SOCIAL JUDGEABILITY - THE IMPACT OF META-INFORMATIONAL CUES ON THE USE OF STEREOTYPES

According to a social judgeability analysis, a crucial determinant of impression formation is the extent to which people feel entitled to ju dge a target person. Two experiments tested the impact of the subjecti ve availability of individuating information on a social judgment inde pendent of its actual presence. In Experiment 1, people made a stereot ypical judgement when they believed individuating information was pres ent even if no information was in fact given. In Experiment 2, Ss who thought they received individuating information made more extreme and confident judgments than Ss who thought they received category informa tion. This indicates that Ss' judgments were not simply a function of implicit demand: The illusion of receiving individuating information l ed Ss to believe they possessed the necessary evidence for legitimate decision making. This result supports the existence of rules in the so cial inference process.