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Social Cognition, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2016, pp. 81–96
GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

MODERATION OF FAMILIARITY-STEREOTYPING EFFECT

Moderation of the Familiarity-Stereotyping

Effect: The Role of Stereotype Fit
Teresa Garcia-Marques
ISPA–Instituto Universitário, Lisboa

Diane M. Mackie
University of California, Santa Barbara

Angela T. Maitner
American University of Sharjah

Heather M. Claypool
Miami University, Oxford OH

Research has shown that familiarity induced by prior exposure can de-
crease analytic processing and increase reliance on heuristic processing,
including the use of stereotypes (the familiarity-stereotyping effect). We hy-
pothesize that the familiarity-stereotyping effect will occur only when a ste-
reotype provides information that fits with the judgmental context. When
a stereotype and other encountered information are inconsistent with one
another, heuristic processing will be disrupted and the familiarity-stereo-
typing effect will be eliminated. To test this hypothesis, we replicated two
experiments from Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007), manipulating the
level of familiarity of information and the stereotypic fit of a suspect’s oc-
cupation to a crime context. Prior exposure to both categorical information
(Study 1) and criminal evidence (Study 2) increased stereotyping and de-
creased analytic consideration of the evidence, but only when the suspect’s
occupation was stereotypically consistent with the crime.

Imagine that you are on a jury determining a suspect’s guilt or innocence. You are
asked to consider evidence that may incriminate or vindicate the suspect. During
the trial, you see the suspect again and again and hear the suspect’s name over

This research was supported by the FCT Grant No. UID/PSI/04810/2013.

Address correspondence to Teresa Garcia-Marques, ISPA–Instituto Universitário, Rua Jardim do
Tabaco, 34, 1149-041, Lisboa, Portugal; E-mail: gmarques@ispa.pt.

© 2016 Guilford Publications, Inc.

81
82 GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

and over. You are repeatedly informed about details of the crime and about the
suspect’s habits, history, and character. Will such repeated exposure to the suspect
and to information about the suspect impact your verdict?
Based on the existing literature, the answer to this question appears to be a re-
sounding “Yes!” However, the impact of prior exposure may take several forms.
Research suggests that familiarity induced by prior exposure may lead to more
positive judgments (Zajonc, 1968; for a review, see Bornstein, 1989), may lead the
presented information to seem more truthful (see Bacon, 1979; for a review, see
Dechêne, Stahl, Hansen, & Wänke, 2010), and may generate a feeling of already
knowing what is presented (Reder & Ritter, 1992).
In addition, familiarity induced by prior exposure influences information pro-
cessing (e.g., Claypool, Mackie, & Garcia-Marques, 2015; Garcia-Marques, Mackie,
Claypool, & Garcia-Marques, 2013; Jacoby & Kelley, 1990; Johnston & Hawley, 1994,
for reviews). Reder and Ritter (1992) illustrated this effect by showing that when
math problems were repeated, participants processed the problems less effort-
fully using top-down retrieval strategies. Novel problems, in contrast, triggered
more effortful bottom-up computational strategies. Similarly, Garcia-Marques and
Mackie (2000, 2001) showed that prior exposure induced participants to rely on
top-down, non-analytic, or reproductive processes. For example, repeated per-
suasive messages were processed more superficially and less analytically than
when they were encountered for the first time (see also Claypool, Mackie, Garcia-
Marques, McIntosh, & Udall, 2004).
Evidence from the person perception domain shows that processing of a familiar
individual triggers more stereotype-based judgments and less sensitivity to indi-
viduating information (Garcia-Marques & Mackie, 2007; Smith, Miller, Maitner,
Crump, Garcia-Marques, & Mackie, 2006). These studies assume that stereotypes
are non-analytic judgmental shortcuts, or heuristics (Bodenhausen, 1990; Macrae,
Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994), whose usage can be contrasted with the careful
processing of individuating information (Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Neuberg, 1989;
Neuberg & Fiske, 1987; Smith & DeCoster, 2000). Thus, such studies show a con-
ceptually similar effect: familiarity reduces analytic information processing. Smith
and colleagues (2006), for example, showed that supraliminal re-exposure to a tar-
get photo increased occupational stereotyping of the person pictured. Similarly,
Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007) showed that repeated subliminal exposure to
a photo of an alleged suspect increased the impact of stereotypes and decreased
the impact of relevant evidence on judgments of the suspect’s guilt. Similar reli-
ance on stereotypes was found even when the evidence itself was repeated. Thus,
this familiarity-stereotyping effect reflects the fact that when information is made
familiar, a target individual tends to be processed in superficial, stereotypic ways.
These previous demonstrations of the familiarity-stereotyping effect occurred in
contexts that avoided information that might interfere with superficial processing.
For example, investigating whether participants used a stereotype versus indi-
viduating information when forming an impression of targets, Smith et al. (2006)
MODERATION OF FAMILIARITY-STEREOTYPING EFFECT 83

