Journal article
Context and the Interpretation of Likelihood Information: The Role of Intergroup Comparisons on Perceived Vulnerability
Journal of personality and social psychology, Vol.82(5), pp.742-755
05/2002
DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.82.5.742
Abstract
Four experiments investigated how people's perceptions about a group's (e.g., women's) vulnerability to a disease are influenced by information about the prevalence of the disease in a comparable group (e.g., men). Participants read symptom and prevalence information about fictitious diseases before answering questions regarding target group vulnerability. Participants used the prevalence rate for a nontarget group as an immediate comparison standard for intuitively interpreting the degree of vulnerability of a target group, resulting in robust contrast effects. Experiments 3 and 4 illustrated that these contrast effects can cause a person's intuitive perceptions about a group's vulnerability to selected diseases to conflict with his or her knowledge of the prevalence rates for the diseases. The results support a distinction between 2 components of psychological uncertainty-beliefs in objective probability and more intuitive perceptions of certainty.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Context and the Interpretation of Likelihood Information: The Role of Intergroup Comparisons on Perceived Vulnerability
- Creators
- Paul D Windschitl - Department of Psychology, University of IowaRené Martin - Department of Psychology, University of IowaAnnette R Flugstad - Department of Psychology, University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of personality and social psychology, Vol.82(5), pp.742-755
- Publisher
- American Psychological Association
- DOI
- 10.1037/0022-3514.82.5.742
- ISSN
- 0022-3514
- eISSN
- 1939-1315
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 05/2002
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984213391402771
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