Is It Possible to Not Judge A Book by Its Cover?
It’s an age-old aphorism preached to us by our parents, teachers, and coaches – Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover. The lesson has manifested itself in a number of ways throughout history: Shakespeare said that all that glitters is not gold; MLK told us to judge a person not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character; and Jack Handy quipped that before we criticize someone we should walk a mile in their shoes, that way when criticize them we will be a mile away and have a new pair of shoes. An important lesson no doubt, and it rings true throughout a number of mediums. When it comes to judging people, information, and art it’s crucial that we leave our biases behind and assess things objectivity.
The question is: It this really possible?
We what to think so, but empirical data paints a different picture.
Consider two studies done by researcher Frederic Brochet. In one, Brochet gathered 57 expert wine tasters and asked them to judge a white wine and a red wine. Unbeknown to the tasters, the red wine was actually a dyed version of the exact same white wine. How did this affect their evaluations? Even though both wines were identical, except for the color, the tasters described the red wine as having “jamminess,” and being like “crushed red fruit.” No one noticed the red wine was actually a white wine.
The second study, which also involved a group of expert wine tasters, was worse. Brochet took an average Bordeaux wine and served it out of two different bottles, one with an expensive label and one with a cheap label. Again, the “experts” didn’t seem to catch on to the foolery. Even though they were tasting the same wine, they tended to rate the wine from the “expensive” bottle higher than the wine from the “cheap” bottle.
Similar tests have been carried out over the years with similar results (my favorite is one that shows how preschoolers prefer carrots twice as much when they come from a McDonalds bag as opposed to plain wrapping). And as many advertisers would tell you such findings are anything but novel. One look at how De Beers got an entire society to buy diamonds for engagement rings, or how Marlboro got millions to think that smoking was a good thing should convince you of this.
Sadly, we tend to judge people in the same ways we judge products – shallowly and with little information.
For example, back in the early 1980s psychologists John Darley and Paget Gross showed a video of a girl, ‘Hannah’ to two different groups, one who saw her in an affluent neighborhood and the other who saw her in a poor neighborhood. Then, Darley and Gross asked both groups to assess her academic ability as they watched a video of her taking a test in school. Darley and Gross found that the group that watched Hannah in an affluent neighborhood described her as having above average academic ability whereas the group that watched her in a poor neighborhood described her as having below average academic ability, even though both saw the same tape of her testing.
In a complementary study, researchers told elementary school teachers that a group of their students performed in the top 20% of a test meant to identify bright individuals. In reality though, the test was phony and the students were randomly selected. A year later, they found that the children who scored in the top 20% of the “test” outperformed their peers by 10 to 15 IQ points. They concluded that the teachers, who didn’t realize that the test was a fake, pushed these students more with the impression that they were harvesting unseen talent. This study reinforces the idea that we are easy swayed by unsubstantiated descriptions.
These examples are brief and cover a wide spectrum but the point remains: while we like to believe that we evaluate things like Mister Spock, the reality is that even the smallest elements manipulate our world views. Given how susceptible we are to fancy marketing and spurious labels placed on people it seems down right impossible to not judge a book by its cover. Sometimes this isn’t consequential, as was the case in the wine experiments, but other times, as the Hannah example demonstrates, this greatly dictates how we judge other people.
Darley, J., & Gross, P. (1983). A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44 (1), 20-33 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.44.1.20
Wansink, B., Payne, C., & North, J. (2007). Fine as North Dakota wine: Sensory expectations and the intake of companion foods Physiology & Behavior, 90 (5), 712-716 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.12.010
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom The Urban Review, 3 (1), 16-20 DOI: 10.1007/BF02322211
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Yet the believe in free will is one of the deepest dogma of our times.
Ah yes – good point, I didn’t think about that. I think these studies would be problematic for someone who is deeply committed to free will.
Being committed to free will assumes that we “evaluate things like Doctor Spock”.
