Just say no (to stereotyping): Effects of training in the negation of stereotypic associations on stereotype activation.

The primary aim of the present research was to examine the effect of training in negating stereotype associations on stereotype activation. Across 3 studies, participants received practice in negating stereotypes related to skinhead and racial categories. The subsequent automatic activation of stereotypes was measured using either a primed Stroop task (Studies 1 and 2) or a person categorization task (Study 3). The results demonstrate that when receiving no training or training in a nontarget category stereotype, participants exhibited spontaneous stereotype activation. After receiving an extensive amount of training related to a specific category, however, participants demonstrated reduced stereotype activation. The results from the training task provide further evidence for the impact of practice on participants' proficiency in negating stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype performance boosts: The impact of self-relevance and the manner of stereotype activation.

The activation of positive stereotypes has been shown to produce academic performance boosts. Evidence regarding the role of self-relevance in producing such effects has been mixed. The authors propose that the subtlety of stereotype activation plays a key role in creating performance boosts among targets and nontargets of stereotypes. Study 1 found that subtle stereotype activation boosted performance in targets, but blatant activation did not. Study 2 was conducted on both targets and nontargets using different methods of stereotype activation. Again, targets showed performance boosts when stereotypes were subtly activated but not when they were blatantly activated. Nontargets, however, showed boosts in performance only when stereotypes were blatantly activated. The role of self-relevance in mediating sensitivity to stimuli is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clearing the Air: Identity Safety Moderates the Effects of Stereotype Threat on Women's Leadership Aspirations.

Exposing participants to gender-stereotypic TV commercials designed to elicit the female stereotype, the present research explored whether vulnerability to stereotype threat could persuade women to avoid leadership roles in favor of nonthreatening subordinate roles. Study 1 confirmed that exposure to the stereotypic commercials undermined women's aspirations on a subsequent leadership task. Study 2 established that varying the identity safety of the leadership task moderated whether activation of the female stereotype mediated the effect of the commercials on women's aspirations. Creating an identity-safe environment eliminated vulnerability to stereotype threat despite exposure to threatening situational cues that primed stigmatized social identities and their corresponding stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social influence and threat in confrontations between competent peers.

Five studies investigated social influence processes in confrontations between competent peers and showed a default absence of influence of a competent source on an equally competent target. This default lack of influence is attributed to the representation that competent targets give to the influence encounter, in which different answers from competent peers are incompatible, the error of the source thus being the sine qua non condition of targets’ correctness. However, an influence appeared when the representation of the task was modified via a decentering procedure (Study 1), even when controlling for alternative explanations (Study 2). Study 3 demonstrated that this liberating effect of decentering did not appear when the source was incompetent. Study 4 also examined social comparison processes and showed that independence of judgments produced the same liberating effect as decentering. Finally, Study 5 showed that the default lack of influence in confrontations between competent peers is due to the presence of a threat to the self. Indeed, the reduction of threat through a procedure of self-affirmation modified the representation of the task and allowed influence to appear. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The stereotyped task engagement process: The role of interest and achievement motivation.

Competence-based stereotypes can negatively affect women's performance in math and science (referred to as stereotype threat), presumably leading to lower motivation. The authors examined the effects of stereotype threat on interest, a motivational path not necessarily mediated by performance. They predicted that working on a computer science task in the context of math-gender stereotypes would negatively affect undergraduate women's task interest, particularly for those higher in achievement motivation who were hypothesized to hold performance-avoidance goals in response to the threat. Compared with when the stereotype was nullified, while under stereotype threat an assigned performance-avoidance (vs. -approach) goal was associated with lower interest for women higher in achievement motivation (Study 1), and women higher (vs. lower) in achievement motivation were more likely to spontaneously adopt performance-avoidance goals (Study 2). The motivational influence of performance-avoidance goals under stereotype threat was primarily mediated by task absorption (Study 3). Implications for the stereotyped task engagement process (Smith, 2004) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Traits and social stereotypes: Levels of categorization in person perception.

A theoretical distinction is made between trait categorization in person perception and categorization by means of well-articulated, concrete social stereotypes. Three studies test the prediction that social stereotypes are both more associatively rich and more distinctive than are trait-defined categories. In Study 1, subjects sorted adjectives related to extraversion and introversion. A cluster analysis using similarity measures derived from the sorting indicated that distinct social stereotypes were associated with each trait. This supports and extends earlier findings (Cantor & Mischel, 1979). In Study 2, subjects generated attributes of the trait categories and stereotypes that emerged in Study 1. More nonredundant attributes, especially visible features, were listed for the stereotypes than for the trait categories. Study 3 elicited the explicit associative structure of traits and related stereotypes by having subjects rate the association between a series of attributes (derived from the responses in Study 2) and each category label. Results showed that social stereotypes have distinctive features that are not shared with the related trait category, whereas trait categories share virtually all of their features with related stereotypes. The implications of the trait/stereotype distinction for social information processing are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pragmatic use of stereotyping in teamwork: Social loafing and compensation as a function of inferred partner–situation fit.

