MOTIVATED PERSON PERCEPTION - CONSTRUCTING JUSTIFICATIONS FOR DESIRED BELIEFS

We propose that people motivated to hold particular beliefs about another person attempt to construct justifications for these desired beliefs. In so doing, they construct general beliefs from which the desired ones may be inferred. In Study 1 subjects motivated to see a target as high or low in ability (because he was to be their partner or opponent in an upcoming game) differed as expected in their beliefs about the target and also differed in their general beliefs about the ability of the target's peers and about the causal determinants of performance at a task in which the target had been observed. In Study 2 subjects motivated to see a member of a stigmatized group, schizophrenics, positively (because they expected to interact with him) expressed more positive stereotypes of that group than less motivated subjects (who expected only to observe such an interaction). In both studies the differing general beliefs may have been constructed so as to justify different desired beliefs about the targets. © 1992.