Sticky Priors: The Perseverance of Identity Effects on Judgment

Abstract

This research examines the perseverance of identity-based judgments by exploring the effectiveness of various corrective procedures that are intended to neutralize identity effects on judgment. The authors explore these effects in a series of studies that involve different kinds of identities (e.g., parent, teenager, businessperson, environmentalist) linked to different objects and issues (e.g., Internet censorship, pollution credits, electronic books). Moreover, they test the effectiveness of various corrective procedures, including feature-based analysis, counterfactual reasoning, counteridentification, and social influence. The authors find that identity-driven thinking leads to judgment that resists change, that is, a procedural bias or “sticky prior” in favor of an initial identity-based judgment. The findings attest to both the power of identity and the efficacy of analytic and nonanalytic corrective techniques.