Social judgeability concerns and the dilution of stereotypes

According to social judgeability theory (SJT), people rely upon a series of naive theories in order to form an impression about others. Yzerbyt et al. (1994) suggested that perceivers' sensitivity to meta-informational aspects of the judgmental situation may explain the use of stereotypic expectations and may thus account for a series of findings generally seen as supportive of a biased interpretation hypothesis. The present study aimed at showing that meta-informational cues could also lead to the dilution of stereotypical judgments. Some subjects judged a specific target on the basis of category information and then again 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 pseudorelevant individuating information before they conveyed their impression. 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 emerged when these subjects later received additional pseudorelevant information and judged the target anew. Ln contrast, stereotypes influenced subjects' judgments when both category and pseudorelevant individuating information was provided before a judgment was requested. In line with SJT, these results point to the existence of rules involved in social inference processes. Depending on the nature of the information and the rhetorical structure of the situation, observers may or may not think that they possess the kind of evidence that renders decision-making legitimate