supplied participants with slightly counter-stereotypic individuating information

about the target. They did so to determine whether individuals carefully processed
the information—and therefore individuated the slightly counter-stereotypic in-
dividual—or missed or ignored that information, and instead used a stereotype
to inform their judgments. However the level of counter-stereotypicality used in
those studies was mild and therefore unlikely to disrupt the heuristic processing
activated by a feeling of familiarity. Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007) likewise
presented participants with a perpetrator whose occupation did not stereotypical-
ly fit the context of the crime being discussed. However, they were careful to select
a mismatching perpetrator occupation that did not elicit strong surprise in partici-
pants. Thus again, there was no strong expectancy violation of the type likely to
interfere with superficial processing (see Olson, Roese, & Zanna, 1996).
The purpose of the current work was to investigate a possible moderator of the
familiarity-stereotyping effect: namely, the presence or absence of stereotype fit
between an alleged perpetrator and a crime. Broadly, we hypothesized that, repli-
cating previous work, (1) when there is stereotype fit (i.e., when strong expectancy
violating information is absent), we will observe the typical familiarity-stereotyp-
ing effect. That is, when familiar information is present in the judgmental context,
individuals will use social category information to make judgments. However, we
expected that (2) when there was an expectancy violating lack of fit between a
stereotype and a judgmental context, that lack of fit would eliminate the signal for
heuristic processing, reducing or eliminating the familiarity-stereotyping effect.
This prediction has been suggested previously, but has never been tested. Indeed,
Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007, p. 14) argued that the familiarity-stereotyping
effect would not be expected “if the stereotype typically associated with a target is
not perceived as matching the specifics of the currently processed target.”
We describe two experiments designed to test the hypotheses that: (1) famil-
iarity will increase stereotyping, but that (2) a surprising lack of fit between the
stereotype and the judgmental context will eliminate the familiarity-stereotyping
effect. These experiments used Garcia-Marques and Mackie’s (2007) experimental
paradigm, manipulating familiarity by prior exposure to either the suspect’s occu-
pation role (Experiment 1) or to the relevant evidence (Experiment 2). In addition,
the experiments manipulated stereotype fit (see Sunnafrank & Fontes, 1983) by
varying whether the suspect’s occupation was consistent with a specific crime sce-
nario or surprisingly violated expectations associated with the criminal context.
In both experiments, participants could use stereotypic expectations about the
suspect’s occupation to make their guilt judgments, or they could engage in more
effortful processing of the evidence provided. In both studies, we predicted a fa-
miliarity-stereotyping effect, meaning that target occupation, rather than evidence,
would affect judgments when familiarity was induced. However, we expected this
effect to occur only in conditions where the target’s occupational category fit par-
ticipants’ expectancies about the crime. In contrast, when participants’ expectan-
cies were violated, we expected that familiarity would not elicit stereotyping, and
84 GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

instead participants’ judgments would reflect careful attention to detailed infor-

mation (i.e., the evidence).

Experiment 1

Participants and Design

Participants were 48 female undergraduates at the ISPA–Instituto Universitário

randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (exposure: prior exposure vs. no exposure
to occupation label) × 2 (stereotype fit: club bouncer vs. preschool teacher) × 2
(evidence type: incriminating vs. exculpatory) between-subjects factorial design.

Procedure

Participants were invited to take part in a study of people’s ability to serve as a

