CONVERSATIONAL CONVENTIONS, ORDER OF INFORMATION ACQUISITION, AND THE EFFECT OF BASE RATES AND INDIVIDUATING INFORMATION ON SOCIAL JUDGMENTS

Numerous studies have shown that people underuse base-rate information in making social judgments and rely instead almost exclusively on individuating information. Seven studies reported here demonstrate that this occurred partly because most past studies gave subjects base-rate information before giving them individuating information. A recency effect in the use of base-rate and individuating information is demonstrated using a set of reasoning problems of varying character. The recency effect is shown to be the result of subjects' inferences (based on conversational conventions) that the experimenter believes that subjects should rely most on the piece of information presented last. Additional evidence discredits the hypothesis that the recency effect is due to heightened availability of more recently acquired information in memory.