Stereotype-driven perception selectively confirms rather than tests its guiding hypothesis

Evidence

Allport hypothesized that “the process of perception-cognition is distinguished for three operations that it performs on the ‘light without.’ It selects, accentuates, and interprets the sensory data” (1954/1979, p. 166). This claim is supported by work on hypothesis confirmation (Snyder, 1981). People working under the guidance of a particular hypothesis, and a stereotyped category would certainly qualify here, tend to rely on strategies that uncover evidence that supports rather than questions the validity of this hypothesis. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1174

Across these studies, the race of participants and their level of prejudice did not change the results, illuminating that what is at work is a prevalent societal stereotype that casts Blacks as the “prototypical embodiment” of crime, and not personal endorsement of the stereotype (Eberhardt et al., 2004, p. 889). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 404

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives Allport’s three cognitive operations on sensory data: select, accentuate, interpret.
• XREF: Hypothesis-confirmation bias connects to confirmation bias and motivated reasoning literature the reader has covered. — connects to: Perception arrives pre-shaped by expectations and context, never raw — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 729
• CANDY: Compact, clean finding — even people who don’t endorse a stereotype show its effects, since the association is cultural, not personal.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1174; Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 404