Reducing Stereotyping in the Workplace by Changing Language: A Hypothetical Social Psychological Intervention (original) (raw)
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Two experiments investigated when perceivers can construe stereotypeinconsistent information abstractly (i.e., interpret observations as generalizable) and whether stereotype-consistency delimits the positive relation between abstract construal level and stereotyping. Participants (N1 = 104, N2 = 83) prepared for intragroup communication or formed an individual impression without anticipating communication about a newspaper article describing outgroup members behaving stereotype-consistently or stereotype- inconsistently, and completed construal-level measures. Results supported our prediction that when people prepare communication, they prepare to share specific information (which may be stereotype-inconsistent) against the background of shared knowledge (often stereotypical). Communication thus creates the conditions for stereotype-inconsistent information to be processed abstractly. This effect occurred with centrally (Experiment 2) and peripherally (Experiment 1) presented stereotype-relevant information, in two different intergroup contexts. Additionally, Experiment 2 demonstrated that abstract construal level increases stereotyping only if the construed information is stereotype-consistent. Thus, preparing for communication may be a key to stereotype change because it enables, through abstract construal, generalization of stereotype-inconsistency.
Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview
This chapter has two main objectives: to review influential ideas and findings in the literature and to outline the organization and content of the volume. The first part of the chapter lays a conceptual and empirical foundation for other chapters in the volume. Specifically, the chapter defines and distinguishes the key concepts of prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination, highlighting how bias can occur at individual, institutional, and cultural levels. We also review different theoretical perspectives on these phenomena, including individual differences, social cognition, functional relations between groups, and identity concerns. We offer a broad overview of the field, charting how this area has developed over previous decades and identify emerging trends and future directions. The second part of the chapter focuses specifically on the coverage of the area in the present volume. It explains the organization of the book and presents a brief synopsis of the chapters in the volume.
Psychologically based, anti-prejudice educational intervention–project.
The presented study explores the possibility of creating and implementing educational program which would reduce intergroup bias in realistic high school setting. The project was based on the assumption that there is the need of easily applicable, anti-prejudice intervention, which would be appropriate to introduce into foreign language course books, would be universal in terms of changing negative attitudes and would meet all methodological requirements of language lessons. Crossed categorization and the common ingroup identity model were used as theoretical basis for 30 English lesson scenarios on B2 level (upper-intermediate). It was shown that after the intervention there was a significant change in the students’ attitude toward the outgroup and the outgroup members. The implications of these findings are discussed. Keywords: stereotypes, prejudice, categorization, identity, ingroup, outgroup
Joking about ourselves: Effects of disparaging humor on ingroup stereotyping
In three studies, we examined whether ingroup disparaging humor leads to greater stereotyping of the ingroup. First, in Study 1, (n = 101) university students were exposed to: a) ingroup disparaging humor, b) neutral humor or c) ingroup disparaging information. Participants exposed to disparaging humor reported more stereotypic evaluations than those in the neutral humor or disparaging text condition. Study 2 (n = 167) replicated these findings with humor conditions (disparaging vs. neutral) and showed that ingroup identification moderated the effects of the type of humor. Low identifiers exposed to ingroup disparaging humor (vs. those in the control condition) reported a greater frequency of stereotypic evaluations, whereas the manipulation did not affect high identifiers. Finally Study 3 (n = 153) also manipulated the source of the jokes. As in Study 2, we found an interaction effect showing that high identifiers were not affected by the manipulation, whereas for low identifiers disparaging humor increased stereotyping and lead to more negative emotions toward the ingroup. No significant effects were found for source of the jokes. We discuss findings in terms of how the traditional pattern of humor facilitating outgroup stereotyping also seems to apply to ingroup stereotyping. Keywords: disparaging humor, ingroup evaluation, stereotypes, social identity, identification.
Stereotyping From the Perspective of Perceivers and Targets
This article provides insight into the process of stereotyping from two different perspectives: the perceiver and the target. From the perceiver's perspective, motivational and cognitive reasons for relying on stereotypes for judgment are discussed. From the targets’ perspective, stereotype threat research is reviewed. From both perspectives, it is clear that stereotypes represent a dual-edged sword for both perceiver and target group members. Finally, research incorporating both perspectives provides useful interventions for prejudice reduction.
