Stereotyping

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Stereotyping
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What Are Stereotypes?

• There is neither time nor opportunity for
  intimate acquaintances. Instead we notice a trait
  which marks a well known type and fill in the
  rest of the picture by means of the stereotypes
  we carry about in our heads.
• Our stereotyped world is not necessarily the
  world we should like it to be. It is simply the
  kind of world we expect it to be.
• Walter Lippmann
  (1922)

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Stereotype Components

• Culturally shared beliefs
• cognitive component (beliefs)
• affective component (feelings)
• behavioural component (actions)
• Categorical associations
• men are ?
• accountants are?
• Italians are?

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How De We Learn Stereotypes?
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A Chilling Example!
Children (24-28 months) touch more own sex
gender-typed toys (Levy,1999).
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Who Should Repair the Car?

• Levy, Sadovsky, Troseth (2000)
• preschoolers (3-4 years) viewed men as more
  competent than women in male sex-typed jobs and
  women as more competent than men in feminine
  jobs.

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Habits of Thought

• What happens if childhood socialization
  repeatedly furnishes one with stereotype-related
  beliefs?
• Do stereotypes become habits of mind?

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Is Stereotype Activation Inevitable?

• every event has certain marks that serve as a
  cue to bring the category of prejudgment into
  actionA person with dark brown skin will
  activate whatever concept of African American is
  dominant in our mind.
• Allport (1954, p. 21)
• the mere presentation of a stimulus person
  activates certain classification processes that
  occur automatically and without conscious
  intent.
• Brewer (1988, p. 5)

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• because the stereotype has been frequently
  activated in the past, it is a well-learned set
  of associations that is automatically activated
  in the presence of a member (or symbolic
  equivalent) of the target group.
• Devine (1989, p. 6)

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The Basic Problem!

• On exposure to a target, what gets activated in
  mind?

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Measuring Stereotype ActivationSemantic Priming
Tasks
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Measuring Stereotype ActivationSemantic Priming
Tasks
Forgetful
skillful
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Automatic ActivationSome Early Evidence

• Dovidio et al. (1986)
• stereotypes are knowledge structures
• associative networks
• semantic priming to access associative
  knowledge
• letter string task
• doctor/nurse
• doctor/butter

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Dovidio et als (1986) ParadigmCould X ever be
true of Y?

• Task (verification task)
• participants presented with a priming label
  (i.e., black or white) followed shortly
  afterwards by a personality trait (e.g., musical)
  or non-person descriptor (e.g., metallic)
• Traits
• White Black
• ambitious musical
• practical sensitive
• conventional lazy
• stubborn imitative

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• Results
• participants responded more quickly when
  stereotypic than non-stereotypic items were
  presented
• Problems?
• task demands (triggering category activation)
• labels (or words and images functionally
  equivalent?)

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The Invisible PrimePurdue Gurtman (1990)

• kind
• is the word favorable or unfavorable?
• traits preceded by subliminal labels (old or
  young)
• Results - facilitatory priming observed
• Problems - words, evaluative (rather than
  semantic) priming

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Devines (1989) Two-Process Model

• power of childhood socialization
• acquiring cultural beliefs
• societal knowledge vs. personal beliefs
• individual differences in prejudice
• high vs. low prejudice
• components of stereotyping
• automatic activation
• controlled inhibition
• replacing stereotypes with personal beliefs

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Knowledge of Cultural Stereotypes

• Stereotype Contents
• bagpipes
• booze
• stingy
• bigots humanitarians (Devine, 1989)

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Evaluate Donald Paradigm (Devine, 1989)

• Tasks
• Phase 1 parafoveal vigilance task (Negroes,
  lazy, blues, Blacks, Africa, basketball)
• Phase 2 person evaluation (Donald - Srull
  Wyer, 1979) - ambiguously hostile behaviours
• Results high-P participants rated Donald to be
  more hostile than did low-P participants

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Automatic StereotypingA Slight Modification

• Lepore Brown (1997)
• categories vs. traits (Blacks vs. lazy) - what
  activates the
• stereotype?
• category primes only high-P participants
  activate the stereotype
• trait primes both high-P and low-P participants
  activate the
• stereotype
• individual differences in stereotype activation
  (Locke et al., 1994 Wittenbrink et al., 1997)

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Challenging OrthodoxyIs Stereotype Activation
Really Inevitable?

• triggering stereotype activation (are images and
  words equivalent?)

Belly Dancer
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Determinants of Stereotype Activation Target
Salience

• frequency of occurrence
• are you unusual?
• immediate context
• are you contextually distinctive?
• processing goals
• are you relevant to my current processing
  concerns?

