ABSTRACT
Information processing theory is presented in two books—Lord and Maher (1991) and Lord and Brown (2004)—plus a large number of journal articles. We have interfaced with the theory previously in Chapter 8 of this volume, where an unconscious interpretation of attribution theory is presented using information processing concepts (see Cronshaw and Lord [1987] and Lord [1995]). This view takes the position that in attribution situations, conscious and deliberative demands tend to become overloaded, and automatic processes are activated instead to replace them. Thus the perceiver-as-scientist interpretation of attribution theory gives way to an information theory interpretation and an unconscious version of the attribution process comes to the fore.
