained when mixed person information was encoded as part of an impression formation goal (Experiment 1) or when person information was vaguely related to the activated trait concepts (Experiment 2). The results of Experiment 3 demonstrate that the assimilation effect can be explained by higher accessibility of previously encoded person information congruent with the primed trait.

Why would primed trait concepts make trait-congruent person information more accessible? At least three possible explanations can be distinguished. First, it is possible that individuals having a memorization goal simply encode the behavioral descriptions without making any inference about the personality traits that these behaviors imply.

Priming trait concepts may affect subsequent person judgments by activating semantically related concepts that are embedded in the encoded behaviors. Thus, priming "kindness" at judgment may activate concepts like "helping" and "friendly" and increase the accessibility of previously encoded behavioral descriptions that contain these activated concepts. Second, when individuals memorize behavioral descriptions, they may spontaneously interpret the behaviors in terms of applicable trait categories (e.g., [START_REF] Bassili | Trait encoding in behavior identification and dispositional inference[END_REF]D'Agostino & Beegle, 1996). That is, readers use trait concepts to label the different behaviors (e.g., this is a kind act) without directly assigning this trait to the target person. This implies that in case of the mixed person description some of the encoded behaviors are directly linked to the trait "kindness" and others to "unkindness".

Consequently, priming a trait category at judgment (e.g., kindness) will make behaviors that are directly associated with this particular trait (e.g., kind behaviors) more accessible and assimilation will occur. Finally, some researchers argue that individuals who are exposed to behavioral information spontaneously make trait impressions about the target person [START_REF] Uleman | People as flexible interpreters: Evidence and issues from spontaneous trait inference[END_REF]. Some theorists even speculated that individuals when encountering behavioral person information also infer spontaneous trait impressions that

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POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 19 are mutually inconsistent (e.g., Diederik is kind and Diederik is unkind) (e.g., [START_REF] Ham | Smart and easy: Co-occurring activation of spontaneous trait inferences and spontaneous situational inferences[END_REF][START_REF] Newman | Assimilation and contrast effects in spontaneous trait inference[END_REF][START_REF] Uleman | Spontaneous versus intentional inferences in impression formation[END_REF]. Hence, priming a trait category (e.g., kindness) after mixed person information has been encoded may make the congruent trait impression (e.g., Diederik is kind) more accessible, which in turn favors the selective accessibility of congruent behavioral information (e.g., kind behaviors). Our study contributes to this ongoing debate by providing convincing evidence that if spontaneous personality impressions are formed based on mixed person information, they differ significantly from those that are made under an impression formation goal. Future research should shed further light on the existence and characteristics of spontaneous impressions, particularly in the case of mixed target person information.

  For a second pretest, we constructed a mixed target description containing the three kind and three unkind behaviors and a vague target description consisting of the six vague behaviors. Thirty-seven respondents provided a 7-point kindness rating of either the vague or mixed target person description. Respondents perceived the mixed target person (M = 3.85) not differently compared to the vague person (M = 3.86), F < 1. Further, the ratings of the mixed and the vague target person did not differ significantly from the scale's midpoint. The mixed target description was used in all three experiments, whereas the vague one was only used in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 This experiment examined the effect of trait primes presented after the encoding of mixed person information (i.e., three kind and three unkind behavioral descriptions) on subsequent person judgment. Participants were instructed to encode the mixed person information as part of either a memorization goal or an impression formation goal. Priming a trait category before judgment should increase the accessibility of traitcongruent person information. However, individuals having an impression formation goal are expected to already form an impression about the target's kindness at the time of encoding. Therefore, priming a trait category should only result in an assimilation effect when person information was previously memorized. Method Participants and Design. Eighty-eight undergraduates (36 females, 52 males) participated to fulfill course requirements. The design consisted of two betweenparticipants factors: encoding goal (memorization vs. impression formation) and prime valence (kindness vs. unkindness). The dependent measure was the participants' kindness ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 9 judgment of the target person.

  , 84) = 2.80, p < .10, 2 = .03. The kindness judgments were more positive in the kindness condition (M = 4.21) than in the unkindness condition (M = 3.85). As expected, this main effect was qualified by an encoding goal × prime valence interaction, F(1, 84) = 7.39, p < .01, 2 = .08. The means pertaining to this interaction are presented in Figure 1. In the memorization condition, kindness judgments were more positive when kindness was primed (M = 4.50) than when unkindness was primed (M = 3.54), F(1, 84) = 9.64, p < .01, 2 = .10. In the impression formation condition, prime valence did not affect kindness judgments (M kind = 3.90 and M unkind = 4.13), F < 1. As predicted, priming a trait category after mixed person information has been encoded resulted in an assimilation effect on the person's judgment, but only when participants memorized the behavioral instances. When participants formed an impression of the person at the time of encoding, they probably based their later kindness judgment on that particular impression. This on-line impression is based on both kind and unkind behaviors, resulting in a kindness judgment around the midpoint of the rating scale. On the other hand, participants who had a memorization goal probably did not form an on-line POST-PRIMING EFFECTS 11 impression. Instead, they should rely on other encoded person information when making subsequent kindness judgments. Therefore, priming with kindness (unkindness) at the judgment stage should result in assimilative kindness judgments by making kind (unkind) behaviors more accessible. Experiment 2 The aim of this experiment was to obtain further evidence that trait primes increase the accessibility of trait-congruent person information, and as such, lead to assimilation. This implies that if the encoded person information is vaguely related to a particular trait category, priming this trait category should not affect subsequent person judgments. In other words, assimilation should not occur when memorized behavioral descriptions about a target person do not imply the focal trait category. Therefore, post-encoding kindness (unkindness) primes should lead to more (less) positive kindness ratings when participants memorize mixed kind and unkind behaviors but not when it concerns behaviors vaguely related to kindness. Method Seventy-seven undergraduates (33 females, 44 males) took part in this experiment to fulfill course requirements. The experimental design included two between-participants factors: target person description (vague vs. mixed) and prime valence (kindness vs. unkindness). The participant's kindness judgment of the target person was the dependent measure.

  In the current experiment, we also investigate to what extent selective accessibility of prime-congruent episodes accounts for the priming effects in the memorization condition. If individuals with a memorization goal base their kindness judgments on accessible episodes in their memory, then the valence of these accessible episodes should mediate the effect of prime valence on kindness judgment. In other words, we test to what extent priming kindness (unkindness) results in increased accessibility of kind(unkind)

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Mean Kindness Judgment as a Function of Encoding Goal and Prime Valence

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2. Mean Kindness Judgment as a Function of Target Person Description and Prime

Figure 3 .

 3 Figure 3. Mean Kindness Judgment as a Function of Encoding Goal and Prime Valence

Figure 4 .

 4 Figure 4. Mediation analysis (Experiment 3).

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4

 1234 Figure 1

These words were Dutch translations of the following words: creamy, manure, occupation, quarry, rattle, already, and grand.

We also performed the analyses on the log-transformed reaction times to correct for skewness,(Fazio, 1990). The inferential implications of these analyses were similar and, therefore, are not reported here.