Using 4 experiments, the authors examined how stereotypic information about teammates influences social loafing and compensation during collective tasks. In each experiment, participants performed better on cognitive tasks when there was a poor (vs. good) fit between the stereotypic strengths of their partner and the requirements of the task. This pattern. occurred whether participants used gender stereotypes (Experiment 1) or occupational stereotypes (Experiments 2 to 4) and occurred even when participants only anticipated working on a collective task (Experiment 4). In Experiment 3, the pattern occurred only in the collective (not in the coactive) condition, providing direct evidence for social loafing. Together, these results suggest that people use stereotypes to tune their motivation to optimize the ratio of their own individual effort to the team's expected output. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retraining attitudes and stereotypes to affect motivation and cognitive capacity under stereotype threat.

In a series of experiments, a retraining paradigm was used to test the effects of attitudes and stereotypes on individuals' motivation and cognitive capacity in stereotype-threatening contexts. Women trained to have a more positive math attitude exhibited increased math motivation (Study 1). This effect was not observed for men but was magnified among women when negative stereotypes were either primed subtly (Study 2) or indirectly reinforced (Study 3). Although attitudes had no effect on working memory capacity, women retrained to associate their gender with being good at math exhibited increased working memory capacity (Studies 3 and 4), which in turn mediated increased math performance (Study 4) in a stereotype-threatening context. Results suggest that although positive attitudes can motivate stigmatized individuals to engage with threatening domains, stereotypes need to be retrained to give them the cognitive capacity critical for success. Implications for interventions to reduce stereotype threat are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective pressures on the once and future contents of ethnic stereotypes: Effects of the communicability of traits.

It is hypothesized that traits that are most likely to be the subject of social discourse (i.e., most communicable) are most likely to persist in ethnic stereotypes over time and that this effect is moderated by the extent to which an ethnic group is the subject of social discourse. Study 1 yielded communicability ratings of 76 traits. Study 2 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its presence in stereotypes of 4 Canadian ethnic groups. Study 3 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its persistence over time in stereotypes of 8 American ethnic groups. Results supported the hypotheses. A communication-based analysis of stereotypes appears helpful in predicting persistence and change in the contents of stereotypes of real groups in the real world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Complementary Justice: Effects of "Poor but Happy" and "Poor but Honest" Stereotype Exemplars on System Justification and Implicit Activation of the Justice Motive.

It was hypothesized that exposure to complementary representations of the poor as happier and more honest than the rich would lead to increased support for the status quo. In Study 1, exposure to "poor but happy" and "rich but miserable" stereotype exemplars led people to score higher on a general measure of system justification, compared with people who were exposed to noncomplementary exemplars. Study 2 replicated this effect with "poor but honest" and "rich but dishonest" complementary stereotypes. In Studies 3 and 4, exposure to noncomplementary stereotype exemplars implicitly activated justice concerns, as indicated by faster reaction times to justice-related than neutral words in a lexical decision task. Evidence also suggested that the Protestant work ethic may moderate the effects of stereotype exposure on explicit system justification (but not implicit activation). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spontaneous prejudice in context: Variability in automatically activated attitudes.

The goal of the research reported in this article was to examine whether automatic group attitudes and stereotypes, commonly thought to be fixed responses to a social category cue, are sensitive to change in the situational context. Two experiments demonstrated such variability of automatic responses due to changes in the stimulus context. In Study 1 White participants' implicit attitudes toward Blacks varied as a result of exposure to either a positive (a family barbecue) or a negative (a gang incident) stereotypic situation. Study 2 demonstrated similar context effects under clearly automatic processing conditions. Here, the use of different background pictures (church interior vs. street corner) for Black and White face primes affected participants' racial attitudes as measured by a sequential priming task. Implications for the concept of automaticity in social cognition are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Status, communality, and agency: Implications for stereotypes of gender and other groups.

Four studies addressed the hypothesis, based on correspondence bias, that low- relative to high-status individuals are perceived as more communal and less agentic. Study 1 instantiated status in terms of occupations, and findings were as expected. The findings of Study 2 reconciled those of Study 1 and of A. H . Eagly and V. J. Steffen (see record 1984-23015-001) in that they demonstrated that high-status occupations are differentially construed in terms of their interpersonal communal demands. The hypothesis received clear support in Studies 3 and 4, in which a general instantiation of status independent of occupations, social roles, and gender was adopted. The findings are discussed in terms of gender stereotypes and social role theory of gender (A. H. Eagly, 1987) as well as in terms of other stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol and social behavior: II. The helpful drunkard.

