On the Activation of Social Stereotypes: The Moderating Role of Processing Objectives (original) (raw)
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The Proactive Control of Stereotype Activation
Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 2012
Stereotypes are typically conceived of as controlled through conscious willing. We propose that goals can lead to stereotype control even when the goals are not consciously noted. This is called proactive control since goal pursuit occurs not as a reaction to a stereotype having been activated and having exerted influence, but as an act of goal shielding that inhibits stereotypes instead of activating them. In two experiments proactive control over stereotypes toward African Americans was illustrated using a lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, participants with egalitarian goals showed slower responses to stereotypic words when following an African American male face (relative to following a White face). Experiment 2 illustrated African American faces facilitated responses to stimuli relevant to egalitarian goals; White faces did not. Together, these studies indicate that, without consciously trying, participants with egalitarian goals’ implicit reaction to African Americans inc...
Selective stereotype activation: The joint impact of interpersonal goals and task context
European Journal of Social Psychology, 2009
In complex social interactions, such as co-operation or competition with another person on an ability test, people tend to activate stereotypes strategically in order to achieve their self-enhancement goals. If multiple ways of categorizing the target person are available, the selected stereotypical traits that serve their motives might also depend on the specific task context in which the interaction is situated. We assumed that people selectively process trait information in order to increase their perceived chances to win in a currently performed task. We tested this hypothesis in a study in which participants were told to perform an analytical or emotional skills task having as a co-operator or rival, a multiple categorizable target person (female computer science student). In the analytical task context, we found stronger inhibition of stereotypically female traits in the co-operation than in the competition condition. In the emotional skills task context, we found stronger inhibition of computer scientist traits in the co-operation than competition condition. The interactive nature of goals and context influences on stereotype activation is discussed and some theoretical implications about the dynamics of stereotype activation processes are drawn.
A Tale of Two Primes: Contextual Limits on Stereotype Activation
Social Cognition, 2004
Recent research has questioned the automaticity of stereotypical thinking by identifying factors that moderate the elicitation of this process. Extending this general line of inquiry, the present experiments investigated the effects of contextual factors on stereotype activation. It was anticipated that the manner in which triggering categorical cues are encountered would moderate the activation of stereotypical thinking. Specifically, it was predicted that briefly presented primes (i.e., difficult-to-process items) would not activate sex stereotypes when they were intermixed with primes that were easy to process (i.e., items presented for longer times). The results of two experiments supported this prediction. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that stereotype activation following the presentation of easy-to-process primes is moderated by individual differences in the endorsement of stereotypical beliefs. These findings are noteworthy because they demonstrate that contextual factors modulate stereotype activation at even the very early stages of social information processing. Influential models in person perception contend that the mere registration of a categorical cue-be it a group exemplar or some symbolic equivalent (e.g., verbal label)-is all that is needed to trigger stereotype
On the Roles of Stereotype Activation and Application in Diminishing Implicit Bias
Stereotypes can influence social perception in undesirable ways. However, activated stereotypes are not always applied in judgments. The present research investigated how stereotype activation and application processes impact social judgments as a function of the extent to which control is possible. Specifically, we varied the time available to intervene in the stereotyping process, and used multinomial modeling to independently estimate stereotype activation and application. As expected, social judgments were less stereotypic when participants had more time to intervene. In terms of mechanisms, stereotype application, and not stereotype activation, corresponded with reductions in stereotypic biases. With increasing time, stereotype application was less likely, reflecting the fact that controlling application is time-consuming. In contrast, stereotype activation increased rather than decreased as more time was available. Thus, stereotype activation was highest when judgments were le...
Category and stereotype activation revisited
Scandinavian Journal of …, 2006
In Study 1 ( N = 230), we found that the participants' explicit prejudice was not related to their knowledge of cultural stereotypes of immigrants in Sweden, and that they associated the social category immigrants with the same national/ethnic categories. In Study 2 ( N = 88), employing the category and stereotype words obtained in Study 1 as primes, we examined whether participants with varying degrees of explicit prejudice differed in their automatic stereotyping and implicit prejudice when primed with category or stereotypical words. In accord with our hypothesis, and contrary to previous findings, the results showed that people's explicit prejudice did not affect their automatic stereotyping and implicit prejudice, neither in the category nor stereotype priming condition. Study 3 ( N = 62), employing category priming using facial photographs of Swedes and immigrants as primes, showed that participants' implicit prejudice was not moderated by their explicit prejudice. The outcome is discussed in relation to the distinction between category and stereotype priming and in terms of the associative strength between a social category and its related stereotypes.
Automatic and controlled processes in stereotype priming
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996
The experiments in this article were conducted to observe the automatic activation of gender stereotypes and to assess theoretically specified conditions under which such stereotype priming may be moderated. Across 4 experiments, 3 patterns of data were observed: (a) evidence of stereotype priming under baseline conditions of intention and high cognitive constraints, (b) significant reduction of stereotype priming when a counterstereotype intention was formed even though cognitive constraints were high, and (c) complete reversal of stereotype priming when a counterstereotype intention was formed and cognitive constraints were low. These data support proposals that stereotypes may be automatically activated as well as proposals that perceivers can control and even eliminate such effects.
2014
Previous studies have found evidence for "feature-based stereotyping" (FBS), in which the more "prototypic" an individual's features are of their social group, the more that individual will be stereotyped. Both categorization and a direct association between features and stereotypes (Blair, 2006) have been proposed to mediate of this process. The current study provides an empirical test of the mechanisms underlying FBS by employing verbal interference, which has been used in previous studies to disrupt categorical perception (the advantage for discriminating between objects from different categories, relative to objects from the same category).We predicted that if categorization mediates FBS, verbal interference will eliminate the use of features in stereotyping. If features are directly associated with stereotypes, categorization should be unnecessary and verbal interference will have no effect on FBS. Although no evidence was found to support the differential effects of interference on FBS, analyses suggest that our interference tasks did not work as intended.
Examining the Relationships Among Categorization, Stereotype Activation, and Stereotype Application
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2019
Impressions of others are often influenced by the social categories to which they belong (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Freeman & Ambady, 2011). This tendency to categorize people is a robust and spontaneous process that occurs early in person perception (Ito & Urland, 2003; Stangor, Lynch, Duan, & Glas, 1992). Because social categories have associated stereotypes, when a person is categorized, they also are more likely to be judged according to group stereotypes
Disentangling stereotype activation and stereotype application in the stereotype misperception task
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012
When forming impressions about other people, stereotypes about the individual's social group often influence the resulting impression. At least 2 distinguishable processes underlie stereotypic impression formation: stereotype activation and stereotype application. Most previous research has used implicit measures to assess stereotype activation and explicit measures to assess stereotype application, which has several disadvantages. The authors propose a measure of stereotypic impression formation, the stereotype misperception task (SMT), together with a multinomial model that quantitatively disentangles the contributions of stereotype activation and application to responses in the SMT. The validity of the SMT and of the multinomial model was confirmed in 5 studies. The authors hope to advance research on stereotyping by providing a measurement tool that separates multiple processes underlying impression formation.