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Statistical FrequencyLanger et al. (1976)
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Solo or Token StatusTaylor Fiske (1978)
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Processing Goals

• chronic states of the person (Moskowitz et al.
  2004)
• traits, motives, goals
• transitory factors (Macrae et al., 1997)
• temporary goals

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Stereotype ActivationAlways or Sometimes?
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Stereotypes as Mental ToolsGilbert Hixon
(1991)

• anyone who has ever lent a socket wrench to a
  forgetful neighbor knows that a tool is useful
  only if one can find it. Stereotypes are forms of
  information and, as such, are thought to be
  stored in memory in a dormant state until they
  are activated for use.
• Gilbert Hixon (1991, p. 510)
• attention and stereotyping

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Gilbert Hixon (1991)Busyness and Stereotyping

• Task
• participants observe a woman (Caucasian or
  Asian) turning over cards with a single word
  fragment written on each card.
• POLI_E
• complete the fragment with the first word that
  comes to mind (SHY, SHORT, RICE) - participants
  busy (digit rehearsal) or non-busy (control)
• Results only non-busy participants activate the
  stereotype (i.e.,
• conditional automaticity)

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Processing GoalsThe Inattentive Shopper (Macrae
et al. 1997)
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Processing Goals
ambitious (emotional) (flubitorso)
3 Tasks animacy (conceptual) dot
(perceptual) detection
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Category Accessibility

Macrae et al. (1997)
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Accessing Stereotypical Knowledge

• Macrae et al. (1997) in spot of bother

beyond the hopeful implication that
dermatologists are unlikely to stereotype their
patients, what is the real-world relevance of
studies involving such pre-semantic processing
goals? Bargh (1999)
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Context and Stereotype ActivationWittenbrink et
al. (2001)
In an evaluative priming task, activation of
African-American stereotype was moderated by the
context in which targets were located.
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Lecture 4Stereotype Application
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Why Do People Apply Stereotypes?

• personality approaches
• socio-cultural accounts
• cognitive perspective

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Applying StereotypesPossessing a Dodgy
Personality

• authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1950)
• intra-psychic conflict from childhood
  (internalized values of the father) is projected
  to other people (members of minority groups
  ethnic, relgious, political) - societal
  scapegoating.

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Applying StereotypesLearning to Discriminate

• socio-cultural approaches (e.g., realistic
  conflict theory, Sherif Sherif, 1953)
• stereotypes are conceptualized as negative
  beliefs about a group that serve to legitimize
  the existing social structure (i.e., system
  justification)

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Applying StereotypesCognitive Efficiency

• cognitive perspective (Hamilton, 1981)
• stereotyping is a product of category
  activation and basic cognitive limitations.

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Applying StereotypesBasic Paradox

• perils of stereotypical thinking
• discrimination
• prejudice
• legal sanctions
• benefits of stereotypical thinking
• cognitive efficiency

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What Can Stereotyping Do For You?

• content-related effects
• structural effects (processing consequences)
• perception
• memory
• attention

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Accessing Stereotype ContentsTarget Enrichment

• semantic knowledge (Fiske Neuberg, 1990)
• traits
• behaviours
• opinions
• lifestyle
• indirect person knowledge

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Stereotypes and Information ProcessingPerceptual
Effects

• does stereotype application moderate the ease
  with which people can detect information in the
  world?
• if so, which type of information is most
  facilitated?

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Activating Social StereotypesA Functional
Analysis

• stereotypical thinking is functional (Allport,
  1954)
• reducing the information-processing burden
• ease of detection
• perceptual identification
• measurement issues - climbing inside the head

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The Need For SpeedCategorical Person Perception
is Efficient

• perils of a cluttered mind
• enter the cognitive miser
• target simplification/elaboration
• some cognitive benefits
• stimulus location
• stimulus identification
• category priming

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Find the Word (Stereotype Priming)Congruent vs.
Irrelevant

• Q H A P P Y T V
• D P V M N I O B
• A E L Q B Y V T
• R N M K V R E A
• I P M I V W M L
• N C C N Y T A L
• G M L D Y T V R
• G S H N L R I O

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Find the Words
Number of Words
Macrae
et al. (1994).
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Stimulus Identification

• repeated presentation of degraded words
• dot density mask
• whats the word?
• number of trials taken

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v
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(No Transcript)
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Identify the Word
Number of Presentations
Macrae et al.
(1994)
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Stereotypes and Information ProcessingAttentiona
l Effects

• does stereotype application preserve valuable
  attentional resources?
• if so, when does this take place?

