1. Stereotyping

2. Lectures 3 & 4: Social Stereotyping
Bargh, J.A. (1999). The cognitive monster: The case against the controllability of automatic stereotype efects. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual Process Theories in Social Psychology (pp ). New York: Guilford.
Blair, I.V. (2002). The malleability of automatic stereotypes and prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6,
Hilton, J., & Von Hippel, W. (1996). Stereotypes. Annual Review of Psychology, 47,
Macrae, C.N., & Bodenhausen, G.V. (2000). Social Cognition: Thinking categorically about others. Annual Review of Psychology, 51,
Lecture 1 – Stereotype Activation
Lecture 2 – Stereotype Application

3. 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)

4. Stereotype Components
Culturally shared beliefs
cognitive component (beliefs)
affective component (feelings)
behavioural component (actions)
Categorical associations
men are …?
accountants are…?
Italians are…?

5. How De We Learn Stereotypes?

6. A Chilling Example!
Children (24-28 months) touch more own sex gender-typed toys (Levy,1999).

7. 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.

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

9. Is Stereotype Activation Inevitable?
“every event has certain marks that serve as a cue to bring the category of prejudgment into action…A 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)

10. “…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)

11. The Basic Problem!
On exposure to a target, what gets activated in mind?

12. Measuring Stereotype Activation: Semantic Priming Tasks

13. Measuring Stereotype Activation: Semantic Priming Tasks
Forgetful skillful

14. Automatic Activation: Some 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

15. Dovidio et al’s (1986) Paradigm: Could 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

16. 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?)

17. The Invisible Prime: Purdue & 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

18. Devine’s (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

19. Knowledge of Cultural Stereotypes
Stereotype Contents
bagpipes
booze
stingy
bigots = humanitarians (Devine, 1989)

20. Evaluate Donald Paradigm (Devine, 1989)
Tasks
Phase 1: parafoveal vigilance task (Negroes, lazy, blues, Blacks, Africa, basketball)
Phase 2: person evaluation (Donald - Srull & Wyer, ) - ambiguously hostile behaviours
Results: high-P participants rated Donald to be more hostile than did low-P participants

21. Automatic Stereotyping: A 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)

22. Challenging Orthodoxy: Is Stereotype Activation Really Inevitable?
triggering stereotype activation (are images and words equivalent?)
Belly Dancer

23. 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?

24. Statistical Frequency: Langer et al. (1976)

25. Solo or Token Status: Taylor & Fiske (1978)

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

27. Stereotype Activation: Always or Sometimes?

28. Stereotypes as Mental Tools: Gilbert & 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

29. 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)

30. Processing Goals: The Inattentive Shopper (Macrae et al. 1997)

31. Processing Goals 3 Tasks: animacy (conceptual) dot (perceptual)
ambitious
(emotional)
(flubitorso)
3 Tasks: animacy (conceptual)
dot (perceptual)
detection

32. Category Accessibility
Macrae et al. (1997)

33. 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)

34. Context and Stereotype Activation: Wittenbrink et al. (2001)
In an evaluative priming task, activation of African-American stereotype was moderated by the context in which targets were located.

35. Summary Things Worth Knowing What are stereotypes?
Process and consequences of stereotype activation
Next Week
1. Stereotype Application

36. Lecture 4: Stereotype Application

37. Why Do People Apply Stereotypes?
‘personality’ approaches
‘socio-cultural’ accounts
‘cognitive’ perspective

38. Applying Stereotypes: Possessing 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.

39. Applying Stereotypes: Learning 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)

40. Applying Stereotypes: Cognitive Efficiency
cognitive perspective (Hamilton, 1981)
stereotyping is a product of category activation and basic cognitive limitations.

41. Applying Stereotypes: Basic Paradox
perils of stereotypical thinking
discrimination
prejudice
legal sanctions
benefits of stereotypical thinking
cognitive efficiency

42. What Can Stereotyping Do For You?
content-related effects
structural effects (processing consequences)
perception
memory
attention

43. Accessing Stereotype Contents: Target Enrichment
semantic knowledge (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990)
traits
behaviours
opinions
lifestyle
‘indirect’ person knowledge

44. Stereotypes and Information Processing: Perceptual 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?

45. Activating Social Stereotypes: A Functional Analysis
stereotypical thinking is functional (Allport, 1954)
reducing the information-processing burden
ease of detection
perceptual identification
measurement issues - climbing inside the head

46. The Need For Speed: Categorical 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

47. 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

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

49. Stimulus Identification
repeated presentation of degraded words
dot density mask
what’s the word?
number of trials taken

50. v

52. Identify the Word
Number of Presentations
Macrae et al. (1994)

53. Stereotypes and Information Processing: Attentional Effects
does stereotype application preserve valuable attentional resources?
if so, when does this take place?

54. Person Impressions: With 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

55. Facts about Indonesia

56. Person Memory
Macrae et al. (1994)

57. Knowledge about Indonesia?
Macrae et al. (1994)

58. Efficiency and Automaticity
stereotypical efficiency - conscious or unconscious?
overt or covert allocation of attention?
probe-reaction tasks
turn off the sound

59. Person Impressions: With 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

60. How Quickly Can You Turn Off the Sound?
Macrae et al. (1994)

61. Stereotyping is Efficient
Stereotypes
(i) guide perception
(ii) organize memories
(iii) preserve attention
Is stereotyping Intentional?
awareness
consent

62. 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)

63. Stereotype Application: A 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)

64. Are You A Morning Person? Bodenhausen (1990)

65. Reaching Your Peak attention and stereotyping
stereotypes as heuristics
laboratory manipulations
naturalistic factors
circadian variations
morning vs. evening people

66. 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.

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

68. Committing the Conjunction Fallacy
Bodenhausen (1990)

69. Unresolved Issues: So What Exactly Gets Activated?

70. The Problem of Multiple Construal
categorical competition
the winner takes it all
but where do the losers go?
consequences of category dominance

71. A Wee Digression - Is That My Beer? The Case of Competing Actions

72. Is That My (Car) Parking Space? The Case of Competing Memories

73. 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.

74. Resolving Mental Conflict: Inhibition
evolved solutions
cognitive inhibition
dampening competing representations
conflict resolution
inhibition and category activation

75. The Case of the Asian Woman: Macrae et al. (1995)

76. Priming Categories dynamics of multiple construal priming categories
winners & losers
are the losers inhibited?

77. Experiment 1: Parafoveal Priming
Phase 1 - parafoveal priming (women or Chinese)
Phase 2 - view videotape (Chinese woman reading a book)
Phase 3 - lexical decision task (category accessibility)

78. Stereotype Accessibility
Macrae et al. (1995)

79. Priming Through Behavior

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

81. Stereotype Accessibility
Macrae et al. (1995)

82. Inhibition and Category Selection
dealing with conflict
cognitive inhibition
nature of inhibition
lateral vs. strategic
role of processing goals
Sinclair & Kunda (1999)

83. Motivation and Inhibition: Sinclair & Kunda (1999)
Favorable feedback - activate doctor, inhibit Black
Unfavorable feedback - activate Black, inhibit doctor

84. 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

85. Asian vs. female identity
Math Test: Shih et al. (1999)
American & Canadian
samples
Asian vs. female identity

86. Task Performance

87. Summary Things Worth Knowing When and Why Do People Stereotype Others?
Next Week
The Automaticity of Everyday Life