Abstract

Previous research indicated that the more intra-attitude variation of judges, the less regressed its judgments of other's belief statements. The intra-attitude variation was determined by individual's expected values to the beliefs obtained from attitude object. Then this study assumed that the more judge's expected value of other's belief statement, the less regressed the judgment of that statement. To test this assumption, subjects were asked to rate other's belief statements consisted of personality traits of attitude abject "Japanese". Twenty-four belief statements were classified into three levels of its expected values to the attitude object. Sixty-six subjects were equally divided into two conditions-Japanese rating condition and general others rating condition. The former was required to judge each of stimulus person characterized by belief statements under the context of Japanese, and the latter under the context of general others. The results were as follows: First, under the Japanese rating condition, the regression of judgments was appeared with judge's attitude as an anchor, but not under the general others rating condition. Second, the more increased the inconsistency between other's belief statement and judge's attitude, the more regressed its judgment of that belief statement. Third, the more associative strength of belief statement with attitude object, the less regressed its judgment of that belief statement. These results were discussed as supporting the assumption of this study.