Page 159 - The Social Animal

Social Cognition 141

Premise 1: If production is important, then peaceful industrial rela-
tions are desirable.
Premise 2: If production is important, then it is a mistake to have
Negroes for foremen and leaders over Whites.
Therefore: If peaceful industrial relations are desirable, then it is a
mistake to have Negroes for foremen and leaders over Whites.

A moment’s reflection shows that the syllogism, as stated, is fal-
lacious; the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises.
But Thistlewaite found that prejudiced individuals (who agree with
the conclusion) are far more likely to indicate (incorrectly) that the
logic is valid than are less prejudiced people.
Another dimension of the attitude heuristic is the halo effect, a
general bias in which a favorable or unfavorable general impression
of a person affects our inferences and future expectations about that
person. For example, if you really like George W. Bush, then you will
be likely to discount or explain away any behavior on his part that
might be considered negative, and exaggerate the goodness of his
positive actions. In your mind, it is almost as if he is wearing an
angel’s halo. Similarly, a disliked individual is assumed to possess
negative traits, with their performance subsequently devalued. In one
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experiment, Richard Stein and Carol Nemeroff demonstrated that
college students gave a halo (both positive and negative) to women,
depending upon the kinds of food they ate: All other things being
equal, once they found out that a woman ate health food, they rated
her as more feminine, more physically attractive, and more likable
than junk food eaters.
Still another dimension of the attitude heuristic is the false-con-
sensus effect. Almost all of us have a tendency to overestimate the
percentage of people who agree with us on any issue. If I believe
something, then I will leap to the conclusion that most other people
feel the same way. For example, in one experiment, Lee Ross and his
colleagues asked college students if they were willing to wear a sign
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around the campus that said “Eat at Joe’s.”Those who agreed to wear
the sign thought that most other people would too; those who de-
cided against wearing the sign estimated that few other students
would wear it. In other words, we often make the (not necessarily
true) assumption that others like what we like and do what we pre-
fer to do.