| social perception of an individual in terms of their group membership or physical features generalization made about a group and then attributed to members of that group developed through personal (experience) and shared (conversations, media, etc) knowledge to some extent, they are based on individual experiences but sociocultural factors also come into play: they can be shared by large sociocultural groups as social representations may be either positive or negative
|
theories on formation of stereotypes | - stereotypes = schemas theory |
formation of stereotypes: SIT theory | Sherman et al. (2009): we pay the most attention to in-group and out-group members that maximise positive distinctiveness our ethnocentrism (group ver of SSB) affects the way we interpret similar behaviour between in-group and out-group members so we register negative behaviour of in-group as due to situational factors but attribute the same behaviour in out-groups to dispositional (hence forming part of one’s social stereotype)
|
formation of stereotypes: stereotypes = schemas theory | social world is complex and provides too much info to process due to our limited ability to process info, we simplify our social world with stereotypes stereotypes explain things quickly stable and resistant to change thus allowing our behaviour to be consistent
|
formation of stereotypes: stereotypes = schemas explanation | Fiske and Dyer (1985): developing stereotypes begins with learning basic schema elements
e. g. for formation of female stereotype, it begins with ‘girls dress in pink’ and ‘girls play with dolls’ more elements are added over time
e. g. ‘girls can cry in public but not boys’ strong associations between elements emerge over time to form a single schema after formation, it can be integrated to the point that its activation becomes unconscious/automatic
|
comparison between SIT theory and stereotypes = schemas theory | both are based on social categorization, but schema theorists believe categorization simplifies social perception while SIT theorists believe it enriches social perception schema theorists think categorization has a biasing effect, but SIT theorists generally believe perceiving people as individuals rather than members of a group doesn’t necessarily improve accuracy schema theory revolves around the concept of being stable and fixed, while SIT believes categorization is flexible and can be affected by situational factors
|
effect of stereotypes on behaviour | affects the behaviour of those who believe in the stereotype and those who are affected by the stereotype confirmation bias: once people are categorized as belonging to one group, similarities between them and other individuals in the group are exaggerated (thus stereotyping revolves around group identity) stereotype threat: stereotypes may be internalized by stereotyped groups, affecting their behaviour
Main studies:
Confirmation bias: Cohen (1981)
Stereotype threat: Bargh et al. (1996) |
| showed participants a videotape showing a woman having dinner with her husband 2 conditions:
- waitress (participants were told she was a barmaid)
- librarian (participants were told she was a librarian) After the videotape, participants were asked to recall what they remembered about her
|
Cohen (1981) - Findings and Conclusion | Librarian condition: remembers that she wore glasses and was listening to classical music. Waitress condition: remembers she drank alcohol we are more likely to notice and remember info consistent w/ our stereotypes
|
Bargh et al. (1996) - Process | Elderly participants were asked to form a grammatically correct sentence using (what they believed to be) random words 2 conditions:
- Test: words related to and intending to activate the elderly stereotype (e.g. grey, retired, wise)
- Control: given words were unrelated to the elderly stereotype (e.g. thirsty, clean, private). After completing the experimental tasks, participants were directed towards the elevator.
|
Bargh et al. (1996) - Findings and Conclusion | participants under test conditions activated walked significantly more slowly towards the elevator the words activated a stereotype of how elderly people behave this had affected the speed the elderly people walked
|
