How Judgments Change Following Comparison of Current and Prior Information

Abstract

Although much observed judgment change is superficial and occurs without considering prior information, other forms of change also occur. Comparison between prior and new information about an issue may trigger change by influencing either or both the perceived strength and direction of the new information. In four experiments, participants formed and reported initial judgments of a policy based on favorable written information about it. Later, these participants read a second passage containing strong favorable or unfavorable information on the policy. Compared to control conditions, subtle and direct prompts to compare the initial and new information led to more judgment change in the direction of a second passage perceived to be strong. Mediation analyses indicated that comparison yielded greater perceived strength of the second passage, which in turn correlated positively with judgment change. Moreover, self-reports of comparison mediated the judgment change resulting from comparison prompts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was facilitated by grants from the National Institutes of Health (K02-MH01861 and R01-NR08325). We thank Joshua Leeper and Wei Wang for assistance with data collection, and members of the Social Action Lab at the University of Florida for suggestions.

Notes

¹The statistical significance of reported effects found with analysis of variance models using raw change scores as the dependent variable (posttest minus pretest) was not meaningfully changed when analysis of covariance models (dependent variable = posttest; covariate = pretest) were used to detect change.

²Note that this covariance analysis is identical to a multiple regression approach to moderation.