jury member considering a criminal case and were asked to read all the instruc-
tions and information presented in a questionnaire carefully.
Participants first read a general summary of an interview with a detective about
criminal investigations. Some of the material in this description was (or was not)
repeated later in the experiment. After stating that it was necessary to get as much
information as possible about the suspect, the detective gave some examples of the
kinds of information he looked for, including stating “it may be important to know
the kind of activities the suspect is engaged in, such as if he/she is a politician, a
priest, a skinhead, a bouncer at a club (or a preschool teacher), a militant of some
political group, a soccer fan, etc.”
Manipulation of Exposure. All participants were then presented with a “Criminal
Report” (see Garcia-Marques & Mackie, 2007). The report first described the sus-
pect in the crime as a 25-year-old male who had a particular occupational label.
In the prior exposure condition, the suspect’s specific occupation had been men-
tioned earlier by the detective. In the no exposure condition, the suspect had an
occupation that had not been previously mentioned.
Manipulation of Stereotype Fit. The report then described an assault committed
by an individual who ran away leaving the victim lying unconscious. This in-
formation about the crime (assault) was either consistent with (fit) the suspect’s
occupation or was inconsistent with it. To select a stereotype that was perceived
as fitting or not fitting the crime committed, we conducted a pilot study in which
20 participants rated how capable of violence each of 20 social categories (e.g.,
professor, priest, preschool teacher, skinhead, bouncer at a club, drug addict) were
perceived (on a 9-point scale) and how much surprise would be generated if a
member of each of these social categories was found to have committed the assault
described. From this pretest, we selected the social category that was seen as best
fitting the crime of assault and as causing the least surprise, the club bouncer (M
= 6.80 [capable of violence]; M = 1.52 [surprise]), and the category with the worst
MODERATION OF FAMILIARITY-STEREOTYPING EFFECT 85

fit and generating the most surprise, the preschool teacher (M = 1.85 [capable of
violence]; M = 5.70 [surprise]).1
Manipulation of Evidence Type. The report went on to present a mix of evidence
that was exculpatory (e.g., “There are no physical clues at the crime scene or on
the suspect that link him with the crime”) or incriminating (e.g., “The suspect was
seen leaving a coffee shop near the place of the crime, 10 minutes before its prob-
able time of occurrence”). In addition to a single neutral item, in the exculpatory
condition, four exculpatory and two incriminating items were presented, whereas
in the incriminating condition, two exculpatory and four incriminating items were
presented.
Judgments of Guilt and Manipulation Checks. Participants then made judgments
about the suspect’s likely involvement (from 0% to 100% involved, on an 11-point
scale) and guilt (from 0% to 100% guilty, on an 11-point scale) and whether he
should be detained in jail prior to trial (on an 11-point scale, from I am sure that
he does not need to be detained to I am sure that it is better to detain him). These
three items assessed perceived guilt. For manipulation checks, participants report-
ed how incriminating they perceived the evidence (on an 11-point scale, anchored
by not at all to highly incriminating) and how violent they perceived “this type of
person” to be (where 1 = not at all and 11 = highly violent).

Results and Discussion

Effectiveness of Manipulations. We conducted 2 (exposure: prior exposure vs. no

exposure) × 2 (stereotype fit: club bouncer vs. preschool teacher) × 2 (evidence
type: incriminating vs. exculpatory) ANOVAs on relevant dependent measures
to assess the effectiveness of the manipulations. Evidence provided in the excul-
patory condition was perceived as less incriminating (M = 4.01, SD = 2.46) than
evidence in the incriminating condition (M = 5.93, SD = 1.53), F(1, 40) = 7.43, p =
.009, h2 = 0.16, as intended. Club bouncers were perceived to be more violent (M =
6.75, SD = 1.61) than preschool teachers (M = 4.52, SD = 1.88), F(1, 40) = 19.12; p <
.001, h2 = 0.32, as intended. No other effects emerged.
Judgments of Guilt. Responses to the three guilt measures (Cronbach’s alpha: =
.83) were averaged (with higher numbers reflecting greater guilt) and subjected
to a 2 (exposure: prior exposure vs. no exposure) × 2 (stereotype fit: club bouncer
vs. preschool teacher) × 2 (evidence type: incriminating vs. exculpatory) ANOVA.
As expected, there was a main effect of evidence type, F(1, 40) = 17.99, p < .001, h2
= 0.31, such that guilt judgments were higher in the incriminating condition (M =
6.06, SD = 1.53) than in the exculpatory condition (M = 3.57, SD = 2.32). This result
confirmed that, in general, participants followed our instructions and analyzed
the provided evidence carefully.
No main effect of stereotype fit was found (F < 1). There was, however, a stereo-
type fit × exposure interaction, F(1, 40) = 4.89, p = .032, h2 = 0.10. Post-hoc analyses

