Context and the interpretation of likelihood information: The role of intergroup comparisons on perceived vulnerability.
- 1 January 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Vol. 82 (5) , 742-755
- https://doi.org/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.Keywords
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