Stereotypes

Hilton & von HippelAnnual Review of Psychology

1996

Key Question: Is Prejudice…

• Inevitable by-product of miserly cognitive style

vs.• Product of deep-seated personality

& motivational factors

Answer:

• Affect and motivation often increases reliance on cognitive stereotyping processes

• Also may inhibit or decrease stereotyping processes

Heuristics• Humans can’t process all info

available, in thoroughly scientific, unbiased manner

• Brain/Mind has evolved info-processing rules, algorithms, short-cuts

• Select a little info & evaluate it quickly

“cognitive miser”

Definitions“Beliefs about the

characteristics, attributes, and behaviors or members of certain groups.”

Sometimes accurate representations of reality

Sometimes formed independent of real differences

Focus of Review

• Stereotypes arising from “miserly” cognitive style

• But: maintained when no evidence of corresponding group characteristics

Organization of Review

• How are stereotypes represented in mind/brain

• How formed?

• How maintained?

• How applied?

• How changed?

Representation of Stereotpyes

• Prototype: group’s typical features

• Exemplar: prototype is specific individual

• Associative network: linked attributes

• Schemas: general, abstract beliefs

• Base rates: average expectable behavior

Queston:

What of the exaggerated caricatures of we saw in Ethnic Notions?

– Flawed information processing?or

– Evidence of emotion & motivation?

Formation• Self-fulfilling prophecies (C. Word)

• Non-conscious detection of covariation(a few stereotype-congruent examples self-perpetuating)

• Illusory correlation(more processing devoted to negative info about minorities; same correlation not noted or not remembered among in-group members)

Formation (con’t)

• Out-group homogenaiety

heuristic of info-processing: see out-group members as similar

H. Tajfel’s “minimal group” experiments

Maintenance

Info-processing heuristics:

• Priming

• Assimilation

• Attribution processes

• Memory processes

Maintenance

• Priming effects

– Making category or trait salient, so people perceive & think in terms of it

– Usually outside of conscious awareness

Maintenance

• Assimilation

– Individual automatically perceived as resembling group stereotype

Maintenance• Attributional processes

Fundamental attribution error(overestimate others’ personal

dispositions)

Ultimate attribution error(dispositional attributions for

positive in-group and negative out-group

actions)

MaintenanceMemory Processes:

• Better memory for stereotype-incongruent information works against stereotyping

• But: incongruent info dissonance diss.-reducing defense of stereotype

• Also: high demand better memory for stereotype-congruent info.

Application• Automaticity: stereotype

activation becomes automatic at young age– Suppression takes effort– Threats to self-esteem activate

• Ambiguity: ambiguous situations greater reliance on stereotypes

(Gaertner & Dovidio)

Prejudice as “application of stereotypes”

• Aversive racism: egalitarian values but negative affect

• “Modern” / “symbolic” / “subtle” racism: negative affect rationalized by non-racist issues

• Ambivalent racism: egalitarian & Protestant ethic values quick to praise & to condemn

Prejudice

Style of information processing that uses stereotypes for repre-senting out-groups

Stereotype Change

• Bookkeeping model: incremental updates

• Conversion model: dramatic change

• Subtyping model: inconsistent info given new sub-category

• Exemplar model: change prototype

Inhibition of Stereotypes

• Suppression likely to prime stereotypic perception and processing

• Personal commitment to not stereotype makes suppression more successful

Conclusions

• Know more about development of stereotypes than how to reduce their use

• Don’t understand non-conscious aspects of stereotyping

Questions• What is the causal role played by

cognitive heuristics – by “natural” biases in information-processing?

• How do we integrate cognitive factors with emotional, motivational, and societal to explain prejudice?

• Do cognitive heuristics doom us to prejudice?