1. The positively stereotyped target in Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007) was a priest. Results of
pretesting suggested that priests were not seen as highly capable of violence (M = 2.95) and thus as
lacking fit, just like preschool teachers (M = 1.85), but priests elicited less surprise (M = 3.75) than
preschool teachers (M = 5.70) when associated with the crime scenario.
86 GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

suggested that this occurred because the bouncer was perceived as guiltier (M =
5.76, SD = 1.31) than the preschool teacher (M = 4.60, SD = 2.42) in the prior expo-
sure condition, t(40) = 1.86, p = .068, d = 0.59, but not in the no exposure condition,
t(40) = 1.28, p = .21 (M = 5.06, SD = 1.94 for the bouncer; M = 4.90, SD = 2.79 for
the preschool teacher). This pattern of findings suggests an increased reliance on
stereotypes when the category label was previously presented.2
Our main hypothesis was, however, that there would be differential effects of
incriminating versus exculpatory evidence on guilt judgments in all conditions
except the condition in which the occupation was repeated and the occupation
stereotypically fit the crime. This prediction was captured by a specific planned
contrast associated with the three-way interaction3 that compared the effect of evi-
dence type in one experimental condition to the effect of evidence type in the other
three conditions. Following Rosenthal and Rosnow (1985), this planned contrast
was defined by weighting incriminating information with -3 and exculpatory in-
formation with +3 in the prior exposure fit (club bouncer) condition and assigning
the inverse weights (+1 for incriminating and -1 for exculpatory evidence) equally
in the other three conditions. As expected, this contrast was significant, t(40) =
2.49, p = .016, d = 0.781. Analyzing the orthogonal contrasts further, we found an
effect of evidence type in both of the no exposure conditions: preschool teacher,
t(40) = 3.56, p < .001, d = 1.26; club bouncer, t(40) = 2.39, p = 0.021, d = 0.75; overall,
t(40) = 3.99, p = .001, d = 1.26. That is, when there was no exposure and thus no
familiarity, participants made judgments about guilt using the evidence, regard-
less of the suspect’s occupation. Importantly, even when the suspect’s occupation
label had been previously presented, inducing familiarity, participants’ judgments
also reflected the evidence if the suspect’s occupation did not stereotypically fit the
crime, t(40) = 2.52, p = .015, d = 0.80. Only when the suspect’s occupational label
was previously presented and the occupation fit the crime did participants disre-
gard the evidence and instead make the guilt judgments reflective of the suspect’s
occupation, t(40) < 1 (see Figure 1).4
These results show that, when prior exposure generated familiarity in a context
with stereotype-consistent (fitting) information, perceivers were less likely to at-
tend to individuating information (evidence) and more likely to be influenced by
a stereotype when judging the target. This effect, however, was not due to prior
exposure merely increasing the accessibility of occupational information since, as
we predicted, prior exposure did not impact judgments of the target when his
occupational label did not stereotypically fit the context. Nor was the effect of
such prior exposure to increase favorability of judgments (i.e., a mere exposure
2. Although the interaction suggesting that prior exposure moderates the impact of evidence on
guilt judgments did not reach significance, F(1, 40) = 2.69, p = .108, our data replicate Garcia-Marques
and Mackie (2007) showing the effect for the club bouncer.
3. This three-way interaction itself did not reach statistical significance, F(1, 40) = 1.42, p = .241.
4. Performing follow-up analyses separately for each occupational category, we found, in the
stereotype fit (bouncer) condition, that prior exposure eliminated (t[40] < 1) the evidence effect found
in the no prior exposure condition, t(40) = 2.39, p = .021 (the exposure × evidence type interaction was
t[40] = 1.87, p = .068). Also as predicted, for the no-fit stereotype (preschool teacher) condition, the
effect of evidence type, t(40) = 4.22, p < .001, was not moderated by prior exposure (interaction: t[40]
< 1).
MODERATION OF FAMILIARITY-STEREOTYPING EFFECT 87

FIGURE 1. Guilt judgments as a function of exposure, stereotype fit, and evidence type
(Experiment 1).

effect) or to increase reliance overall on the repeated information (i.e., any type
of truth illusion effect or priming effect). Rather, as predicted, prior exposure in-
creased heuristic reliance on stereotypes (replicating previous research) but only
when the heuristic processing stemming from prior exposure was maintained by
a stereotype-crime fit. Even when it was repeated, an occupation that stereotypi-
cally mismatched the crime elicited analytic (evidence-based) judgments. In other
words, when expectation-violating information disrupted processing, the famil-
iarity-stereotyping effect disappeared.

Experiment 2

In Experiment 1, lack of stereotype fit eliminated the typical reliance on heuristic

processing that is associated with prior exposure (the familiarity-stereotyping ef-
fect). In Experiment 2, we replicated the effect by repeating something other than
the occupation category itself. In this experiment, we manipulated prior exposure
to the evidence about the case (the exculpatory or incriminating information).
Again we expected this prior exposure to increase familiarity and thus stereotyp-
ing and (ironically) to reduce the impact of the (repeated) evidence on judgments,
but only when the perpetrator stereotypically fit the crime.

