Perceived entitativity, stereotype formation, and the interchangeability of group members.

The authors investigated the effects of perceived entitativity of a group on the processing of behavioral information about individual group members and the extent to which such information was transferred to other group members. The results of 3 experiments using a savings-in-relearning paradigm showed that trait inferences about a group member, based on that member's behavior, were stronger for low entitative groups and for collections of individuals. However, the transference of traits from 1 group member to other members of the group was stronger for high entitative groups. These results provide strong evidence that the perception of high entitativity involves the abstraction of a stereotype of the group and the transfer of that stereotype across all group members. Implications for group impression formation and stereotyping are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anti-Black prejudice as a function of exposure to the negative behavior of a single Black person.

The authors examined whether the negative behavior of 1 Black male would influence White participants' perceptions of Black Americans and behavior toward another Black person. In Study 1, it was found that participants in the Black-negative condition tended to stereotype Blacks more than participants in the Black-control condition did. It was also found that participants who had observed a negative behavior, whether it was performed by a Black or a White confederate, avoided a subsequently encountered Black person more often than did participants in either the positive condition or the control condition. In a 2nd study, interpersonal interactions with a Black person were minimized only after participants observed the negative behavior of a Black confederate. Study 3 extended the findings of Study 1 by showing that group level stereotypes and the expression of ingroup favoritism resulted from simply overhearing a conversation in which a Black person was alleged to have committed a crime. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging free from negative stereotypes: Successful memory in China among the American deaf.

This study explores whether negative stereotypes about aging contribute to memory loss in old age. The research participants consisted of old and young Chinese hearing, American Deaf, and American hearing individuals. Members of the mainland Chinese and the American Deaf cultures were recruited on the basis of the belief that they would be less likely than hearing Americans to be exposed to and accept negative stereotypes about aging. The expected results were (1) an interaction in which the 3 groups of younger Ss would perform similarly on the memory tasks, whereas the older Deaf and older Chinese participants would outperform the older American hearing group and (2) a positive correlation between view toward aging and memory performance among the old Ss. The data supported both hypotheses. The results suggest that cultural beliefs about aging play a role in determining the degree of memory loss people experience in old age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The prejudiced personality revisited: Personal need for structure and formation of erroneous group stereotypes.

Two studies explored the relation between personal need for structure (PNS) and a reasoning process through which stereotypes may form. Participants viewed information about the performance of group members on intelligence-related tasks and then indicated their inference strategies and impressions of the groups. Results indicated that high-PNS participants were more likely than low-PNS participants to form erroneous group stereotypes. Individual differences in attributional complexity and need for cognition also predicted stereotype formation under some conditions. The effects of PNS and other cognitive personality variables were weakened under conditions in which participants believed that they would have to justify their impressions publicly. Discussion focuses on processes underlying the relation between PNS and stereotype formation and on relations among personality, social context, and social inference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Source entitativity and the elaboration of persuasive messages: The roles of perceived efficacy and message discrepancy.

Compared with nonentitative groups, entitative targets are considered to elicit more elaborative processing because of the singularity or unity they represent. However, when groups serve as sources of persuasive messages, other dynamics may operate. The current research suggests that entitativity is intrinsically linked to perceptions of a group’s efficacy related to the advocacy, and this efficacy combines with the position of the appeal to determine message elaboration. When messages are counterattitudinal, entitative (efficacious) sources should elicit greater processing than nonentitative groups because of concern that the entitative sources may be more likely to bring about the negative outcomes proposed. However, when appeals are proattitudinal, sources low in entitativity (nonefficacious) should initiate more elaboration due to concern that they may be unlikely to facilitate the positive outcomes proposed. These hypotheses were supported in a series of studies. Preliminary studies established the entitativity–efficacy relation (Studies 1A and 1B). Primary persuasion studies showed that manipulations of source entitativity (Studies 2 and 3) and source efficacy (Studies 4A and 4B) have opposite effects on processing as a function of message discrepancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple social identities and stereotype threat: Imbalance, accessibility, and working memory.

In 4 experiments, the authors showed that concurrently making positive and negative self-relevant stereotypes available about performance in the same ability domain can eliminate stereotype threat effects. Replicating past work, the authors demonstrated that introducing negative stereotypes about women’s math performance activated participants’ female social identity and hurt their math performance (i.e., stereotype threat) by reducing working memory. Moving beyond past work, it was also demonstrated that concomitantly presenting a positive self-relevant stereotype (e.g., college students are good at math) increased the relative accessibility of females’ college student identity and inhibited their gender identity, eliminating attendant working memory deficits and contingent math performance decrements. Furthermore, subtle manipulations in questions presented in the demographic section of a math test eliminated stereotype threat effects that result from women reporting their gender before completing the test. This work identifies the motivated processes through which people’s social identities became active in situations in which self-relevant stereotypes about a stigmatized group membership and a nonstigmatized group membership were available. In addition, it demonstrates the downstream consequences of this pattern of activation on working memory and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

We Can Do It: The Interplay of Construal Orientation and Social Comparisons Under Threat.

