• DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.20
• Corpus ID: 144487496

A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects.

@article{Darley1983AHB,
  title={A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects.},
  author={John M. Darley and Paget H. Gross},
  journal={Journal of Personality and Social Psychology},
  year={1983},
  volume={44},
  pages={20-33}
}

• J. Darley, P. H. Gross
• Published 1983
• Psychology
• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

The present study examines the process leading to the confirmation of a perceiver's expectancies about another when the social label that created the expectancy provides poor or tentative evidence about another's true dispositions or capabilities. One group of subjects was led to believe that a child came from a high socioeconomic background; the other group, that the child came from a low socioeconomic background. Nothing in the socioeconomic data conveyed information directly relevant to the child's ability level, and when asked, both groups of subjects reluctantly rated the child's ability level to be approximately at her grade level. Two other groups received the social-class information and then witnessed a videotape of the child taking an academic test. Although the videotaped performance series was identical for all subjects, those who had information that the child came from a high socioeconomic background rated her abilities well above grade level, whereas those for whom the child was identified as coming from a lower class background rated her abilites as below grade level. Both groups cited evidence from the ability test to support their conflicting conclusions. We interpret these findings as suggesting that some "stereotype" information (e.g., socioeconomic class information) creates not certainties but hypotheses about the stereotyped individual. However, these hypotheses are often tested in a biased fashion that leads to their false confirmation.