We found that perceived "common fate" (mutually-experienced discrimination) influenced women's labeling of discriminatory treatment in front of another woman. Women who received sexist test feedback attributed their experience more to discrimination than to ability in front of another woman (rather than privately) who had the same "sexist" (versus different) evaluator. In a field experiment, we sent out 5,636 job applications varying how Swedish (in-group) and Arab (out-group) applicants presented themselves in terms of warmth and competence. The results revealed substantial discrimination as Arabs need to appear warmer and more competent than Swedes to be invited to a job interview. In many settings, career advancement depends on both developing positive workplace relationships and job performance. Two studies examined the potential for stereotype threat to undermine both outcomes. Discussion addresses how stereotypes disturb subtle interpersonal processes between men and women in important professional settings and strategies to improve these interactions in the field. If Black identity is represented by Black men and female identity is represented by White women, then racism may be conceptualized as a Black man's experience and sexism as a White woman's experience. Findings from the present research support this hypothesis and suggest the marginalization of discrimination against Black women. Is the implicit association test a measure of personal or cultural associations? Examining this question in terms of generalized explicit and implicit prejudice, three studies suggest that contextual aspects matters more for the latter kind. Young adults' attempt to quell existential threat has been theorized to create psychological distancing from older adults. We provide evidence that framing 'elderly' as a future-self serves to reduce such psychological distancing, using a modified picture-word Stroop task (adapted from Bar-Anan, Liberman, Trope, & Algom, 2007). A model is proposed linking multiple theories of stereotyping, to explain the maintenance of stereotypes, its effects, and points of intervention for women in STEM (e.g. Steele, 1997; Eagly & Karau, 2002). Data addresses relationships between model components, and results of intervention efforts to improve leadership aspirations in STEM women. This research examines the consequences of reading immersive, sexist books. Participants read a section from a sexist text or a non-sexist text, and were then assessed for levels of sexism. Results revealed that women showed a significant increase in hostile sexism in comparison to women who read the non-sexist text. The present study examined how social comparisons influence judgments on racist behavior when the comparison other is constructed from an individual's own self-report. Findings demonstrate a "Better Than Myself Effect" and provide insight into the judgment process that occurs when people are asked to estimate their own prejudices.
Attributions of intergroup bias and outgroup homogeneity to ingroup and outgroup others
European Journal of Social Psychology, 2005
The research in this article explores the structure and content of attributed intergroup beliefs: to what extent do perceivers think others of their ingroup and their outgroup display intergroup evaluative bias and outgroup homogeneity? We report studies that address this question in ethnicity, gender, and nationality intergroup contexts. In all of these, we show that perceivers attribute to others more biased intergroup beliefs than they themselves espouse. Even when perceivers themselves do not show intergroup bias or outgroup homogeneity, they attribute such biases to others, both others from their ingroup and others from their outgroup. We argue that such attributed intergroup beliefs are fundamentally important to expectations concerning intergroup interaction.
The Effects of Linguistic Voice on Evaluations and Attributions of Ingroup And Outgroup Members
Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 1999
This current study investigated the effects of English language active and passive voice on evaluations and attributions of responsibility toward an ingroup member or an outgroup member who behaved in either a positive or a negative manner. Prior theoretical and empirical analyses suggested that passive voice transformations would have the effect of: (1) reducing the saliency of the logical subject of a sentence relative to the logical object, thereby (2) reducing attributions of responsibility toward the logical subject. Results indicated that, regardless of group membership, attributions of responsibility for positive behavior, but not negative behavior, were reduced when described in the passive voice compared to the active voice. A passive voice transformation also had the effect of reducing the extremity of ingroup evaluations relative to outgroup evaluations for both positive and negative behaviors. We discuss the implications of these data with reference to social-linguistic analyses of masking and influence.
Stigma and group inequality: Social psychological approaches
2006
“Ask yourself what would happen to your own personality if you heard it said over and over again that you were lazy, a simple child of nature, expected to steal, and had inferior blood. Suppose this opinion were forced on you by the majority of your fellow citizens. And suppose nothing that you could do would change this opinion – because you happen to have black skin,” pioneering social psychologist Gordon Allport challenged his readers in 1954 to consider (Allport, 1979/1958/1954, p. 142). Today, fifty years later, people still suffer from stigma based on many different group memberships: African Americans and Latinos are negatively stereotyped in the intellectual domain, women are negatively stereotyped in the math domain, and those who are mentally ill suffer from more global devaluation.