IMPLICIT PERSONALITY THEORIES AND EMPIRICAL-DATA - BIASED ASSIMILATION, BELIEF PERSEVERANCE AND CHANGE, AND COVARIATION DETECTION SENSITIVITY

An experiment examined the potentially biasing effects of prior implic it personality theories on judgments about new empirical data related to the theory. In addition, the study examined the joint effects of pr ior theories and new data on final implicit personality theories. New data were presented to college student participants in scatterplot for m. Results yielded strong evidence of biased assimilation in the judgm ents of the new data; that is, judgments of new data were systematical ly biased in the direction of prior implicit personality theories. How ever, judgments were also very sensitive to the covariation strength o f new data. Finally, both prior theories and new data influenced final beliefs, providing evidence for both perseverance and change of initi al beliefs. Discussion focuses on the conditions under which biased as similation is likely to occur and on the conditions under which such b iases constitute reasonable ways to deal with uncertainty.