The validity of locational perceptions in Northern Ireland

Thirty Catholic and thirty Protestant students rated 60 Northern Irish town s for violence, unemployment and denominational composition. Correlations b etween the scales and objective data indicated that subjects' perceptions h ad considerable validity overall, though not for the smallest towns. High i nter-group correlations suggested that Catholics and Protestants were using similar information to form judgements, even when their judgements were wr ong. In a second study, 34 further subjects rated the same towns on scales of personal familiarity and knowledge. These scales correlated well with po pulation data confirming the importance of information availability in judg ement formation. Analyses suggested that subjects were forming judgements r ationally, even in the presence of limited information, and that 'media-wor thy' events might play a special role in their thinking. (C) 2000 Academic Press.