People constantly make inferences about others' beliefs and preferences. People can draw on various sources of information to make these inferences, including stereotypes, self‐knowledge, and target‐specific knowledge. What leads people to use each of these sources of information over others? The current study examined factors that influence the use of these sources of information, focusing on three interpersonal dimensions – the extent to which people feel (a) familiar with, (b) similar to, or (c) like the target. In four studies (total N = 1136), participants inferred the beliefs and preferences of others – celebrities (Studies 1a–1b), constructed fictional targets (Study 2), and actual acquaintances (Study 3). Participants also rated familiarity with, similarity to, and liking of the target. Analyses assessed the use of each source of information by comparing inferences with information provided by those sources. Familiarity was associated with greater use of target‐specific knowledge, while similarity and liking were associated with self‐knowledge. Low similarity and high liking were associated with increased use of stereotypes. We discuss the implication of these findings and their applicability to unique cases, including inferences about celebrities, public figures, and positively stereotyped groups, in which familiarity, similarity, and liking do not perfectly align.

中文翻译：

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理清相似性、熟悉度和喜好对社会推理策略的影响


人们不断地推断他人的信仰和偏好。人们可以利用各种信息来源来做出这些推论，包括刻板印象、自我知识和特定目标的知识。是什么导致人们使用这些信息来源而不是其他信息来源？当前的研究考察了影响这些信息来源的使用的因素，重点关注三个人际维度——人们感觉（a）熟悉、（b）相似或（c）喜欢目标的程度。在四项研究中（总计氮= 1136），参与者推断了其他人的信仰和偏好——名人（研究 1a-1b）、虚构的目标（研究 2）和实际的熟人（研究 3）。参与者还对目标的熟悉度、相似度和喜欢程度进行了评分。分析通过将推论与这些来源提供的信息进行比较来评估每个信息来源的使用情况。熟悉度与更多地使用目标特定知识相关，而相似性和喜好与自我了解相关。低相似性和高喜好与刻板印象的使用增加相关。我们讨论了这些发现的含义及其对独特案例的适用性，包括对名人、公众人物和积极刻板印象群体的推论，在这些群体中，熟悉度、相似性和喜好并不完全一致。