From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpreconceptionpre‧con‧cep‧tion /ˌpriːkənˈsepʃən/ noun [countable] IDEAa belief or opinion that you have already formed before you know the actual facts, and that may be wrongpreconception about/of I had the same preconceptions about life in South Africa that many people have.
Examples from the Corpus
preconception• Edelstein challenges any preconceptions one might have of what a New Jersey steel dispatcher should look like.• Everyone has certain preconceptions of what a drug addict is.• There were no thoughts in his mind, no preconceptions, only the demand for information.• But with the new noise come all the old preconceptions and problems of how women present themselves.• I advise anyone to resist preconceptions.• In this era of funding cutbacks and academic brain drains, one must suspend preconceptions.• Once again it was a case of letting their preconceptions about the world get in the way.• They have this preconception of a gun store owner.had ... preconceptions• Fara had no preconceptions about child care and simply did as she was told. 