Counterstereotypical Exemplars Research Articles

Stuck on Intergroup Attitudes: The Need to Shift Gears to Change Intergroup Behaviors

Decades of research on how to improve intergroup relations have primarily examined ways to change prejudiced attitudes. However, this focus on negative intergroup attitudes has yielded few effective solutions. Because intergroup relations are shaped by behavior during intergroup interactions, it is necessary to identify constructs that have a strong causal impact on intergroup behavior change. In this article, I will discuss evidence showing that intergroup attitude change is neither a sufficient nor necessary cause for intergroup behavior change. Empirical research suggests that intergroup attitudes are difficult to change and have a limited effect on intergroup behavior. I also distinguish between constructs that primarily affect intergroup attitude change (e.g., counterstereotypical exemplars, evaluative conditioning) and constructs that primarily affect intergroup behavior change (e.g., social norms, self-efficacy). Further, suggestions for future research will also be provided to advance understanding of the various psychological constructs that influence intergroup behavior change, which will help us develop effective methods of improving intergroup relations.

Osteoarthritis consumers as co-researchers: identifying consumer insights to improve osteoarthritis management by co-designing translational research solutions

Co-design is a consumer-driven approach that facilitates consumer participation in creating meaningful solutions to complex problems. Poor uptake of core management strategies for osteoarthritis suggests there is a missing link in translation between research and practice. We partnered with osteoarthritis consumers as 'co-researchers' to identify translational research solutions to improve uptake of core management strategies that are grounded in lived experiences. To transparently describe a theory-driven, generative co-design approach using an integrated conceptual framework to collaborate with consumers at the equal partnership level. We used co-design workshops with a non-hierarchical participatory framework. Three workshops with six co-researchers [2 female, mean age 68.7 (9.8) years, 3-30 years symptom duration] were conducted using activities to encourage creative thinking, promote deep reflection on personal/societal beliefs and minimise sensitivities around sharing personal beliefs (e.g., establishing a safe space, prompting questions, perspective-taking, counter-stereotypical exemplars). All six co-researchers actively participated in the workshops. Achievement of an equal collaborative partnership was evidenced by co-researchers challenging a project proposed by the research team and making alternative recommendations that have been implemented in prospective decision-making - representing a complete change in research focus driven by consumer input. A key suggested solution was to develop a scalable knowledge translation intervention that targets misconceptions about osteoarthritis and its management at the societal-level. Through an innovative co-design approach in partnership with co-researchers, we identified meaningful areas on which to focus translational research for osteoarthritis. Discordance between existing research priorities and novel solutions proposed by co-researchers highlights the value of co-design.

A Theory of Reliance on Individuating Information and Stereotypes in Implicit Judgments of Individuals and Social Groups

We propose a theory of (a) reliance on stereotypes and individuating information in implicit person perception and (b) the relationship between individuation in implicit person perception and shifts in implicit group stereotypes. The present research preliminarily tested this theory by assessing whether individuating information or stereotypes take primacy in implicit judgments of individuals under circumstances specified by our model and then testing the malleability of implicit group stereotypes in the presence of the same (or additional) counterstereotypic individuating information. Studies 1 and 2 conceptually replicated previous research by examining the effects of stereotype-inconsistent and stereotype-consistent individuating information on implicit stereotype-relevant judgments of individuals. Both studies showed that stereotypic implicit judgments of individuals made in the absence of individuating information were reversed when the individuals were portrayed as stereotype-inconsistent and were strengthened when targets were portrayed as stereotype-consistent (though in Study 2 this strengthening was descriptive rather than inferential). Studies 3 and 4 examined whether the strong effects of individuating information found in studies 1 and 2 extended to the social groups to which the individuals belonged. Even in the presence of up to eight counterstereotypic exemplars, there was no evidence of significant shifts in group stereotypes. Thus, the data showed that the shifts in implicit judgments that were caused by individuating information did not generalize to stereotypes of the social groups to which the individuals belong. Finally, we propose modifications to our theory that include potential reasons for this lack of generalization that we invite future research to explore.

Reducing implicit racial preferences: III. A process-level examination of changes in implicit preferences.

