Use of categorical and individuating information in making inferences about personality

In three experiments, we explored the effects of categorical information (stereotypes) and case information (traits or behaviors) on judgments about an individual's characteristics. Subjects judged a target person's aggressiveness on the basis of a description containing both a broad social category and specific case information. In Experiment 1, the description included (a) a category that was either weakly or strongly related to aggressiveness and (b) a behavior that was unrelated, moderately diagnostic, or highly diagnostic of aggressiveness. Trait inferences were a function of both the stereotypic and the behavioral information. A single behavior was not sufficient to override the category effect. In Experiment 2, temporally consistent behaviors were presented as case information; under these conditions, category information had no effect on trait judgements. This finding was extended in Experiment 3 in which subjects predicted behaviors on the basis of the target person's sex and a moderately diagnostic trait.