Recent findings show that it is possible in some cases to robustly and durably change implicit impressions of novel individuals. This work presents a challenge to long-standing theoretical assumptions about implicit impressions, and raises new research directions for changing and reducing implicit bias toward outgroups. Namely, implicit impressions of newly encountered individuals and groups are more amenable to robust change and updating than previously assumed, and some of the lessons from this work point to when and how we might try to change implicit bias toward well-known and familiar stigmatized groups and individuals.

The threefold purpose of this initial chapter is to provide a review of the historical origins and the methodological beauty of sampling approaches to judgment and decision-making, to illuminate the most prominent recent developments, and to provide a preview of all chapters included in this volume. Accordingly, the chapter is organized into three parts. The historical review in the first part highlights the progress from purely intra-psychic to cognitive-ecological perspectives on adaptive cognition, conceived as a genuine interaction between environmental constraints and adaptive agents’ sampling strategies. The review of novel trends in the second part testifies to the fertility of sampling approaches and the impressive amount of progress it has inspired in terms of functional-level applications in various areas, but also in terms of mechanistic and computational modeling. A preview of all 22 chapters of the present volume in the final part is organized into six sections, covering the full spectrum of these innovative developments in rationality research during the last 15 years.