Week 3: Stereotypes Flashcards
What are stereotypes?
A cognitive representation of a social group that people form by associating particular characteristics with that group
Stereotypes may be positive, negative, or neutral
Main features of stereotypes
- Define people in terms of their social category membership
- Stereotypes are socially shared (more than one person’s opinion)
Why do people ‘stereotype’?
- Cognitive function; limited resources; comprehension
- Ego-defensive function; derogate others to feel better
Cognitive Function of Stereotypes
Two people hit someone: Jane, the house wife, and John, constrcution worker.
But the context of the behaviour varied in terms of clarity - ambiguous, high aggression, low aggression.
How aggressive is John and Jane?
> No differences between John and Jane in aggressive and non-aggressive conditions
> But, in the ambiguous condition, John is perceived to be more aggressive than Jane
Ego Defensive Function of Stereotypes
Participants (students) received good or bad course grade, by a male or female instructor
Bad grade: threat to self and self-esteem needs to be repaired
DV: evaluate course and instructor
Findings:
When students received good grades, they evaluated female or male teachers positively and similary.
When students received bad grades, they evaluated both teaches less positively, but especially female teachers much less positively than male teachers.
They stereotyped female teachers as incompetent.
Stereotypes vary along two dimensions
Warmth: groups that do not compete with the ingroup for resources
Competence: groups that are high in status, economically or educationally successful
Where do stereotypes come from?
Power and status relations determine groups’ representation on these dimensions:
> competing groups = low in warmth
> cooperative groups = high in warmth
> high status groups = high in competence
> low status groups = low in competence
Stereotype Content Model - High Warmth, Low Competence
Paternalistic prejudice, low status, not competitve, pity, empathy
Stereotype Content Model - High Competence, High Warmth
Admiration, high status, not competitive, pride, admiration
Stereotype Content Model- Low warmth, low competence
compemptuous prejudice, low status, competitive, contempt, anger, disgust
Stereotype Content Model - High competence, low warmth
envious, prejudice, high status, competitive, envy, jealousy
Social Role Theory
> Stereotypes are observations of what people do
Group stereotypes are correlated with attributes of their members’ typical occuptional roles
This happens even if the individuals themselves do not fall into these roles
> The remedy for stereotyping is that you observe the groups engaging in different roles that require different attributes
Stereotypes are polictical
> Stereotypes can justify inequality and the status quo
qroups with high status/power tend to hold stereotypes that rationalise and reinforce the outgroup’s lower status/power
Stereotypes are political - historical examples
Oppressive stereotypes of Black people as lazy, stupid, loyal, benevolent -> justified slavery
Oppressive stereotypes of Native Americans as ‘backwards’, uncivilized, savages, naive, justifed colonialism
Stereotype Activation
Dormant stereotype becomes active, ready for use, and capable of influencing person’s thoughts and behaviours
Stereotype activation processes:
- automatic - triggered simply by observing stimuli associated with stereotyped groups
- motivated - rooted in goals and needs
The two processes operate simultaneously and can affect one another
Automatic Stereotype Activation - Do we always activate and use stereotypes when judging category members? Study 1.
Study 1: Stereotype knowledge
- white american participants; measured level of prejudice; list all stereotypes you know about
Findings: there was no difference between high- and low-prejudiced participants’ knowledge of stereotypes
implies that stereotypes are automatically activated in response to a stereotyped group
Automatic Stereotype Activation - Study 2
P.1. participants were subliminally primed with words related to stereotypes of Black people (e.g., lazy, poor, athletic), and neutral words (e.g., sentence, number, animal)
> 1/2 participants - 80% of words related to Black people
> 1/2 participants - 20% of words related to Black people
P.2. read story and rate person on various traits (including hostile and aggressive traits)
critically, ‘hostile’ was not among the primed stereotypic words
no difference between high prejudice and low prejudice participants
Automatic Stereotype Activation - Study 3
Controlled application of stereotypes
prior to experiment - level of prejucie was measured
asked to write down labels they knew for the category - black people
write down their own person associations - these responses were coded
Findings:
> initial level of prejudice is associated with the application of stereotypes
> people high in prejudice generated more negative traits about Black people, whereas people low in prejudice generated more positive beliefs about Black people
Automatic Stereotype Activation
Suggests that everyone automatically activates cultural stereotypes but only those who are motivated (low prejudiced people) will inhibit those associations and replace them with their own personal beliefs
Stereotype Activation - Seeing Black
Police officers primed with crime
Dot-probe task:
> shown two faces (one black and one white) simultaneously
> the faces disappeared quickly and were replaced by a dot
> asked to detect position of the dot
DV: dot detection
When crime is primed, police officers visually attend more to Black faces
In a follow-up study, police officers reported that highly stereotypical black faces ‘looked more criminal’
How can stereotypes be inhibited?
