Stereotypes Flashcards
Social categorisation
The process of assigning people to groups based on social categories such as age, sex, race etc.
Why do we categorise thing in a social context?
It simplifies an otherwise complex world to a level we can deal with
Social categories are more informative for person perception (Stangor et al. 1992)
Rosch (1978)
We think of categories having ‘fuzzy’ boundaries and revolving around a central prototype
What are the most typical features of a category?
Cognitive representations
Fiske & Neuberg (2000)
Because we categorise so much on the basis of salient social categories, this should become automatic
Allport (1954)
“The human mind must think with the aid of categories, once formed, categories are the basis for normal prejudgement. We cannot possibly avoid this process. Orderly living depends on it”
Argument against automatic categorisation
Mere exposure isn’t enough to initiate categorisation
If social categorisation simplifies our social world, then we shouldn’t do it when it isn’t needed/relevant - categorisation may be goal-dependent
Quinn & Macrae (2005)
People only categorised faces by gender when instructed to, people just looking at the faces did not
Stereotype definition Lippmann (1922)
A picture inside one’s head that helps us navigate person perception and justify social hierarchies
Modern definition of stereotypes
The collection of traits that society associates with a particular social group (Brown, 1995)
Difference between categorisation and stereotyping
Categorisation is merely putting people into groups, stereotyping is assigning certain traits depending on that group
What is prejudice?
A negative attitude held towards a social group or its members
What is discrimination?
Biased behaviour towards a person due to their group membership
Tripartite model of prejudice
Stereotypes (cognitive), discrimination (behavioural) + emotions (affective) are the 3 components of prejudice (attitude)
Princeton Trilogy Studies
Tracked stereotype change in Princeton students over 70 years
Katz and Braly (1993) —> Madon et al (2001)
Most ethnicity and nationality based stereotypes have changed
The Stereotype Content Model
Fiske, Cuddy, Glick and Xu (2002)
Stereotypes classified along two key dimensions of warmth and competence, linked to current status and potential for competition
Stereotype activation
The degree to which a stereotype is accessible in the mind (Kunda & Spencer, 2003)
Stereotype application
The actual use of activated stereotypes in judgements (forming an impression) (Kunda & Spencer, 2003)
Why do people stereotype?
To save energy
To justify social hierarchies
Judgemental heuristics
A mental shortcut for streamlining social perception (Bodenhausen & Wyer, 1985)
Gilbert and Hixon (1991)
Stereotypes are tools that jump out of the toolbox when there is a job to be done
Macrae, Milne & Bodenvasen (1994)
Participants were more easily able to remember an audio track of prose when primed with stereotype information, compared with a control condition where the stereotype was not present
System Justification Theory
Jost & Banaji (1994)
People want to believe that social systems are fair and legitimate
Stereotypes can rationalise any inequality that exists
Jost & Kay (2005)
Participants were exposed to communal gender stereotypes (do these traits apply more to women or men and to what degree?)
Participants then completed a questionnaire assessing agreement with current gender relations and sex role division
Exposure to stereotypes increased women’s gender-specific system justification and reduced it for the male participants
Stereotypes are formed through ____
Socialisation
What helps to perpetuate stereotypes?
Biases in exposure/interpretation
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Biased exposure
Stereotypes may bias the information we seek, in a way that confirms the stereotype
Evidence for biased exposure
Johnston & Macrae (1994)
Impression formation task - participants were given a selection of questions/answers from interviews of physics students
Participants chose to view more stereotype confirming questions than disconfirming questions
Ultimate attribution error (Pettigrew, 1979)
Negative/stereotypic behaviours are attributed to disposition
Positive/counterstereotypic behaviours are attributed to the situation
Barrett & Bliss Moreau (2009)
Participants were shown emotional faces with situational explanations and asked to judge whether the targets were emotional or having a bad day
Male and female participants made more dispositional attributions for female faces - consistent with the stereotype
Self-fulfilling prophecy (Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid, 1977)
When stereotypic expectancies lead us to behaviour in a way that encourages stereotype-consistent behaviour in the outgroup - further confirming our expectancies
Evidence for self-fulfilling prophecy (Chen & Bargh, 1997)
Perceiver condition - subliminally primed with faces of African Americans or Caucasians in a dot counting task (AA condition primed stereotype of hostility)
Target condition - dot counting task with no subliminal prime
Perceiver and target pair played a game of catch phrase via microphone
Judges rated the level of verbal hostility
The stereotype condition were judged as more hostile in both the perceiver and the target
Devine (1989)
Stereotypes learnt in childhood —> long history of activation —-> automatic activation
What is a moderator?
A variable which changes/affects the strength or direction of a relationship between two other variables
A variable which causes a relationship between two other variables
Dual Process Theory
Devine (1989)
Automatic processes - stereotypes are automatically activated regardless of prejudice level (stereotypes learned in childhood)
Controlled processes - people have the cognitive resources to control their response, they can inhibit the stereotype and express personal beliefs
Devine (1989) Experiment 2
Do high and low prejudice people both automatically activate stereotypes?
