Initial stereotypes bias perception of identical evidence to confirm themselves

Evidence

Numerous studies confirm that people are indeed highly selective in the information they collect to test their hypotheses about others, and that accentuation, biased interpretation, and selective memory often favor con- firmatory evidence. In a study by Darley and Gross (1983), participants watched an ambiguous video showing a girl performing a number of scholastic tests. Participants who had initially been told that the girl was from a poor socioeconomic background saw a much poorer performance than those who believed she was from a wealthy family (see also Yzerbyt, Schadron, Rocher, & Leyens, 1994). A disturbing message emanating from hypothesis-confirmation work is that perceiver’s initial hypotheses are likely to create a reality that eventually confirms their initial stereotypical expectations. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1175

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the classic expectancy-confirmation literature and to the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ work by Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid on women’s voices in phone conversations. — connects to: Motivated reasoning is the motive while confirmation bias is the mechanism — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 100; Repetition substitutes for evidence as validation in new conspiracism — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 15; Bayes’ rule prescribes updating beliefs in proportion to incoming evidence — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 102 (+5 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1175