SOCIAL JUDGEABILITY CONCERNS AND THE DILUTION OF STEREOTYPES

According to social judgeability theory (SJT), people rely upon a seri es of naive theories in order to form an impression about others. Yzer byt et al. (1994) suggested that perceivers' sensitivity to meta-infor mational aspects of the judgmental situation may explain the use of st ereotypic expectations and may thus account for a series of findings g enerally seen as supportive of a biased interpretation hypothesis. The present study aimed at showing that meta-informational cues could als o lead to the dilution of stereotypical judgments. Some subjects judge d a specific target on the basis of category information and then agai n after they had been given pseudorelevant individuating information, i.e., information that appears to be, but is actually not, helpful for the judgment at hand. Other subjects received both category and pseud orelevant individuating information before they conveyed their impress ion. Compared to a control condition in which subjects indicated their stereotypes, subjects who received only category information about a specific target diluted their judgments. A dilution effect also emerge d when these subjects later received additional pseudorelevant informa tion and judged the target anew. Ln contrast, stereotypes influenced s ubjects' judgments when both category and pseudorelevant individuating information was provided before a judgment was requested. In line wit h SJT, these results point to the existence of rules involved in socia l inference processes. Depending on the nature of the information and the rhetorical structure of the situation, observers may or may not th ink that they possess the kind of evidence that renders decision-makin g legitimate.