The authors investigated how a collective self-construal orientation in combination with positive social comparisons "turns off" the negative effects of stereotype threat. Specifically, Experiment 1 demonstrated that stereotype threat led to increased accessibility of participants' collective self ("we"). Experiment 2 showed that this feeling of "we-ness" in the stereotype threat condition centered on the participants' stereotyped group membership and not on other important social groups (e.g., students). Experiment 3 indicated that in threat situations, when participants' collective self is accessible, positive social comparison information led to improved math test performance and less concern, whereas in nonthreat situations, when the collective self is less accessible, positive comparison information led to worse test performance and more concern. Our final experiment revealed that under stereotype threat, only those comparison targets who are competent in the relevant domain (math), rather than in domains unrelated to math (athletics), enhanced participants' math test performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence that a simpático self-schema accounts for differences in the self-concepts and social behavior of Latinos versus Whites (and Blacks).

On the basis of the assumption that Latino Americans use a simpático self-schema more than White Americans do, the authors predicted that the effects of this difference would be evident in the participants’ self-concepts and social behavior. As predicted, Studies 1 and 2 revealed that Latino participants reported significantly more simpático-related terms in their spontaneous self-concepts than did White participants. Complementing these findings, Study 3a revealed that the level of interactional involvement and the perceived quality of initial same-sex interactions was significantly enhanced by the presence of Latino dyad members. Study 3b tested the prediction that the content of the dyad members’ thoughts and feelings would reveal a greater use of the simpático self-schema by the Latino participants. This prediction was confirmed, and follow-up analyses indicated that a simpático self-schema plays an important mediating role in the subjective experience and social behavior of Latino individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive Processes in Stereotype Formation: The Role of Correct Contingency Learning for Biased Group Judgments.

Three studies investigated contingency learning and stereotype formation in a scenario about group membership and behavior with a confounding context factor. The studies tested predictions from theoretical accounts of biased group judgments in terms of simplistic reasoning, parallel distributed memory, and pseudocontingencies. Study 1 revealed a positive correlation between erroneous stereotype formation and learning of the true contingencies with the confounding factor. Study 2 showed that a focus manipulation during encoding moderated the correlation between stereotype formation and contingency learning but not the strength of the erroneous stereotype. Study 3 used a quasiexperimental comparison between participants with biased versus unbiased group judgments and extended the findings of a positive relation between stereotype formation and contingency learning. The results support an explanation of biased group judgments by pseudocontingencies; that is, unwarranted inferences from accurately perceived bivariate correlations in complex environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action.

Previous research has shown that trait concepts and stereotypes become active automatically in the presence of relevant behavior or stereotyped-group features. Through the use of the same priming procedures as in previous impression formation research, Experiment 1 showed that participants whose concept of rudeness was primed interrupted the experimenter more quickly and frequently than did participants primed with polite-related stimuli. In Experiment 2, participants for whom an elderly stereotype was primed walked more slowly down the hallway when leaving the experiment than did control participants, consistent with the content of that stereotype. In Experiment 3, participants for whom the African American stereotype was primed subliminally reacted with more hostility to a vexatious request of the experimenter. Implications of this automatic behavior priming effect for self-fulfilling prophecies are discussed, as is whether social behavior is necessarily mediated by conscious choice processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culture and judgement of causal relevance.

The authors hypothesized that because the causal theories of East Asians were more holistic and complex than those of Americans, the amount of information considered before making a final attribution would be larger for East Asians than for Americans. This hypothesis was supported through 4 studies. When participants attempted to explain a deviant behavior (Study 1) or a prosocial behavior (Study 2), Korean participants took into consideration a greater amount of information than did either American or Asian American participants. Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 within each culture. Finally, Study 4 established a link between the present findings and past research on culture and attribution. Namely, Study 4 found that Koreans made more external attributions than Americans because Koreans considered more information than did Americans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group entitativity and group perception: Associations between physical features and psychological judgment.

Two experiments tested whether the perceived entitativity of groups (i.e., cohesiveness) influences judgments about those groups, in terms of both their observable physical properties and underlying psychological traits. Entitativity was manipulated with groups whose members were similar or dissimilar in skin color. Experiment 1 demonstrated that beliefs about entitativity elicited more accurate judgments of skin color for entitative than nonentitative social groups, although memory for individual members of entitative groups was relatively impoverished. Experiment 2 revealed that entitative groups were viewed as not only physically similar but also psychologically homogeneous and elicited strong negative trait and behavioral judgments. Together, these findings suggest that physical properties (e.g., similarity) can create perceptions of psychological "groupness" that have important consequences for group perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biased Language Use in Stereotype Maintenance: The Role of Encoding and Goals.

In 4 studies, the authors investigated the relative impact of biased encoding of information and communication goals on biased language use. A category label (linguistic expectancy bias, Study 1) or a group label (linguistic intergroup bias, Study 2) was presented either before or after a story that participants were asked to communicate. Biased language use only emerged when participants learned about the group membership of the actor or the category label before hearing the story. However, communication goals had an effect on language use at the retrieval stage, independent of encoding (Studies 3 and 4). Although communication goal effects seemed to overwhelm encoding effects, encoding still influenced language use under externally imposed time pressure (Study 3) and self-imposed time constraints (Study 4). This research reaffirms the importance of both cognitive and communicative processes in stereotype maintenance and highlights the conditions under which they each operate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-stereotyping and social context: The effects of relative in-group size and in-group status.

