LOOKING FOR TRUTH IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES - ASYMMETRIC SEARCH OF INDIVIDUATING INFORMATION ABOUT STEREOTYPED GROUP MEMBERS

Two experiments examined how category-based expectancies (CBEs) influe nce individuating information sought when trying to make accurate judg ments about the attitudes of targets who were members of social catego ries that strongly or weakly implied the judged attitude. CBEs produce d marked asymmetries in the number and content of participants' questi ons. Specifically, participants addressed fewer questions to stereotyp ed targets (STs) than to nonstereotyped targets (NSTs), thus acquiring relatively little individuating information about STs prior to judgme nt. Questions asked STs were diagnostically asymmetric--a response cou ld better confirm than disconfirm the expected attitude, but questions to NSTs were diagnostically symmetric--a response could equally confi rm or disconfirm the attitude. The authors discuss asymmetric search a s a mechanism that may protect CBEs against disconfirmation independen t of biased processing of acquired information.