In the present work, we set out to assess whether and how much people learn in response to their stereotypic assumptions being confirmed, being disconfirmed, or remaining untested. In Study 1, participants made a series of judgments that could be influenced by stereotypes and received feedback that confirmed stereotypes the majority of the time, feedback that disconfirmed stereotypes the majority of the time, or no feedback on their judgments. Replicating past work on confirmation bias, patterns in the conditions with feedback indicated that pieces of stereotype-confirming evidence exerted more influence than stereotype-disconfirming evidence. Participants in the Stereotype-Confirming condition stereotyped more over time, but rates of stereotyping for participants in the Stereotype-Disconfirming condition remained unchanged. Participants who received no feedback, and thus no evidence, stereotyped more over time, indicating that, matching our core hypothesis, they learned from their own untested assumptions. Study 2 provided a direct replication of Study 1. In Study 3, we extended our assessment to memory. Participants made judgments and received a mix of confirmatory, disconfirmatory, and no feedback and were subsequently asked to remember the feedback they received on each trial, if any. Memory tests for the no feedback trials revealed that participants often misremembered that their untested assumptions were confirmed. Supplementing null hypothesis significance testing, Bayes Factor analyses indicated the data in Studies 1, 2, and 3 provided moderate-to-extreme evidence in favor of our hypotheses. Discussion focuses on the challenges these learning patterns create for efforts to reduce stereotyping.

在目前的工作中，我们着手评估人们是否以及有多少学习是为了应对他们的刻板假设被证实、被否定或未经检验。在研究1中，参与者做出了一系列可能受到刻板印象影响的判断，并收到了大多数时间证实刻板印象的反馈、大多数时间否定刻板印象的反馈，或者没有关于他们的判断的反馈。重复过去关于确认偏差的研究，反馈条件下的模式表明，证实刻板印象的证据比否定刻板印象的证据产生更大的影响。随着时间的推移，处于刻板印象确认条件下的参与者的刻板印象越来越多，但处于刻板印象不确认条件下的参与者的刻板印象率保持不变。没有收到反馈，因此没有证据的参与者，随着时间的推移，会形成更多的刻板印象，这表明，与我们的核心假设相符，他们从自己未经检验的假设中学到了东西。研究 2 直接复制了研究 1。在研究 3 中，我们将评估扩展到记忆。参与者做出判断，并收到确认、否定和无反馈的混合体，随后被要求记住他们在每次试验中收到的反馈（如果有）。无反馈试验的记忆测试显示，参与者经常错误地记得他们未经检验的假设得到了证实。作为零假设显着性检验的补充，贝叶斯因子分析表明研究 1、2 和 3 中的数据提供了支持我们假设的中等到极端证据。讨论的重点是这些学习模式为减少刻板印象的努力带来的挑战。