In 2 laboratory experiments, the tendency to stereotype oneself in terms of one's group membership as a function of the social context was examined. Exp 1 examined the effects of relative ingroup size on self-stereotyping. The results confirmed the prediction that minority members are more likely than majority members to stereotype themselves. Exp 2 examined the interactive impact of relative in-group size and in-group status. As predicted, a high (relative to a low) status of the in-group increased self-stereotyping primarily for minority members, but not for majority members. Moreover, analyses of the differences in perceived in-group and out-group homogeneity suggest that the in-group homogeneity effect should also be interpreted in terms of self-stereotyping processes. Finally, the interplay between cognitive and motivational determinants of self-stereotyping is discussed as well as a possible distinction between self-stereotyping effects on individual level vs group level self-representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotions in memories of success and failure: A cultural perspective.

Americans and Chinese tend to behave differently in response to success and failure: Americans tend to persist on a task after success, whereas Chinese tend to persist after failure. This study examined whether cultural differences in emotional reactions to success and failure account for these differences. American and Chinese students recalled personal success and failure events, evaluated the primary emotion evoked by the event, and responded to measures of concerns, appraisals, and willingness to try the same task again. Americans were more likely than Chinese to report that their success enhanced their self-esteem. Chinese were more likely than Americans to estimate that their success would make others jealous and enhance others' respect for their family. Chinese, compared to Americans, viewed failures as more tolerable, as less problematic for their goals, and as less damaging to their self-esteem. Culture moderated the relations between these components of emotion and willingness to try the task again. In short, culturally framed emotional reactions to success and failure result in different patterns of anticipated self-regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fencing off the deviant: The role of cognitive resources in the maintenance of stereotypes.

The role of cognitive resources in stereotype maintenance was examined. It was hypothesized that people's cognitive resources would condition the maintenance of stereotypes by affecting the ability to dismiss inconsistent target information. In Experiment 1, distracted and nondistracted participants formed an impression of a deviant target. As predicted, distraction was associated with less stereotypical views about the group. Experiment 2 replicated this finding using 3 deviant targets and 4 levels of distraction. Results also revealed that the perceived atypicality of the deviants mediated stereotype maintenance. Experiment 3 further showed that stereotypes remained intact only when participants were not distracted and when they had also received neutral information about the target. The discussion focuses on the role of cognitive resources in stereotyping and the effectiveness of exposure to disconfirmation in achieving stereotype change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans.

Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group. Studies 1 and 2 varied the stereotype vulnerability of Black participants taking a difficult verbal test by varying whether or not their performance was ostensibly diagnostic of ability, and thus, whether or not they were at risk of fulfilling the racial stereotype about their intellectual ability. Reflecting the pressure of this vulnerability, Blacks underperformed in relation to Whites in the ability-diagnostic condition but not in the nondiagnostic condition (with Scholastic Aptitude Tests controlled). Study 3 validated that ability-diagnosticity cognitively activated the racial stereotype in these participants and motivated them not to conform to it, or to be judged by it. Study 4 showed that mere salience of the stereotype could impair Blacks' performance even when the test was not ability diagnostic. The role of stereotype vulnerability in the standardized test performance of ability-stigmatized groups is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culture and the construal of agency: Attribution to individual versus group dispositions.

The authors argue that cultures differ in implicit theories of individuals and groups. North Americans conceive of individual persons as free agents, whereas East Asians conceptualize them as constrained and as less agentic than social collectives. Hence, East Asian perceivers were expected to be more likely than North Americans to focus on and attribute causality to dispositions of collectives. In Study 1 newspaper articles about "rogue trader" scandals were analyzed, and it was found that U.S. papers made more mention of the individual trader involved, whereas Japanese papers referred more to the organization. Study 2 replicated this pattern among U.S. and Hong Kong participants who responded to a vignette about a maladjusted team member. Study 3 revealed the same pattern with respect to individual and group dispositionism using a different design that compared attributions for an act performed by an individual in one condition and by a group in the other condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Category and stereotype activation: Is prejudice inevitable?

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that people high and low in prejudice respond similarly to direct stereotype activation but differently to category activation. Study I (N?=?40) showed that high- and low-prejudice people share the same knowledge of the stereotype of Black people. In Study 2, (N?=?51) high-prejudice participants formed a more negative and less positive impression of the target person after subliminal priming of the category Blacks than did participants in the no-prime condition. Low-prejudice people tended in the opposite direction. In Study 3 (N?=?45), both high- and low-prejudice people increased negative ratings when valenced stereotype content was also primed. These findings support a distinction between automatic stereotype activation resulting from direct priming and that consequent upon category activation, implying that the relations among categorization, stereotyping, and prejudice are more flexible than it is often assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)