Hypothesized that alcohol would increase helping when, if the person were sober, the helping response was under high-inhibitory conflict (affected by strong instigating and inhibiting pressures). In Study 1, 143 university students (over 21 yrs of age) were given alcohol or no alcohol and submitted to high- or low-conflict situations. Results show a mild dose of alcohol (1.25 ml/kg) increased helping among high-conflict Ss pressured to help with a task they did not like but did not increase helping among low-conflict Ss who either liked the task or were weakly pressured to help. In Study 2, 81 male university students (aged 21 yrs or older) were subjected to the same conditions as in Study 1, but a higher dose of alcohol (1.88 ml/kg) was used. Results show that the stronger dose of alcohol increased helping among all high-conflict Ss but again had no effect among low-conflict Ss. It is suggested that the role of inhibitory-response conflict in mediating alcohol's social effects generalizes to prosocial behavior. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Seeing one thing and doing another: Contrast effects in automatic behavior.

Research on automatic behavior demonstrates the ability of stereotypes to elicit stereotype-consistent behavior. Social judgment research proposes that whereas traits and stereotypes elicit assimilation, priming of exemplars can elicit judgmental contrast by evoking social comparisons. This research extends these findings by showing that priming exemplars can elicit behavioral contrast by evoking a social comparison. In Study 1, priming professor or supermodel stereotypes led, respectively, to more and fewer correct answers on a knowledge test (behavioral assimilation), but priming exemplars of these categories led to the reverse pattern (behavioral contrast). In Study 2, participants walked away faster after being primed with an elderly exemplar. In Study 3, the proposition that contrast effects reflect comparisons of the self with the exemplar was supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components.

Three studies tested basic assumptions derived from a theoretical model based on the dissociation of automatic and controlled processes involved in prejudice. Study 1 supported the model's assumption that high- and low-prejudice persons are equally knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype. The model suggests that the stereotype is automatically activated in the presence of a member (or some symbolic equivalent) of the stereotype group and that low-prejudice responses require controlled inhibition of the automatically activated stereotype. Study 2, which examined the efforts of automatic stereotype activation on the evaluation of ambiguous stereotype-relevant behaviors performed by a race-unspecified person, suggested that when subjects' ability to consciously monitor stereotype activation is precluded, both high- and low-prejudice subjects produce stereotype-congruent evaluations of ambiguous behaviors. Study 3 examined high- and low-prejudice subjects' responses in a consciously directed thought-listing task. Consistent with the model, only low-prejudice subjects inhibited the automatically activated stereotype-congruent thoughts and replaced them with thoughts reflecting equality and negations of the stereotype. The relation between stereotypes and prejudice and implications for prejudice reduction are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectancy effects in social stereotyping: Automatic and controlled processing in the Neely paradigm.

This research attempted to extend the classic cognition study, Neely (1977), to the domain of social stereotypes. Neely demonstrated the existence of automatic and controlled processing in the same paradigm and the differing effects these processes have on accessing category information. The current research extended these findings by using social groups and stereotypes as stimuli, rather than nonsocial categories. Participants were told to expect characteristics of the Black stereotype following the prime CHINESE, characteristics of the Chinese stereotype following the prime BLACK, and characteristics of the criminal stereotype following the prime CRIMINAL. These expectancies were true most of the time. Participants then completed a lexical decision task in which SOA was manipulated (250 vs. 2,000 ms). Participants responded faster to semantically related targets (i.e., stereotypes) in the 250-ms SOA condition, regardless of their explicit expectancies. In the 2,000-ms SOA condition, participants responded faster to expected targets than to unexpected targets, regardless of whether or not the targets were semantically related to the primes. When the data from the two conditions were combined, the expectancy effect remained whereas the semantic relation effect did not. Results are discussed in terms of the automatic and controlled processing of social stimuli, and the importance of understanding expectancies in social stereotyping. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paranoia and self-consciousness.

Presented, in Study 1, a new instrument designed to assess paranoid thought in college students, together with reliability and validity data. A single general factor accounted for a substantial portion of the variance in the full scale. Public self-consciousness was consistently and significantly correlated with the present measure of paranoia. In Study 2, both pretested paranoia and public self-consciousness were related to feelings of being watched (a classical manifestation of paranoia), although public self-consciousness had an effect only when there was a 2-way mirror present. In Study 3, self-attention, experimentally induced using a story construction task, again resulted in a heightened sense of being observed. Discussion focuses on paranoid cognition as characteristic of everyday thought and the implications of self-attention for social perception processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat reinterpreted as a regulatory mismatch.

This research documents performance decrements resulting from the activation of a negative task-relevant stereotype. The authors combine a number of strands of work to identify causes of stereotype threat in a way that allows them to reverse the effects and improve the performance of individuals with negative task-relevant stereotypes. The authors draw on prior work suggesting that negative stereotypes induce a prevention focus and on other research suggesting that people exhibit greater flexibility when their regulatory focus matches the reward structure of the task. This work suggests that stereotype threat effects emerge from a prevention focus combined with tasks that have an explicit or implicit gains reward structure. The authors find flexible performance can be induced in individuals who have a negative task-relevant stereotype by use of a losses reward structure. The authors demonstrate the interaction of stereotypes and the reward structure of the task with chronic stereotypes and Graduate Record Examination math problems (Experiment 1), and with primed stereotypes and a category learning task (Experiments 2A and 2B). The authors discuss implications of this research for other work on stereotype threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)