Participants and Design

Participants were 95 ISPA–Instituto Universitário undergraduates (72 female)

who participated in this study as part of their course program. Participants were
88 GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

randomly distributed to the cells of the between-participants design: 2 (exposure:

prior exposure vs. no exposure to evidence) × 2 (stereotype fit: club bouncer vs.
preschool teacher) × 2 (evidence type: incriminating vs. exculpatory).

Procedure

The procedure closely followed that of Experiment 1 with the following excep-
tions. In the initial summary of the interview with the detective, the detective gave
examples of the kinds of evidence he looked for in typical investigations, provid-
ing information that could later be repeated.
Manipulation of Stereotype Fit. Participants first received the information about
the suspect, described as either a preschool teacher or a bouncer, and then im-
mediately found out about the crime. Thus, for some participants, the occupation
stereotypically fit the crime, whereas for the rest of the participants, the occupation
did not fit the crime.
Manipulations of Exposure and Evidence Type. Participants then received either
the exculpatory or incriminating evidence as described for Experiment 1. Impor-
tantly, however, in the prior exposure conditions, the evidence description closely
matched the examples that the detective had given in his initial summary (for
example, he stated, “…it is important to know whether or not a suspect is seen
leaving the scene of the crime some minutes before the crime took place” in the
interview and the evidence “the suspect was seen leaving the scene of the crime
some minutes before the crime took place” was included in the “Crime Report”),
whereas in the no exposure condition, the examples the detective gave were unre-
lated to the evidence items included in the report (e.g., “it’s important to find all
the witnesses to the crime”).
Dependent variables were the two first items of guilt described for Experiment
1. These measures were followed by the same checks of manipulations used in
Experiment 1.

Results

Checks on Manipulation Effectiveness. The manipulations were perceived as in-

tended, with incriminating evidence perceived as more incriminating (M = 4.91,
SD = 2.12) than exculpatory evidence (M = 3.67, SD = 1.89), F(1, 87) = 8.22, p = .005,
h2 = 0.086. Moreover, preschool teachers fit the crime less since they were seen as
less violent (M = 4.80, SD = 1.78) than bouncers (M = 5.59, SD = 1.83), F(1, 86) =
4.16, p = .044, h2 = 0.46. No other effects were significant.
Judgments of Guilt. Responses to the dependent measures intended to assess guilt
(r = .75) were averaged (with higher numbers reflecting greater guilt) and subject-
ed to a 2 (exposure: prior exposure vs. no exposure to evidence) × 2 (stereotype fit:
club bouncer vs. preschool teacher) × 2 (evidence type: incriminating vs. exculpa-
tory) ANOVA and specific contrasts reflecting our hypothesis.
As expected, there was a main effect of evidence type, F(1, 87) = 14.28, p < .0001,
h2 = 0.14, such that guilt judgments were higher in the incriminating condition (M
MODERATION OF FAMILIARITY-STEREOTYPING EFFECT 89

FIGURE 2. Guilt judgments as a function of  exposure, stereotype fit, and evidence type
(Experiment 2).

= 5.80, SD = 1.39) than in the exculpatory condition (M = 4.59, SD = 1.45). This re-
sult confirmed again that, in general, participants analyzed the provided evidence
carefully. This effect was not moderated by exposure (F < 1) nor by stereotype fit,
F(1, 87) = 2.58, p = .112. There was no direct effect of stereotype fit (F < 1) nor an
interaction of stereotype fit with exposure, F(1, 87) = 1.71, p = .194.
Our main hypothesis was, however, that there would be differential effects of
evidence in all conditions except when the evidence was previously exposed and
the suspect’s occupation stereotypically fit the crime. To directly test this hypothe-
sis, we conducted the same contrast as in Experiment 1.5 We contrasted judgments
made on the basis of incriminating and exculpatory evidence when the suspect fit
(i.e., was a club bouncer) in the prior exposure condition (weights incriminating:
-3; exculpatory: +3) to their reactions to evidence in all other conditions (incrimi-
nating: + 1, +1, +1; exculpatory: -1, -1, -1). Replicating Experiment 1, this contrast
was significant, t(87) = 2.12, p = .036, d = 0.455, and yielded the predicted pattern
(see Figure 2). Planned contrasts indicated that, as in Experiment 1, evidence type
mattered, with greater judgments of guilt in the incriminating than in the exculpa-
tory conditions: club bouncer, no exposure condition, t(87) = 2.27, p = .025, d = 0.48;
preschool teacher, no exposure condition, t(87) = 3.34, p = .001, d = 0.71; preschool
teacher, prior exposure condition, t(87) = 2.32, p = .022, d = 0.50, except when the
evidence was presented previously and the suspect was a bouncer (t < 1).
Thus when familiarity was induced by prior exposure (even prior exposure of
the evidence itself) we produced a familiarity-stereotyping effect, with judgments
reflecting greater reliance on a stereotype and reduced reliance on analytic pro-

