{"pk":29930,"title":"The Effect of Knowledge about a Group on Perceived Group Variability and\nCertainty about Stereotype-Based Inferences","subtitle":null,"abstract":"People often learn about categories, particularly social\ncategories, based on biased information. Unless people are\nable to correct for this, they may develop biased beliefs and\ninferences about these categories. The current research\nexamines if potentially biased information about social groups\nmakes groups appear more homogeneous, and makes people\nmore confident in their inferences about group members. Two\nsources of biases are considered: due to lacking first-hand\nexperience with a group, or due to having second-hand\ninformation from the media or other people. Both sources\nmade groups appear more homogeneous, suggesting that\ninformation biases were present and not corrected for.\nHowever, only second-hand knowledge led to greater\nconfidence about group members, because, when people\nlacked first-hand knowledge, their uncertainty about the\ngroup average counteracted this effect. This highlights the\nimportance of understanding biases present in people’s\ninformation, and corrective processes that may allow people\nto continue to make unbiased inferences.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Categories; Inference; Stereotypes; Variability;\nHomogeneity; Certainty; Bias"}],"section":"Poster Session 3","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1w70t3gh","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Thalia","middle_name":"H.","last_name":"Vrantsidis","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto","department":""},{"first_name":"William","middle_name":"A.","last_name":"Cunningham","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2020-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/29930/galley/19784/download/"}]}