Dispositional differences in confirmatory biases in information-seeking about stereotyped targets

Abstract

The reported study examined the potential influence of three stable dispositional individual difference variables on the manner in which perceivers employ confirmatory information-seeking when forming an impression of a target from a stereotyped group. The three variables were selected on the grounds that they are all thought to impact upon social cognition but do not imply any particular attitudes or beliefs. Personal Need for Structure (PNS), Need for Cognition (NfC) and Attributional Complexity (AtC). Measures of stereotype endorsement, affective reaction and homogeneity were also taken, in order to account for their potential influence. Two methods were used to assess information seeking. In one (n=59) participants formulated up to 10 questions to ask the stereotyped target. The number of questions asked, the proportion of questions that could be answered with a "yes" or "no" and the stereotypicality of the set of questions were then correlated with PNS, NfC and AtC. NfC correlated with both. The second information-seeking condition involved a bulletin board procedure that allowed participants to first select a characteristic (either stereotypic, counter-stereotypic or stereotype neutral) and then one of two questions relating to that characteristic (one stereotype matching question and one stereotype mismatching question). Although there was evidence of a stereotype preservation bias overall the strength of this bias was not related to any of the dispositional measures. There was no evidence of a positive test bias overall but individual preferences for stereotype matching over stereotype mismatching questions correlated negatively with NfC and positively with a favourable affective reaction to the target group, and marginally positively correlated with PNS. Possible explanations of the relationships are discussed based on the conceptualisations of the dispositional variables, as well as how these relationships impact on understanding of the processes underlying the use of confirmatory strategies.