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Previous studies of correction processes in social judgment have suggested that contextual contrast is a more cognitively effortful process than contextual assimilation because contrast results from efforts to correct for assimilation biases. These studies appear to assume that assimilation is the natural or default effect of a context and that instigation of correction processes leads to displacement of judgments away from the context. In Experiment 1, we showed that people believe that either contrast or assimilation can be the natural effect of a context depending upon the specific context and target items paired. In Experiment 2, we employed a context that subjects believed would naturally produce a contrast effect, and as expected, contrast was produced in the "no-correction" condition. When an explicit instruction to correct for the context was made, subjects adjusted their judgments toward rather than away from the …