The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication, First Edition. Edited by Charles R. Berger and Michael E. Roloff. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI:10.1002/9781118540190.wbeic0204 1 Cognitive Editing DALE HAMPLE University of Maryland, USA People do not always say the first thing that comes to mind. Sometimes they abandon their first impulse and substitute another one. Sometimes they keep the first thought but revise it, perhaps to make it simpler or nicer. These processes of suppressing or revising messages before they are uttered are called cognitive editing. Most of the cognitive editing research to date has dealt with persuasion in some form, usually making a request of someone. The standard methodology employed in this research has been to ask participants to pretend that they are in some sort of situation (e.g., asking a friend to come along to a type of movie the friend does not like very much), and then to look at a list of possible messages that participants might use to induce their friend to comply. Respondents are invited to endorse as many messages as they like (that is, to indicate they would be willing to say that thing to the friend). For each rejected message, participants check off a reason for not saying it. Development of the editorial standards (the reasons for not saying things) was the first main achievement of the research program (Hample & Dallinger, 1987). Inventories of messages Editing is a part of a more general message production process. Most often, this production process is theorized as a situation–goals–plans–action sequence (Dillard, 2004). In this sequence, a person comes into contact with a social situation, one that seems to call for communication. The person then spontaneously forms a primary communication goal to frame the activity (for example, persuasion or comforting), and this goal immediately stimulates potential messages that might be said. These messages are then compared to secondary goals (for example, being polite, avoiding exploitation), and the person cycles back and forth between possible utterances, their consequences, and their revisions (Meyer, 1997). This is the editing process, a part of the more general process of message planning. Finally, once a projected message meets all the standards the person applies, the plan is approved and the message is made public. A key fact in this process is that people are capable of thinking of several things that they could say in order to pursue the same set of goals; that is, they have or can easily form inventories of possible messages. Confronted with situations designed to call forth persuasion, comforting, or forgiveness, people can easily list about seven things