D. Vanknippenberg et A. Vanknippenberg, SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION, FOCUS OF ATTENTION AND JUDGMENTS OF GROUP OPINIONS, British journal of social psychology, 33, 1994, pp. 477-489
Social categorization was hypothesized to affect memory for attitude s
tatements from social groups in such a way that recall would be better
for arguments congruent with prior expectations about source group op
inions. As a consequence, perceptions of group opinions based on this
biased recall of arguments (memory-based judgments) were expected to b
e more expectancy-congruent than judgements of group opinions that wer
e formed during argument exposure (on-line judgements). To test these
predictions, two experiments were conducted in which subjects were exp
osed to an equal number of supporting and opposing arguments concernin
g entrance exams. In Expt 1 it was suggested that the arguments origin
ated from a group which subjects expected to be opposed to entrance ex
ams, whereas in Expt 2 in half of the conditions it was suggested that
the arguments originated from a group which subjects expected to be s
upporting entrance exams. Before argument exposure, subjects received
processing instructions (judgemental focus) that would either prevent
subjects from forming on-line judgment of group opinions or induce the
m to form such on-line opinion judgements. In addition to the manipula
tion of judgemental focus, the delay between argument exposure and jud
gement assessment was varied for exploratory purposes. Results showed
that argument recall was affected by both prior expectations and own a
ttitudes, although the former effect was moderated by the induced judg
emental focus. As predicted, group opinion judgements were more expect
ancy-congruent when they could be assumed to be memory-based than when
they were reached on-line. Implications for the study of social group
perceptions and stereotypes are discussed.