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Person ImpressionsWith and Without Stereotypes

• Nigel Julian
• (doctor) (artist)
• caring creative
• honest temperamental
• reliable sensitive
• responsible unconventional
• upstanding individualistic
• unlucky fearless
• forgetful active
• passive cordial
• clumsy progressive
• enthusiastic generous

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Person Memory
Macrae et al.
(1994)
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Knowledge about Indonesia?
Macrae et al. (1994)
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Efficiency and Automaticity

• stereotypical efficiency - conscious or
  unconscious?
• overt or covert allocation of attention?
• probe-reaction tasks
• turn off the sound

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Person ImpressionsWith and Without Visible and
Invisible Stereotypes

• Nigel Julian
• (doctor) (artist)
• caring creative
• honest temperamental
• reliable sensitive
• responsible unconventional
• upstanding individualistic
• unlucky fearless
• forgetful active
• passive cordial
• clumsy progressive
• enthusiastic generous

• 3 conditions
• category-supraliminal
• category-subliminal
• no category

Auditory Probe Reaction Task
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How Quickly Can You Turn Off the Sound?
Macrae et al. (1994)
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Stereotyping is Efficient

• Stereotypes
• (i) guide perception
• (ii) organize memories
• (iii) preserve attention
• Is stereotyping Intentional?
• awareness
• consent

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When are Stereotypes Most Likely to Be Deployed?

• Stereotypes save people the trouble of thinking
  (Gilbert Hixon, 1991)
• Stereotypes as judgmental heuristics
• motivation (e.g., involvement)
• speed (e.g., times pressures)
• attention (e.g., competing tasks)

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Stereotype ApplicationA Brief Review

• Task Complexity
• simple vs. complex judgments (Bodenhausen
  Lichtenstein, 1987)
• information overload (Bodenhausen Wyer, 1985)
• Time Pressures
• Dijker Koomen (1996)
• Dual Tasking
• cognitive load (Gilbert Hixon, 1991)
• Involvement with Target
• outcome dependence (Neuberg Fiske, 1987)
• accountability (Tetlock, 1983)

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Are You A Morning Person?Bodenhausen (1990)
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Reaching Your Peak

• attention and stereotyping
• stereotypes as heuristics
• laboratory manipulations
• naturalistic factors
• circadian variations
• morning vs. evening people

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Meeting Linda

• Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and
  very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a
  student, she was deeply concerned with issues of
  discrimination and social justice, and also
  participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
• Which of the following is more likely to be true?
• Linda is a bank teller.
• Linda is a bank teller and is active in the
  feminist movement.

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Conjunction Fallacy

• the erroneous belief that the joint probability
  of two events is greater than the probability of
  either of the constituent events separately.

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Committing the Conjunction Fallacy
Bodenhausen (1990)
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Unresolved IssuesSo What Exactly Gets Activated?
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The Problem of Multiple Construal

• categorical competition
• the winner takes it all
• but where do the losers go?
• consequences of category dominance

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A Wee Digression - Is That My Beer?The Case of
Competing Actions
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Is That My (Car) Parking Space?The Case of
Competing Memories
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What Does It Mean?Linguistic Ambiguity

• Under cover of darkness, Brian slipped into the
  port.
• It can be fun playing with your hair.
• It happened at the bank.

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Resolving Mental ConflictInhibition

• evolved solutions
• cognitive inhibition
• dampening competing representations
• conflict resolution
• inhibition and category activation

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The Case of the Asian WomanMacrae et al. (1995)
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Priming Categories

• dynamics of multiple construal
• priming categories
• winners losers
• are the losers inhibited?

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Experiment 1Parafoveal Priming

• Phase 1 - parafoveal priming (women or Chinese)
• Phase 2 - view videotape (Chinese woman reading a
  book)
• Phase 3 - lexical decision task (category
  accessibility)

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Stereotype Accessibility
Macrae et al. (1995)
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Priming Through Behavior
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Experiment 2

• Phase 1 - view videotape
• eating with chopsticks vs. applying cosmetics
• Phase 2 - lexical decision task (category
  accessibility)

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Stereotype Accessibility
Macrae et al. (1995)
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Inhibition and Category Selection

• dealing with conflict
• cognitive inhibition
• nature of inhibition
• lateral vs. strategic
• role of processing goals
• Sinclair Kunda (1999)

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Motivation and InhibitionSinclair Kunda (1999)
Favorable feedback - activate doctor, inhibit
Black Unfavorable feedback - activate Black,
inhibit doctor
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Consequences of Category Activation

• identity salience
• which identity dominates
• behavioral consequences
• stereotype threat
• scholastic performance (Steele Aronson, 1995)
• math test, diagnostic of abilities
• competing identities
• performance conflicts

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Math TestShih et al. (1999)
American Canadian samples
Asian vs. female identity
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Task Performance