Kruglanski, A. W., & Freund, T. (1983). The freezing and un-freezing of lay
inferences: Effects on impressional primacy, ethnic stereotyping and numerical
anchoring. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 448-468.
Three experiments, with 200 high school students and 144 female teacher trainees of Ashkenazi or Sephardi origin, tested the hypothesis that primacy effects, ethnic stereotyping, and numerical anchoring all represent "epistemic freezing," in which the lay-knower becomes less aware of plausible alternative hypotheses and/or inconsistent bits of evidence competing with a given judgment. It was hypothesized that epistemic freezing would increase with an increase in time pressure on the Ss to make a judgment and decrease with the Ss' fear that their judgment would be evaluated and possibly be in error. Accordingly, it was predicted that primacy effects, ethnic stereotyping, and anchoring phenomena would increase in magnitude with an increase in time pressure and decrease in magnitude with an increase in evaluation apprehension. Finally, the time-pressure variations were expected to have greater impact on freezing when the evaluation apprehension is high as opposed to low.