Implicit bias change was initially assumed to reflect changes in associations, but subsequent research demonstrated that implicit bias change can also reflect changes in control-oriented processes that constrain the expression of associations. The present research examines the process-level effects of 17 different implicit bias-reduction interventions and one sham intervention by analyzing data from more than 20,000 participants who completed an intervention condition or a baseline control condition followed by a race Implicit Association Test (IAT). To identify the processes influenced by each intervention, we applied the Quadruple process model to participants' IAT responses then meta-analyzed parameter estimates according to a taxonomy of interventions based on shared features. Interventions that relied on counterstereotypic exemplars or strategies to override biases influenced both associations and control-oriented processes, whereas interventions that relied on evaluative conditioning influenced only control-oriented processes. In contrast, interventions that focused on egalitarian values, perspective taking, or emotion had no reliable influence on any of the processes examined. When interventions did change associations, they were much more likely to reduce positive White associations than negative Black associations. The present research extends upon traditional dual-process perspectives by identifying robust intervention effects on response biases. These findings connect features of interventions with changes in the processes underlying implicit bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental differences in the malleability of implicit racial bias following exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars.

Research suggests that exposure to stories about Black adults who are contributing positively to their community can reduce implicit pro-White/anti-Black racial bias in older children (ages 9-12). The aim of the current research was to replicate and extend this finding by investigating whether a different child-friendly manipulation exposing children to positive Black exemplars and negative White exemplars could decrease implicit pro-White/anti-Black racial bias in children aged 5 to 12 years, both immediately following the intervention and 1 hr later. In addition, a second aim of this research was to examine whether child-friendly positive exemplar exposure would similarly reduce adults' implicit racial bias. In a sample of White and Asian Canadians (N = 478; 182 male, 296 female), recruited from a community science center (children) and a public university in Vancouver (adults), 9- to 12-year-old children's racial bias was reduced up to 1 hr after this new intervention, while the effectiveness of the intervention on 5- to 8-year-old children's bias was less clear. Interestingly, this intervention did not reduce adult levels of bias. The results of a follow-up study (N = 96; 23 male, 72 female, 1 nonbinary) indicate that exposure to child exemplars can reduce bias in adults, but only when additional instructions are provided to internalize the presented association. Thus, the current study provides evidence that depicting counterstereotypical exemplars can reduce implicit racial bias in children for up to 1 hr after exemplar exposure, but there may be important developmental differences in the conditions required to change this bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Developmental Differences in the Malleability of Implicit Racial Bias Following Exposure to Counterstereotypical Exemplars

Supplemental Material for Developmental Differences in the Malleability of Implicit Racial Bias Following Exposure to Counterstereotypical Exemplars

Counter-narratives for the prevention of violent radicalisation: A systematic review of targeted interventions.

In the field of terrorism research, the violent radicalisation of individuals towards perpetrating acts of terror has been the subject of academic enquiry for some time. One core focus by social scientists has been the role of narratives in this process. Narratives have the ability to present a socially constructed version of reality which serves the interest of the narrator(s). In the context of terrorism, by depicting violence as a viable antidote to individual vulnerabilities, the narratives purported for propagandistic purposes have the potential to thwart perceptions of instrumentality (a key characteristic of violent radicalisation). In order to prevent this from happening, researchers and counter-terrorism practitioners have increasingly sought to explore the potential for counter-narratives; targeted interventions that challenge the rationalisation(s) of violence purported in dominant narratives which, in turn, reconstructs the story. However, there is overwhelming consensus in both government and academic spheres that the concept of the counter-narrative is underdeveloped and, to date, there has been no synthesis of its effectiveness at targeting violent radicalisation-related outcomes. The objective of this review was to provide a synthesis of the effectiveness of counter-narratives in reducing the risk of violent radicalisation. After a scoping exercise, the literature was identified through four search stages, including key-word searches of 12 databases, hand searches of reference lists of conceptual papers or books on the topic of counter-narratives, as well as direct contact with experts and professional agencies in the field. Studies adopting an experimental or quasiexperimental design where at least one of the independent variables involved comparing a counter-narrative to a control (or comparison exposure) were included in the review. Accounting for duplicates, a total of 2,063 records were identified across two searches. Nineteen studies across 15 publications met the inclusion criteria. These studies were largely of moderate quality and 12 used randomised control trial designs with varying types of controls. The publication years ranged from 2000 to 2018, with the majority of studies published after 2015. The studies represented a range of geographical locations, but the region most heavily represented was North America. In most cases, the dominant narrative(s) "to-be-countered" comprised of hostile social constructions of an adversary or "out-group". The majority of studies challenged these dominant narratives through the use of stereotype-challenging, prosocial, or moral "exemplars". Other techniques included the use of alternative accounts, inoculation and persuasion. In terms of risk factors for violent radicalisation, there was some disparity on intervention effectiveness. Overall, when pooling all outcomes, the intervention showed a small effect. However, the observed effects varied across different risk factors. Certain approaches (such as counter-stereotypical exemplars) were effective at targeting realistic threat perceptions, in-group favouritism and out-group hostility. However, there was no clear reduction in symbolic threat perceptions or implicit bias. Finally, there was a sparse yet discouraging evidence on the effectiveness of counter-narrative interventions at targeting primary outcomes related to violent radicalisation, such as intent to act violently. The review contributes to existing literature on violent radicalisation-prevention, highlighting the care and complexity needed to design and evaluate narrative-based interventions which directly counter existing, dominant narratives. The authors note the challenges of conducting high-quality research in the area, but nonetheless encourage researchers to strive for experimental rigour within these confines.