By the way I was thinking about Terror Management yesterday. The average bail a judge decides for prostitutes is $50. If the judge thinks about death before establishing the bail, the average goes up to $455.
Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., et al. (1989). “Evidence For Terror Management Theory: I. The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Violate or Uphold Cultural Values.” 57(4) Journal of personality and social psychology 681-690
Not sure what you mean when you say that being committed to free will assumes that we evaluate things like Doctor Spock. Seems to me that you can be committed to free will and not assume that we evaluate things like Doctor Spock.
And I appreciate that study. I know of another one (can’t think of the name) which showed that bail postings are greatly influenced by what time of the day it is.
It seams to me that the expensive label makes the decision for you. Therefore you don’t have free will. Multiply that with all this kind of influences one is exposed to every moment. And if you drink the wine your brain already functions differently and your body transformed into a different person that thinks differently.
by the way, if you remember the research about the influence of the time of the day on the bail, please let me know.
With you on the Freewill point – indeed. And I will keep searching for that research.
What does Dr. Benjamin Spock have to do with anything? I assume you mean Mr. Spock from Star Trek.
Spock assess things perfectly objective. He is a sort of emotionless robot. If we were Spock, wine labels wouldn’t affect our judgment of wine.
Interesting article but I think you mean ‘Mister Spock’ from Star Trek.
Doctor Spock was a paedatrician
Ha, I didn’t realize that. Thanks for pointing that out! Needless to say, I watched Star Wars.
You could have used Data as example, who’s even more rational than Spock.
Hi,
I have found the info about the correlation between the breaks and the parole.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/04/11/justice-is-served-but-more-so-after-lunch-how-food-breaks-sway-the-decisions-of-judges/
This is great! I feel stupid though, I remember reading that a few months back… I should’ve remembered. Thanks for the find. I may use that for a post in the future.
I built a DG system in 1978 for a while I was the only kid in our high scoohl with a computer. Added phidecks after about a year of fun with audio cassettes. I learned a LOT from it (got CP/M running on it, using an Atari 800 floppy disk drive for storage, and got it hooked up to the Arpanet using a terminal emulator I wrote).I think it would still work, if I replaced the foam on the keyboard. I doubt there are any 300 baud BBS systems to dial into any more, though, much less an Arpanet TAC
4SOCA2 bprvevifpyds
I have written a piece on other influences on the verdict, such as age, gender, race, political orientation of the judge, of the appointing officials or of the reappointing officials. But it is in Dutch, some exotic language from Europe.
Here’s another good one. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&ref=magazine
They suppose that fatigue is the cause. But there might be other factor as well. The judge is more lenient after having a meal and during that time the blood get’s redirected from brain to the digestion. Thus the judge might fall for the fallacies of the defence attorney.
Unfortunately sad but true. it would be much kinder, gentler, more understanding world if we were capable of unbiased judgment of both things and people.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/does-music-make-wine-taste-better/
Remarkable things here. I am very glad to look your article. Thanks so much and I am taking a look ahead to contact you. Will you kindly drop me a mail?
Yes.
If for a reason or multitude of reason the cover is unknown. Being blind for instance,
“…white wine and a red wine…”
Real world evidence of ‘Relativity’.
It is impossible to separate ones beliefs from the reality one experiences. Ones beliefs about reality form it. Ones ideas about what is possible and what is impossible are reflected in all areas. It is however possible to alter the level of consciousness and thus altering beliefs and the reality which one experiences.
As an example the ‘Twin Paradox’ – A. Einstein. By substituting the persons known as ‘The Twins’, with persons known as ‘Mother and her own child’. And having the mother being the person who travels with the rocket. Reality, at a certain point, which is mathematically calculable, will manifest, that the mother will be ‘younger than’ her own child and the child will ‘older than’ its own mother.
Time and thus also history, is relative, as everything is relative. It is though, a common held belief; humans, for one, ‘grow older’. And as this belief is perceived as being true, that is the reality that is experienced.
This experience though, is a possibility, not a necessity!