Stereotypes

Question 1

Social categorisation

Answer 1

The process of assigning people to groups based on social categories such as age, sex, race etc.

Question 2

Why do we categorise thing in a social context?

Answer 2

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)

Question 3

Rosch (1978)

Answer 3

We think of categories having ‘fuzzy’ boundaries and revolving around a central prototype

Question 4

What are the most typical features of a category?

Answer 4

Cognitive representations

Question 5

Fiske & Neuberg (2000)

Answer 5

Because we categorise so much on the basis of salient social categories, this should become automatic

Question 6

Allport (1954)

Answer 6

“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”

Question 7

Argument against automatic categorisation

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Quinn & Macrae (2005)

Answer 8

People only categorised faces by gender when instructed to, people just looking at the faces did not

Question 9

Stereotype definition Lippmann (1922)

Answer 9

A picture inside one’s head that helps us navigate person perception and justify social hierarchies

Question 10

Modern definition of stereotypes

Answer 10

The collection of traits that society associates with a particular social group (Brown, 1995)

Question 11

Difference between categorisation and stereotyping

Answer 11

Categorisation is merely putting people into groups, stereotyping is assigning certain traits depending on that group

Question 12

What is prejudice?

Answer 12

A negative attitude held towards a social group or its members

Question 13

What is discrimination?

Answer 13

Biased behaviour towards a person due to their group membership

Question 14

Tripartite model of prejudice

Answer 14

Stereotypes (cognitive), discrimination (behavioural) + emotions (affective) are the 3 components of prejudice (attitude)

Question 15

Princeton Trilogy Studies

Answer 15

Tracked stereotype change in Princeton students over 70 years

Question 16

Katz and Braly (1993) —> Madon et al (2001)

Answer 16

Most ethnicity and nationality based stereotypes have changed

Question 17

The Stereotype Content Model

Answer 17

Fiske, Cuddy, Glick and Xu (2002)
Stereotypes classified along two key dimensions of warmth and competence, linked to current status and potential for competition

Question 18

Stereotype activation

Answer 18

The degree to which a stereotype is accessible in the mind (Kunda & Spencer, 2003)

Question 19

Stereotype application

Answer 19

The actual use of activated stereotypes in judgements (forming an impression) (Kunda & Spencer, 2003)

Question 20

Why do people stereotype?

Answer 20

To save energy

To justify social hierarchies

Question 21

Judgemental heuristics

Answer 21

A mental shortcut for streamlining social perception (Bodenhausen & Wyer, 1985)

Question 22

Gilbert and Hixon (1991)

Answer 22

Stereotypes are tools that jump out of the toolbox when there is a job to be done

Question 23

Macrae, Milne & Bodenvasen (1994)

Answer 23

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

Question 24

System Justification Theory

Answer 24

Jost & Banaji (1994)
People want to believe that social systems are fair and legitimate
Stereotypes can rationalise any inequality that exists

Question 25

Jost & Kay (2005)

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Stereotypes are formed through ____

Answer 26

Socialisation

Question 27

What helps to perpetuate stereotypes?

Answer 27

Biases in exposure/interpretation

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 28

Biased exposure

Answer 28

Stereotypes may bias the information we seek, in a way that confirms the stereotype

Question 29

Evidence for biased exposure

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Ultimate attribution error (Pettigrew, 1979)

Answer 30

Negative/stereotypic behaviours are attributed to disposition
Positive/counterstereotypic behaviours are attributed to the situation

Question 31

Barrett & Bliss Moreau (2009)

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Self-fulfilling prophecy (Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid, 1977)

Answer 32

When stereotypic expectancies lead us to behaviour in a way that encourages stereotype-consistent behaviour in the outgroup - further confirming our expectancies

Question 33

Evidence for self-fulfilling prophecy (Chen & Bargh, 1997)

Answer 33

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

Question 34

Devine (1989)

Answer 34

Stereotypes learnt in childhood —> long history of activation —-> automatic activation

Question 35

What is a moderator?

Answer 35

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

Question 36

Dual Process Theory

Answer 36

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

Question 37

Devine (1989) Experiment 2

Answer 37

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

Question 38

Evaluation of Devine’s methods

Answer 38

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

Question 39

Kawakami, Dion & Dovidio (1998) - Experiment 1

Answer 39

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

Question 40

Sinclair & Kunda (1999) - Experiment 3

Answer 40

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

Question 41

Conclusion of Sinclair & Kunda (1999)

Answer 41

Self-enhancement
Activating Black stereotypes allows negative feedback to be discounted
Activating doctor stereotype allows positive feedback to have more legitimacy

Question 42

Stereotype threat definition

Answer 42

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)

Question 43

Steele & Aronson (1995)

Answer 43

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

Question 44

Spencer, Steele and Quinn (1999)

Answer 44

Women performed worse than men on a maths test when told that it revealed gender differences, but performed equally well when not told this

Question 45

Koenig & Eagly (2005)

Answer 45

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

Question 46

Frantz, Cuddy, Burnett, Ray and Hart (2004)

Answer 46

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

Question 47

What is the ‘leaky pipeline’

Answer 47

When there is an increasing loss of women up the career ladder within STEM subjects

Question 48

Effort to plug the ‘leaky pipeline’

Answer 48

Government: 2013 Science and Technology Select Committee Inquiry
Universities recognising commitment to advance women’s careers in STEM

Question 49

Other effects of stereotype threat

Answer 49

Withdrawal from stereotyped domain

Learning in the stereotyped domain

Question 50

Davies, Spencer, Quinn and Gerhardstein (2002)

Answer 50

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

Question 51

Rydell, Rydell and Boucher (2010)

Answer 51

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

Question 52

Reframing and Reappraisal

Answer 52

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)

Question 53

De-emphasis of threatened social identity or domain

Answer 53

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)

Question 54

Miyake et al. (2010)

Answer 54

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