ABSTRACT
S ocial psychologists have long known that how people perceive, evaluate, and interpret the actions of others is highly dependent upon their immediate surroundings. Within the field of intergroup relations, this perspective has been the cornerstone of research aimed at understanding how structured forms of intergroup contact can lead to more positive intergroup attitudes and relations (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). However, even seemingly inconsequential aspects of the environment (e.g., weather, lighting, background music, prior moods) can have a substantial effect on social perception. In recent decades, emerging theoretical perspectives on social cognition (e.g., situated and embodied cognition approaches, Smith & Semin, 2004, 2007; feelings-as-information theory, Schwarz & Clore, 2007; affect infusion, Forgas, 1995, 2008; assimilative/accommodative processing, Bless & Fiedler, 2006; Chapters 3 and 5, this volume) have begun to highlight the role that physical environments play in shaping not only the content of cognition, but also the experiential process of thinking. Metacognitive experiences, such as the subjective ease or difficulty processing information, have been shown to have a potent effect on judgments across a wide variety of domains, from stock choices to furniture preferences (for recent reviews, see Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009; Schwarz, 2004; and Schwarz & Clore, 2007). Yet, despite growing evidence of its influence, the impact of metacognition on intergroup judgments has remained largely unexplored.
