Effects of Personal versus Impersonal Rater Instructions on Relative Favorability of Thirteen Ethnic Group Stereotypes

Abstract

Abstract When attitudes toward Blacks are measured with reactive instruments, social desirability biases may be observed: Subjects avoid expressing negative attitudes when they believe that these attitudes will be evident to other individuals. To study whether these sanctions apply to other ethnic stereotypes, subjects were asked to assign checklist traits to 13 ethnic groups. Reactivity was manipulated by asking subjects to indicate either their personal beliefs or beliefs of the “typical American.” Subjects indicating personal beliefs were expected to be more susceptible to social desirability bias than those indicating beliefs of an anonymous typical American, but the strength and direction of this effect was predicted to vary by ethnic group. The interaction was significant, F(12, 840) = 6.048, p < .001. Although the data are consistent with earlier findings of social desirability biases in stereotypes of Blacks, the interaction effect suggests that norms about expression of unflattering stereotypes a...