The role of prior knowledge and missing information in multiattribute evaluation

Abstract

Complete information about the features of people, objects, or issues that are being judged is not always present or available. Our study suggests that often perceivers do not recognize the absence of relevant information in forming attitudinal judgments. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the extremity and degree of confidence in judgment are not always affected by missing information. Experiment 2 demonstrates that the extremity of judgment is not always affected by the amount of information presented. The evaluations of individuals highly knowledgeable about the target object were much more likely to be influenced by omissions and by set size relative to the evaluations of less knowledgeable subjects. These findings suggest that sensitivity to missing information increases with content-specific knowledge.