Typicality Can Create,Eliminate,and Reverse the Dilution Effect

Abstract

Nisbett, Zukier, and Lemley presented evidence for a “dilution effect,” in which information nonpredictive of a stimulus person’s behavior “watered down” or diluted the predictive value of categorical information diagnostic of that behavior. Two experiments suggest, however, that nondiagnostic information influences prediction by altering the perceived goodness of fit between the stimulus person and the diagnostic category. The authors conclude that (a) Nisbett et al. found evidence for dilution because their nondiagnostic items decreased the goodness of fit between the stimulus person and the diagnostic category and (b) depending on the typicality of the nondiagnostic items, it is possible to dilute, enhance, or leave unchanged the predictability between category and behavior. The structure of social categories, and the importance of typicality in the stereotyping process, is discussed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290.

Asch, S. E. (1948). The doctrine of suggestion, prestige, and imitation in social psychology. Psychological Review, 55, 250-276.

Fein, S. , & Hilton, J. L. (1992). Attitudes toward groups and behavioral intentions toward individual group members: The impact of nondiagnostic information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 28, 101-124.

Hewstone, M. (1994). Changing outgroup perceptions: A cognitive intergroup perspective. International Review of Social Psychology, 7, 45-62.

Hewstone, M. , & Lord, C. G. (1998). Changing intergroup cognitions and intergroup behavior: The role of typicality. In C. Sedikides , J. Schopler , & C. A. Insko (Eds.), Intergroup cognition and intergroup behavior. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Judd, C. M. , Ryan, C. S. , & Park, B. (1991). Accuracy in the judgment of in-group and out-group variability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 366-379.

Lakoff, G. (1987). Cognitive models and prototype theory. In U. Neisser (Ed.), Concepts and conceptual development: ecological and intellectual factors in categorization (pp. 63-100). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Maurer, K. L. , Park, B. , & Rothbart, M. (1995). Subtyping versus subgrouping processes in stereotype representation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 812-824.

Mauro, R. , & Kubovy, M. (1992). Caricature and face recognition. Memory and Cognition, 20, 433-440.

10.

Nisbett, R. E. , Zukier, H. , & Lemley, R. E. (1981). The dilution effect: Nondiagnostic information weakens the implications of diagnostic information. Cognitive Psychology, 13, 248-277.

11.

Rips, L. (1975). Inductive judgments about natural categories. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 665-681.

12.

Rothbart, M. , & Lewis, S. (1988). Inferring category attributes from exemplar attributes: Geometric shapes and social categories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 861-872.

13.

Rothbart, M. , Sriram, N. , & Davis-Stitt, C. (1996). The retrieval of typical and atypical category members. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 309-336.

14.

Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review, 84, 327-352.

15.

Werth, J. L. , & Lord, C. G. (1992). Previous conceptions of the typical group member and the contact hypothesis. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 13, 351-369.

16.

Zukier, H. (1982). The dilution effect: The role of the correlation and the dispersion of predictor variables in the use of nondiagnostic information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 1163-1174.

17.

Zukier, H. , & Jennings, D. (1983-1984). Nondiagnosticity and typicality effects in prediction. Social Cognition, 2, 187-198.