Examining the effectiveness of brief interventions to strengthen a positive implicit relation between women and STEM across two timepoints

The current study assessed the impact of three brief interventions aimed at influencing implicit gender bias in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. The reduction of this bias is a key consideration as it remains a major barrier to gender equality in STEM. The interventions (psychoeducation, exposure to positive counter-stereotypical exemplars and perspective-taking) were compared to a control group at two timepoints. Gender-STEM bias was assessed at the implicit level (via the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure; IRAP) and the explicit level (via rating scales). Two hundred and ten adults (58.1% women) completed one of the four study conditions. Results indicated that implicit gender-STEM bias is malleable, at least in the short term. At Time 1, intervention groups showed higher levels of implicit pro-Women-STEM bias and lower levels of pro-Men-STEM bias than the Control group. Psychoeducation appeared most effective, followed by exposure to positive counter-stereotypical exemplars. Results from Time 2 presented a more complex picture of implicit bias change, as the control group exhibited an increased pro-Women-STEM bias that was unexpected. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to refining the interventions, the malleability of gender-STEM bias and the measurement of implicit bias across contexts.

Interventions designed to reduce implicit prejudices and implicit stereotypes in real world contexts: a systematic review

BackgroundImplicit biases are present in the general population and among professionals in various domains, where they can lead to discrimination. Many interventions are used to reduce implicit bias. However, uncertainties remain as to their effectiveness.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review by searching ERIC, PUBMED and PSYCHINFO for peer-reviewed studies conducted on adults between May 2005 and April 2015, testing interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, with results measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sufficiently similar methods.Results30 articles were identified as eligible. Some techniques, such as engaging with others’ perspective, appear unfruitful, at least in short term implicit bias reduction, while other techniques, such as exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars, are more promising. Robust data is lacking for many of these interventions.ConclusionsCaution is thus advised when it comes to programs aiming at reducing biases. This does not weaken the case for implementing widespread structural and institutional changes that are multiply justified.

Career Stereotypes and Identities: Implicit Beliefs and Major Choice for College Women and Men in STEM and Female-Dominated Fields

The present study examines the gendered nature of implicitly held beliefs related to STEM careers. It tests predictions from balanced identity theory on the relations between implicit STEM gender stereotypes and implicit STEM identity, as well as predictions from the associative-propositional model related to exposure to counter-stereotypical exemplars in a sample of U.S. college-aged heterosexual romantic couples that varied in whether the woman majored in STEM or in female-dominated majors (FDM). Gender-STEM stereotypes and Self-STEM identification, as measured by Implicit Associations Tasks, were examined in 117 college women majoring in STEM or in FDM and in their romantic partners, some of whom were also majoring in STEM. Women in STEM majors evidenced stronger STEM identities while also demonstrating reduced Gender/STEM stereotypes in comparison to women in FDM and men in STEM. For women, implicit STEM stereotypes predicted implicit STEM identity which in turn predicted majoring in STEM, consistent with predictions from balanced identity theory. There was no support for the hypothesis that men’s exposure to counter-stereotypical women through their romantic relationships influenced their own implicit stereotypes, inconsistent with the associative-propositional model. Women in STEM fields and their romantic partners also evidenced more similar levels of STEM gender stereotypes when compared to the other couples. Dissemination of these results may encourage other STEM-talented women in similar pursuits.