5. The three-way interaction was, F(1, 87) = 3.48, p = .066, h2 = 0.04.

90 GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

cessing of the evidence, as long as the suspect’s occupation fit the crime. However,
when the stereotype was strongly inconsistent with the judgmental context, par-
ticipants’ guilt judgments no longer reflected the familiarity-stereotyping effect.

Meta-Analytic Summary

To increase the reliability of our claims, we conducted a meta-analysis to deter-

mine the magnitude and consistency of the effect sizes consistent with our hypoth-
eses. Statistical tests of the overall effect size and the homogeneity (consistency) of
those effects were based on Cohen’s d, and all calculations were aided by ESCI, a
program designed for meta-analytic statistics (Cumming, 2012).
Our empirical argument relies on a specific pattern of results: participants would
make evidence-based judgments, judging the alleged perpetrator as more guilty in
the incriminating than in the exculpatory condition, except where there was prior
exposure (of category label or evidence) accompanied by stereotype fit. We thus
conducted a meta-analysis (N = 143) to determine the magnitude and consistency
of the effect sizes representing the general predicted pattern of results, as captured
by the same planned contrasts we conducted and reported in both Experiments 1
and 2. The effect sizes (Cohen’s d) of this contrast in Experiment 1 and Experiment
2 were computed. The effect sizes were d = .781 (Experiment 1) and d = .455 (Ex-
periment 2). The overall effect size associated with this contrast was d = .558; CI:
0.207–0.906, which is significantly different from zero, z = 3.12, p = .002. Moreover,
results of both experiments were consistent, Q(1) = 0.715, p = .398.
We further investigated whether the data replicated the familiarity-stereotyping
effect found in Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007) when the occupation stereo-
typically fit the crime, but failed to do so (as we predicted) when the occupation
did not fit the crime. We calculated the effect sizes associated with the impact of
incriminating versus exculpatory evidence on guilt in each of the four conditions
for each experiment. When the suspect’s occupation fit the crime (i.e., he was club
bouncer), the evidence effect sizes were d = 0.76 and d = 0.03 in no exposure and
prior exposure conditions respectively in Experiment 1, and d = 0.48 and d = 0.02
respectively for Experiment 2. Across experiments, the overall effect size for evi-
dence in the no exposure condition, d = 0.56 (CI: 0.216–0.907), Q(1) = 0.50, p =
0.476, was significantly different from zero, z = 3.18, p = .002, but it was not in the
prior exposure condition, d = 0.023 (CI: -0.315–0.361), Q(1) = 0.007, p = .979. Thus
when the suspect’s occupation was stereotypically consistent with the crime, prior
exposure increased stereotyping and decreased reliance on evidence, replicating
Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007).
However, when the suspect’s occupation did not stereotypically fit the crime
(i.e., he was a preschool teacher), the exposure manipulation failed to produce a
familiarity-stereotyping effect, and evidence determined guilt judgments in the
exposure as well as the no exposure conditions. The overall evidence effect size in
the preschool teacher no exposure condition, d = 0.677 (CI: 0.327–1.027; d = 1.126
and d = 0.498 in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively) was significantly different from
MODERATION OF FAMILIARITY-STEREOTYPING EFFECT 91

zero, z = 3.79, p = .001. Similar effects were obtained in the prior exposure condi-
tions where the overall evidence effect size, d = 0.734 (CI: 0.384–1.084; d = 0.799 and
d = 0.717 in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively), was again significantly different
from zero, z = 4.11, p < .001. The results of all four conditions across studies where
the suspect’s occupation was pre-school teacher were consistent, Q(1) = 2.567, p =
.463.
Taken together, the two experiments provided strong evidence that familiarity
produced by prior exposure reliably and consistently dampened the impact of ex-
culpatory and incriminatory evidence when judging the guilt of the suspect whose
occupation was stereotypically consistent with the crime, but not when judging
the guilt of a suspect whose occupation was stereotypically inconsistent with the
crime.

