The Smell of Bias: What Instigates Correction Processes in Social Judgments?

Abstract

Participants were either informed that contextual influences bias their judgment and asked to correct for the unspecified influence (blatant warning) or they were instructed that they should correct for the unspecified influence if they felt that there may be biasing influences (conditional warning). Whereas blatantly warned participants corrected under all conditions (Study 2), conditionally warned participants corrected their judgments when the source of bias was salient but not when the source was subtle (Studies 1 to 3). Implications for models of theory-driven correction are discussed.