Parafoveal priming with labels and stereotypes of African Americans (two conditions, 80% priming vs 20% priming)
Stereotype activation measured via impression formation task
Ppts read an ambiguously stereotypic description (hostile) of ‘Donald’s day’ and asked to rate him on hostility related/unrelated traits
Ppts unaware of task’s racial purpose
Hostility ratings higher in 80% than in 20% condition
Not moderated by prejudice, both high and low prejudice people formed more hostile impressions
Everyone activates stereotypes regardless of prejudice level
Evaluation of Devine’s methods
Used pejorative labels, negative stereotypic traits and associated concepts, could have directly activated hostility for all participants?
Hostility has been primed for all participants, masking any individual differences in the strength of association of hostility to the group of African Americans (Wittenbrink et al. 1997)
Current practice is to prime participants with neutral category labels, not stereotypic traits
Kawakami, Dion & Dovidio (1998) - Experiment 1
Do high and low prejudice people both automatically activate stereotypes?
Participants primed with neutral category labels (Black, White) followed by stereotypic and non-stereotypic words, ppts asked to pronounce each trait out loud
Stereotype activation is inferred from shorter pronunciation latencies to stereotypic traits following the Black prime relative to the White prime
High prejudice people automatically activate stereotypes whereas low prejudice people do not
Sinclair & Kunda (1999) - Experiment 3
Ppts answered a series of questions on interpersonal skills
Positively/negatively evaluated by a Black/White doctor
Stereotype activation assessed using lexical decision task (words associated with Black stereotypes and those associated with doctors)
Ppts who received negative feedback from a Black doctor tended to activate traits associated with racial stereotypes, but inhibit those associated with the doctor
Ppts who received positive feedback tended to activate traits associated with the doctor stereotype, and inhibit those associated with the racial stereotype
Conclusion of Sinclair & Kunda (1999)
Self-enhancement
Activating Black stereotypes allows negative feedback to be discounted
Activating doctor stereotype allows positive feedback to have more legitimacy
Stereotype threat definition
The concern experienced by a person when there is a possibility that they may act in a way consistent with negative stereotypes (Steele & Aronson, 1995)
Steele & Aronson (1995)
Black participants performed worse that White participants on a test presented as a measure of their intellectual ability, but performed equally well when no reference was made to intellectual ability
Spencer, Steele and Quinn (1999)
Women performed worse than men on a maths test when told that it revealed gender differences, but performed equally well when not told this
Koenig & Eagly (2005)
Men perform worse on an interpersonal perception task when told that it assesses social sensitivity (and that men usually perform worse than women), relative to when told it assesses complex information processing
Frantz, Cuddy, Burnett, Ray and Hart (2004)
Do White American Psychology students experience stereotype threat in relation to concern about appearing racist?
White Americans negatively stereotyped as racist
Implicit Association Test (IAT) measure racial attitudes
Explicit threat, no threat or no instruction group
Explicit threat condition showed greater Pro-White bias than those in the other conditions
The no instruction group showed more bias than the no threat condition
What is the ‘leaky pipeline’
When there is an increasing loss of women up the career ladder within STEM subjects
Effort to plug the ‘leaky pipeline’
Government: 2013 Science and Technology Select Committee Inquiry
Universities recognising commitment to advance women’s careers in STEM
Other effects of stereotype threat
Withdrawal from stereotyped domain
Learning in the stereotyped domain
Davies, Spencer, Quinn and Gerhardstein (2002)
Does stereotype threat undermine women’s career aspirations?
Women exposed to gender-stereotypic TV ads reported less interest in pursuing qualifications/careers in fields involving quantitive skills
Rydell, Rydell and Boucher (2010)
Does stereotype threat reduce women’s ability to learn mathematical concepts and rules?
Females under stereotype threat showed attenuated learning of math rules learnt when under threat, compared to females no exposed to threat
Reframing and Reappraisal
Stereotype threat effects are reduced when tests are reframed as a challenging learning experience (Alter, Aronson, Darlev, Rodriguez and Ruble, 2010)
Stereotype threat effects are reduced when anxiety is presented as helpful rather than harmful to performance (Johns, Inzlicht & Schmader, 2008)
De-emphasis of threatened social identity or domain
Stereotype threat effects are reduced when participants are given the opportunity to list negative and positive attributes that describe their personal rather than social identity (Ambady, Paik, Steele, Owen-Smith & Mitchell, 2004)
Miyake et al. (2010)
Men and women on an intro physics course competed intervention twice during the semester
Values affirmation group - choose most important value and write about why it is important to you
Control group - choose least important value and write about why it is important to others
Mean overall score was higher for women in the values affirmation condition, both male scores were higher
The mean end-of-semester score was higher for women in the values affirmation group, and this was higher than the male score in this condition
