That is exactly what should happen, but I suspect that in real life it doesn’t, largely because of anchoring and adjustment.
Suppose I know the average intelligence of a member of Group A is 115, and the average intelligence of a member of Group B is 85. After meeting and having a long, involved conversation with a specific member of either group, I should probably toss out my knowledge of the average intelligence of their group and evaluate them based on the (much more pertinent) information I have gained from the conversation. But if I behave like most people do, I won’t do that. Instead, I’ll adjust my estimate from the original estimate supplied by the group average. Thus, my estimate of the intelligence of a particular individual from Group A will still be very different than my estimate of the intelligence of a particular individual from Group B with the same actual intelligence even after I have had a conversation (or two, or three) with both of them. How many conversations does it take for my estimates to converge? Do my estimates ever converge?
After meeting and having a long, involved conversation with a specific member of either group, I should probably toss out my knowledge of the average intelligence of their group and evaluate them based on the (much more pertinent) information I have gained from the conversation.
If your goal is to accurately judge intelligence this may not be a good approach. Universities moved away from basing admissions decisions primarily on interviews and towards emphasizing test scores and grades because ‘long, involved conversation’ tends to result in more unconscious bias than simpler, more objective measures when it comes to judging intelligence (at least as it correlates with academic achievement).
Unless you have strong reason to believe that all the unconscious biases that come into play in face to face conversation are likely to be just about right to balance out any biases based on preconceptions of particular groups you are just replacing one source of bias (preconceived stereotypes based on group membership) with another (responses to biasing factors in face to face conversation such as physical attractiveness, accent, shared interests, body language, etc.)
That is exactly what should happen, but I suspect that in real life it doesn’t, largely because of anchoring and adjustment.
Suppose I know the average intelligence of a member of Group A is 115, and the average intelligence of a member of Group B is 85. After meeting and having a long, involved conversation with a specific member of either group, I should probably toss out my knowledge of the average intelligence of their group and evaluate them based on the (much more pertinent) information I have gained from the conversation. But if I behave like most people do, I won’t do that. Instead, I’ll adjust my estimate from the original estimate supplied by the group average. Thus, my estimate of the intelligence of a particular individual from Group A will still be very different than my estimate of the intelligence of a particular individual from Group B with the same actual intelligence even after I have had a conversation (or two, or three) with both of them. How many conversations does it take for my estimates to converge? Do my estimates ever converge?
If your goal is to accurately judge intelligence this may not be a good approach. Universities moved away from basing admissions decisions primarily on interviews and towards emphasizing test scores and grades because ‘long, involved conversation’ tends to result in more unconscious bias than simpler, more objective measures when it comes to judging intelligence (at least as it correlates with academic achievement).
Unless you have strong reason to believe that all the unconscious biases that come into play in face to face conversation are likely to be just about right to balance out any biases based on preconceptions of particular groups you are just replacing one source of bias (preconceived stereotypes based on group membership) with another (responses to biasing factors in face to face conversation such as physical attractiveness, accent, shared interests, body language, etc.)