This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Holton, B. Articles by Pyszczynski, T. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Holton, B. Articles by Pyszczynski, T. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Biased Information Search in the Interpersonal Domain

Earlham College

Tom Pyszczynski

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

An experiment was conducted to investigate the conditions under which people selectively seek information about other persons to provide an informational basis for desired positive or negative evaluations of those persons. It was hypothesized that active involvement in an interaction with another person is prerequisite to the occurrence of such biased search. Subjects either received or observed another subject receive a positive or negative evaluation from a confederate. After being led to expect that available information about the confederate was either mostly positive or mostly negative, their interest in acquiring such information was assessed. Subjects who were the recipients of the confederate's praise sought more information when they expected it to be positive than when they expected it to be negative; recipients of the confederate's criticism sought more information when they expected it to be negative than when they expected it to be positive. No hint of such biased search tendencies were found among observer subjects.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				R. Kerschreiter, S. Schulz-Hardt, A. Mojzisch, and D. Frey Biased Information Search in Homogeneous Groups: Confidence as a Moderator for the Effect of Anticipated Task Requirements Pers Soc Psychol Bull, May 1, 2008; 34(5): 679 - 691. [Abstract] [PDF]

				E. Jonas, S. Schulz-Hardt, and D. Frey Giving Advice or Making Decisions in Someone Else's Place: The Influence of Impression, Defense, and Accuracy Motivation on the Search for New Information Pers Soc Psychol Bull, July 1, 2005; 31(7): 977 - 990. [Abstract] [PDF]

				P. H. Ditto, G. D. Munro, A. M. Apanovitch, J. A. Scepansky, and L. K. Lockhart Spontaneous Skepticism: The Interplay of Motivation and Expectation in Responses to Favorable and Unfavorable Medical Diagnoses Pers Soc Psychol Bull, September 1, 2003; 29(9): 1120 - 1132. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. R. Lundgren and R. Prislin Motivated Cognitive Processing and Attitude Change Pers Soc Psychol Bull, July 1, 1998; 24(7): 715 - 726. [Abstract]