On the genesis of confidence

Confidence in personality impressions is proposed to stem from the richness of people's mental representations of others. Representational richness pr oduces confidence because it enhances the fluency with which people can mak e judgments, and it increases confidence even when it does not result in mo re accurate impressions. Results of 3 experiments support these proposition s. A 4th experiment suggests that representational richness is increased by both pseudorelevant and relevant information, but not by irrelevant inform ation. A 5th experiment suggests that representational richness has effects on confidence above and beyond the effects of metainformation (i.e., extra content aspects of information). The implications of these findings for eva luating evidence of error in person perception and for reducing stereotypin g and prejudice are discussed.