Make sure stereotypes are
1. not activated
2. not applied
Can stereotypes be stopped? But?
- Controlling stereotypes uses up executive control
- efforts to suppress stereotypes can backfire
e.g., trying to suppress stereotypes can lead to greater stereotyping and discrimination in a subsequent task
Can stereotypes by stopped? Is stereotype activation completely automatic? Study 1.
Asian and White Female research assistant show participants word fragments
Cognitive capacity manipulation - asked to remember 8-digit number or not
low cognitive capacity (busy) -> there is less stereotype activation
high cognitive capacity (not busy) -> there is more stereotype activation
Can stereotypes be stopped? what about stereotype application? the differential role of cognitive busyness - study 2
Stereotypes are activated (same as study 1)
application phase:
> form an impression of Asian vs. White person
> Cognitively busy or not
DVL rate person on trait dimensions (stereotypic or not)
findings:
people who are cognitively busy (vs. not busy) are more likely to rate asian person with more stereotypic qualities
Cognitive busyness in short
> less stereotype activation when people are cognitively busy (low capacity)
more stereotype application when people are cognitively busy (low capacity)
Stereotype inconsistent information - what happens when people are presented with stereotype inconsistent behaviour?
Stereotype might adjust to reality (book-keeping)
If counter-stereotypical information is dramatic enough, might cause attitude change (conversion)
Stereotype might survive despite inconsistent information (sub-typing)
Stereotype inconsistent information - sub-typing
stereotype inconsistent information can produce a sub-type
outgroup stereotype becomes more complex, but superordinate sterotypes stays the same
Stereotype Threat
fear that ones behaviour may conform a negative stereotype held about a group that one belongs to
causes arousal/anxiety which impairs performance
when we are aware of stereotypes, we might live up to them
Does making salient the stereotype that women are bad in mathematics lead to lower test scores amongst women?
Male and Female participants - control condition: no gender differences typically found on test
- experimental condition: gender difference in favour of men
DV: performance in maths test
Findings:
when the test was described as one that yield gender differences, it aroused stereotype threat among the female participants, and their performance dropped.
Does makign salient that Black people don’t do well in school lead to lower test scores amongst black people?
Black and white participants; experimental condition (threat) - this test is diagnositic of your intellectual ability; control condition (no threat) - this test isa tool for studying problem-solving; DV: performance on a difficult verbal reasoning test
Findings:
when the test was framed as highly diagnostic of intellectual ability, Black participants experienced stereotype threat and did worse on the test
Stereotype Threat Harms
harms performance of any individual for whom the situation invokes a stereotype-based expectation of poor performance
examples:
> students from low socioeconomic background compared to students from high socioeconomic backgrounds on intellectual tasks
> men compared to women on social sensitivity
> elderly compared to young on memory tasks
Self-Stereotyping
Social identity research shows people even self-stereotype themselves based on salient group memberships
It can be internalised: people see themselves in line with the stereotyped characteristics of their group
e.g., stereotypical self-categorisation can affect people’s career decisions - people tend to self-select into fields that are consistent with stereotypical self-characteristics
lack of fit perceptions:
> engineers and soldiers - > associated with agentic traits - men self-select into them
> nurses and teachers-> associated with communal traits -> women self-select into them
Self-stereotyping - job advertisements
job advertisements in male-dominated positions (e.g., management) typically use more agentic traits
women more likely to apply to positions when the job advertisements use more communal traits
