What You See is What You Get: Systematic Variability in Perceptual-Based Social Judgment

The existing literature on attitudes and social perception provides ample confirmation of the impact of physical appearance on social judgment and evaluation outcomes. The present article investigates the extent to which these robust findings are moderated by stable individual differences in the tendency to rely on external stimulus qualities in forming social impressions. Study 1 introduces the Perceptual Reliance Index (PRI) and provides psychometric data on the measure. Study 2 shows that high PRI participants make significantly different social evaluations for targets of high versus low physical attractiveness, whereas low PRI participants do not. Study 3 further extends these findings by demonstrating that within-race variations in phenotypic appearance (e.g., skin color, facial features) produce differential priming effects for high but not low PRI participants. Such systematic bias in social judgment on the basis of physical cues alone suggests the existence of a purely perceptual-based form of prejudice.