Shifting standards and the inference of incompetence: effects of formal and informal evaluation tools.

The authors distinguish between minimum and confirmatory standards of incompetence and hypothesize that for groups stereotyped as relatively competent (or deficient in incompetence), minimum standards of incompetence are lower (suspicion of incompetence is triggered sooner) but confirmatory standards are higher, relative to groups stereotyped as relatively incompetent. An initial study demonstrated this evidentiary pattern for male versus female targets. In Studies 2 and 3, participants were exposed to a poor-performing male or female (Study 2) or Black or White male (Study 3) trainee and were asked to record "notable" behaviors in either their "informal notes" (instantiating a minimum standard) or a "formal performance log" (instantiating a confirmatory standard).

Laying it on thin: analogical cue frequency in the manipulation of choice.

Persuasive analogies consist of linguistic cues that invite audiences to represent a problem in terms of an analog and to make choices compatible with this manipulated representation. The authors explore how the frequency of linguistic cues moderates analogical bias in choice behavior. Participants read versions of a managerial decision scenario differing in the number of sports (e.