Stereotypes Flashcards
What are they, why do we have them, how are they structured, how do they influence us, how are they maintained and shared, and how do they influence those being stereotyped?
What is the definition of stereotypes according to APA?
Generalised beliefs about or expectations from members of a group; not necessarily fixed or accurate; category-based beliefs applied to individuals
Why do we form stereotypes?
Because they are schemas; categorisation increases efficiency. There could also be a motivational purpose, to feel positive about own group vs others (SIT)
If the cognitive efficiency theory of stereotypes is true, what should happen?
People should fall back on stereotypes as sources of information when low in energy
What did Bodenhausen (1990) find in their study on stereotyping and limited resources?
Participants showed a greater reliance on stereotypes when cognitive resources were scarce (more likely to find guilty when tired)
Describe Bodenhausen’s (1990) study method
Participants presented with ambiguous information about a legal trial that drew on stereotypes to suggest defendant’s guilt; morning vs evening people tested when alert vs tired; measure ratings of guilt
What model does Fiske et al. (2002) propose to explain stereotypes?
Stereotype Content Model; stereotypes vary on 2 dimensions, warmth and competence
What did Fiske et al. (2002) propose were the 4 types of stereotypes that correspond to the combinations of low/high warmth/competence?
Envy, admiration, contempt and paternalism
Stereotypes; what are they?
APA defines stereotypes as: generalised beliefs about or expectations from members of a group
* affect our behaviour, thus shape our social world
* not necessarily fixed or accurate
* category-based beliefs applied to individuals
Stereotypes are the cognitive component of attitudes towards social groups
Stereotypes as schemas:
* acting as ‘cognitive misers’ to conserve cognitive resources, so use shortcuts (e.g. schemas)
* motivational purpose for negative stereotyping; feeling more positive about own social group
if true, should fall back on stereotypes when low in energy
> Bodenhausen (1990) - presented ambiguous information about legal case that drew on stereotypes to suggest guilt; ‘morning’ vs ‘evening’ people tested morning or evening; when tired, more likely to give guilty verdict
Fiske et al. (2002) - Stereotype Content Model
Stereotypes contain 2 dimensions; warmth and competence; and fall into one of 4 categories
* envy
* admiration
* contempt
* paternalism
Costs of ‘Positive’ Stereotypes
Deustch et al. (1987)
asked participants to rate warmth, happiness, carefreeness, relaxedness of verbal description accompanied by
* no photo
* smiling photo
* non-smiling photo
found that
* non-smiling men rated lower than no photo
* non-smiling women rated significantly more negatively than no photo
* non-smiling women rated significantly more negatively than non-smiling men - because stereotyped as warm/smiling, so when stereotype is not met, evaluated more negatively (penalised) for disconfirming expectations
Stereotypes influencing behaviour (social information processing)
Cognitive Processes
* where attention is directed; attend more to stereotype-consistent information
* interpretation of information; interpret ambiguous information as consistent with stereotypes
* memory; stereotype-consistent information is recalled more successfully
* information gathering; ask questions to confirm our stereotypes/beliefs
Snyder and Swann (1978) - information gathering
* participant interviewers led to believe interviewee introverted vs extroverted
* selected questions to ask from a prepared list
* chose questions more likely to confirm expectations (introverted vs extroverted)
Stereotype transmission
Lyons and Kashima (2001)
* broken telephone type procedure
* balance of stereotype consistent and inconsistent information
* down the chain - stereotype-inconsistent information disappears whereas consistent informtion remains intact
* shows shared nature of stereotypes; if different, would counter each other down the chain
Effect due to:
* cognitive processes
* social processes; desire to find common ground with others, so share information we believe will be expected
Linguistic Intergroup Bias (LIB)
Linguistic abstraction
linguistic category model (Semin & Fielder, 1988)
descriptive action verb -> interpretive action verb -> state verb -> adjective
(becomes more dispositional)
Linguistic Intergroup Bias (Maas et al., 1989)
horse-racing competition; supporters of competing teams describing cartoon scenes (desirable vs undesirable, ingroup vs outgroup actors)
more abstract language used for positive ingroup and negative outgroup behaviour
increased level of abstraction perceived as more informative/dispositional inference and more likey to be repeated in the future
Stereotype Threat
when people believe they may be judged according to negative stereotypes and thus inadvertently act in a way that confirms the negative stereotype - e.g. women and maths
Steele and Aronson (1995) - performance on intellectual ability test among Black and White participants, ethnicity salient vs not salient
* asking for demographic information vs not (manipulating salience)
* found black participants lower performance when salient
* while participants higher performance when salient
Spencer et al. (1999) - male and female of same maths ability, test described as being diagnostic of gender differences in maths or not - when gender differences salient, men performed higher and women performed lower
Prevention of Stereotype Threat
Can be prevented by:
* affirming self in another way
* distancing from aspects of stereotype incompatible with performance
* transforming negative aspects into positive aspects
Aronson et al. (2002) - growth vs fixed mindset when writing an encouraging letter to struggling student
* letter + growth midnset information lead to higher short-term and long-term effects and higher GPA (despite some stereotype threat)
