People confirm their initial stereotypes by biased attention and interpretation

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. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1175

Categorization

• XREF: Self-fulfilling prophecy meets the classic Darley & Gross study; connects to how contact interventions must defeat confirmatory perception. — connects to: People evaluate persuasive evidence as biased in favor of their own prior views. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 139