Prior experience/information always trumps no experience/information. In fact, it does not. Your sample of experience may not be representative. This is comp

Prior experience/information always trumps no experience/information. In fact, it does not. Your sample of experience may not be representative. This is complicated by various cognitive biases, including confirmation bias as mentioned downthread. UPDATE: Let me give an example relating to the original post. Two people, persons A and B, see a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Person A knows nothing about hitchhikers. Person B has seen several sensational news stories about rapist|murderer hitchhikers. In this case, person A will have to rely on their more general knowledge/opinion of people, and will, in my opinion, be more likely to give the hitchhiker a fair chance.