General Discussion

The results of these two studies suggest that familiarity-stereotyping effects are
not universal, and in fact, when the activated stereotype is one that is strongly in-
consistent with the social context, perceivers disregard it, basing their judgments
on the evidence furnished. In addition, the two experiments suggest that the ef-
fect is eliminated whether the information (the crime details) that did not fit the
stereotype appears after we have induced familiarity (Experiment 1) or is con-
comitant to the induced familiarity (Experiment 2). Thus if stereotypes do not fit
the judgmental context perceivers will not use them in making their judgments,
even when other elements of the context facilitate heuristic judgments. In sum,
these experiments show that the familiarity-stereotyping effect is modulated by
other features of the processing context: the experience of encountering familiar
information increases reliance on categorical information, but only when that cat-
egorical information is not overwhelmingly inconsistent with the specific event.
The results of these studies are thus consistent with the idea that stereotype con-
tent plays an important part in whether or how stereotypes are used (Oakes, 1994;
Oakes & Turner, 1986). When activated, a stereotype generates a set of expectan-
cies (at least for processing that takes more than two seconds; Clow & Esses, 2007;
Kunda, 1999; Wegener, Clark, & Petty, 2006), which may or not be met. Informa-
tion that meets expectations is more likely to induce stereotyping, suggesting the
relevance of the experience of category fit (Fiske & Pavelchak, 1986; Neuberg &
Fiske, 1987) and of category applicability (Higgins, 1996) to the familiarity-stereo-
typing effect.
The observed effects also replicate and extend previous research showing that
feelings of familiarity influence the depth with which people process information
(Alter, Oppenheimer, Epley, & Eyre, 2007; Garcia-Marques & Mackie, 2000, 2001)
by identifying a moderator of the familiarity-stereotyping effect. However, we
have not provided direct evidence for the mechanism underlying the familiari-
ty-stereotyping effect or the reason stereotype fit moderates the effect. Our hy-
pothesis was generated with the idea that when information fits memory features
92 GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

(activating a feeling of familiarity), bottom-up processes are inhibited and pro-

cessing is governed by top-down activation (e.g., Johnston & Hawley, 1994). This
hypothesis is consistent with assumptions made by many other approaches such
as the synapse model (Higgins, 1989, 1996; Higgins & Brendl, 1995), the Source of
Activation Confusion model (Nhouyvanisvong & Reder, 1998), and the reflexive
versus reflective systems dual-process approach (Lieberman, Gaunt, Gilbert, &
Trope, 2002), all of which assume that an experience of ease arises when contex-
tual information activates similar information in memory, which in turn reduces
effortful processing of information.
Although we did not measure how participants experienced exposure to famil-
iar information, previous literature suggests that repeated information is associ-
ated with the experience of fluency (or a sense of ease) in processing and thus this
feeling in and of itself may play a key role in the findings reported here. Indeed,
previous work has suggested that manipulations of perceptual fluency are able to
show parallel effects to those that manipulate familiarity (e.g., Jacoby & White-
house, 1989; Reber & Schwarz, 1999), with perceptual fluency triggering reliance
on non-analytic processing (e.g., Alter et al., 2007; Thompson, Turner, Pennycook,
Ball, Brack, Ophir, & Ackerman, 2013; but see Meyer and colleagues, 2015). Thus,
it is plausible that inducing perceptual fluency would replicate the “familiarity”-
stereotyping effect, either because fluency is the mechanism of this effect or be-
cause it also induces heuristic processing (see Garcia-Marques et al., 2013). Either
way, encountering unexpected information may disrupt the typical fluency signal
for non-analytic processing, decreasing or eliminating the typical familiarity-ste-
reotyping effect. Future work might fruitfully explore the role fluency plays in
producing the familiarity-stereotyping effect and whether this sense of fluency is,
in fact, overwhelmed in the face of stereotype-inconsistent information.
Given that inconsistency is often accompanied by surprise, it is also possible that
either surprise is the key proximal moderator of the familiarity-stereotyping effect
or that the lack of fit or fluency in processing is itself represented by surprise (e.g.,
Teigen & Keren, 2003). Because surprise itself tends to elicit careful processing
(e.g., Petty, Fleming, Priester, & Feinstein, 2001; see also Olson et al., 1996; Stangor
& McMillan, 1992, for reviews), this seems like a plausible explanation. This pos-
sibility seems particularly worthy of investigation given that stereotype-mismatch
that did not elicit much surprise did not disrupt the familiarity-stereotyping effect
in Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007) but stereotype mismatch that did elicit sur-
prise eliminated the effect in the current experiments.
Another mechanism which could underlie the current effects is social judge-
ability (Yzerbyt, Leyens, & Corneille, 1998). Prior exposure can sometimes lead
people to confidently believe that they have sufficient evidence to make a heuristic
judgment, that the information is easily judgeable. However in previous experi-
ments, we found no evidence for this mechanism. For example, in Garcia-Marques
and Mackie (2007), participants did not feel more confident that they had suffi-
cient evidence to make judgments in the prior exposure compared with the other
conditions, and thus, it is unlikely that this is the sole explanation for the results
obtained here.
MODERATION OF FAMILIARITY-STEREOTYPING EFFECT 93

Relatedly, it is possible that the repeated information was understood as more

relevant to or diagnostic of the judgment because it had been previously evoked
by the detective (an expert), and thus individuals may have relied on it more (see
Shah & Oppenheimer, 2007). However, if individuals were using the information
repeated by the detective more, we would have found increased reliance on the
familiar detailed information (and reduced reliance on the stereotype) in Experi-
ment 2, where the repeated information was part of the evidence. Thus again,
it seems unlikely that individuals were simply giving more validity to repeated
information presented by the detective.
We believe that the effects observed here, in Smith et al. (2006), and in Garcia-
Marques and Mackie (2007) are also unlikely to result from stereotype accessibility,
as the familiarity-stereotyping effect occurred when both categorical information
(the source of the stereotype) or individuating information was repeated. If in-
creased accessibility explained the results, then we should have observed more
stereotyping when the categorical information was repeated and more attention to
individuating information when evidence was repeated. Decreased accessibility
is also an unlikely explanation (we did not see a familiarity-stereotyping effect in
the poor fit condition because the stereotype was not activated) given that we did
observe a main effect of suspect occupation on judgments of guilt in Experiment
1. Nevertheless, because the pattern of results could derive from the activation
of the bouncer stereotype alone, this is a hypothesis that is worthy of consider-
ation in future research. Finally, because familiarity induced by prior exposure did
not uniformly increase reliance on either the social category (Experiment 1) or the
provided evidence (Experiment 2), it is unlikely that the underlying effects could
result from increase liking or perceived truth.
A possible caveat to these results is the fact that the two occupations chosen dif-
fered not only in their incongruence with the crime but also in valence—that is,
people may hold more positive stereotypes of preschool teachers than club bounc-
ers. Thus, perhaps one might argue (based on the current findings) that the famil-
iarity-stereotyping effect is eliminated when the perpetrator is positively viewed
(i.e., is a preschool teacher or some other positively stereotyped category member).
However, Garcia-Marques and Mackie (2007) found familiarity-stereotyping ef-
fects when a priest (a positively valenced occupational category) was associated
with a crime, and thus we believe that valence alone is unlikely to explain the lack
of familiarity effects on stereotyping when the suspect was a preschool teacher.
However, because previous evidence suggests that the valence of the stimuli (e.g.,
Smith, Cacioppo, Larsen, & Chartrand, 2003) or mood induced by that valence
(e.g., Mackie & Worth, 1991) is able to moderate processing, future studies should
further investigate the role of valence in moderating the familiarity-stereotyping
effect.
In addition to showing a boundary condition of the familiarity-stereotyping ef-
fect, this work suggests that human cognitive systems are highly adaptable. Famil-
iarity only promotes the use of stereotypes that fit the processing context. When
stereotypes are inconsistent with the judgmental context, individuals attend more
to the details of the information presented. We believe that our data provide a
94 GARCIA-MARQUES ET AL.

small but important step, suggesting that familiarity’s (and possibly fluency’s)
impact on information processing is nuanced and complex. A judgment encom-
passes different cognitive processes as a person moves from encoding information
to generating a response. Each of these processes may trigger signals that facilitate
or inhibit different kinds of processing. An initial experience of familiarity may
motivate heuristic processing, which can then be disrupted by the experience as-
sociated with a subsequent process.
On a practical note, our studies suggest that juries, like the rest of us, are likely
to be influenced by stereotypes rather than evidence when a suspect’s stereotypic
characteristics seem to fit the crime. This is especially the case in situations that
feature repeated exposure to people or information, a strategy likely employed by
prosecutors and defense alike. Suspects whose association with a particular crime
is surprising are not subject to such biases. Therefore, these studies show another
way in which stereotypes can introduce bias into legal decision making, as well as
ways those biases can be undermined.

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