Reducing Implicit Stigmatizing Beliefs and Attitudes Toward Depression by Promoting Counterstereotypic Exemplars

ABSTRACTStigma prevents people with depression from seeking professional help, and effective strategies to reduce implicit stigmatizing beliefs and attitudes toward depression are needed. We developed stepwise strategies to promote counterstereotypic exemplars of people with depression and conducted an experiment (N = 105) with a pretest–posttest control group design to examine effects of these strategies. Our results showed that implicit stigmatizing beliefs and attitudes were reduced more in the experimental group, in which the counterstereotypic strategies were implemented in addition to the provision of education regarding basic knowledge of depression, than in the control group, which received only education.

To Enchant and Instruct: The Use of Conceptual Metaphor and Counter-stereotypical Exemplars in Michel Ocelot's Azur & Asmar

In Azur & Asmar, French animator Michel Ocelot tells the story of Azur, the son of a medieval French nobleman. When he comes of age, Azur travels to North Africa, the birthplace of his Muslim wet nurse and nanny, in hopes of rescuing the djinn fairy, the heroine of the fairy stories his nanny had told him as a child. This analysis shows how Ocelot's film activates and disrupts commonly held personal and cultural understandings of Islamic culture and provides viewers with counter-stereotypes that may have lasting effects on children's conscious and unconscious use of cultural schema.

Animation, Opportunity, and an "Intro-view" with Gene Luen Yang on Making Actual Movement in Children's and Young Adult Literature

Animation, Opportunity, and an "Intro-view" with Gene Luen Yang on Making Actual Movement in Children's and Young Adult Literature Joseph Michael Sommers (bio) Animation is a tricky thing to describe, because it is itself a trick—an illusion of movement and change brought about by making a series of small alterations to an image, placing them in sequence, and believing that the thing under observation is actually moving. If you're detecting a thinly veiled metaphor in the prior sentence, you probably can see me tapping my nose as well. This issue of ChLAQ came about as a germ of an idea well in advance of the 2016 ChLA conference on animation held at The Ohio State University in Columbus. At the time, the idea was merely to celebrate comics and animation, their ubiquitous relationship with Saturday mornings and children (for an example, see the cover to this issue), and their growth as literature in an issue that happened to dovetail with the conference. However, a lot can change over the course of a year, and from 2016 to 2017, the framework and governing ideology of this issue changed dramatically. This issue was then and is now an opportunity to start a conversation. And the authors showcasing their work here embody the spirit of that change and movement—changes in patterns of thought and preconceived notions. Changes in the manner, perhaps, of our seeing something for the first time even though we've been looking at the thing our entire lives. Comics and animation, after all, are an inherently visual medium. Sometimes they're even interactive. Such is the case with Katharine Slater's "Who Gets to Die of Dysentery? Ideology, Geography, and The Oregon Trail"; here, Slater examines the famous educational video game over several of its iterations as it firmly places its protagonist into the "figure of the white male settler," reinforcing what she names as the supremacist narrative of the nineteenth century. In "Mickey Mouse as Teddy's Bear: The Political Cartoons of Clifford Berryman and the Origins of Disney's Iconic Character," Michelle Ann Abate revisits the history of one of the Western [End Page 365] world's most famous anthropomorphized cartoon characters. Abate argues that Mickey's history, previously drawn as far back as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, has a gap in its evolutionary record—descent from Berryman's famous Teddy Roosevelt cub. Lewis Roberts takes Disney into its own future with Pixar in "'It's a dangerous world out there for a toy': Identity Crisis and Commodity Culture in the Toy Story Movies," examining the adult child's greatest dilemma: Do I take the toy out of the box or leave it in there because it might be worth something in twenty years? (The obvious answer, of course, is to buy two, one for play and one for display.) But Roberts explores the passage of time—from ripping open packages in order to play with their contents, to preserving them untouched to protect their commodified value—as a condition that Pixar associates, respectively, with the domestic realm of childhood and the collector's trophy case of adulthood. This is a conclusion that Roberts does not think holds true. Moving away from Disney, Sarah Mohler examines a far less well-known film in "To Enchant and Instruct: The Use of Conceptual Metaphor and Counter-stereotypical Exemplars in Michel Ocelot's Azur & Asmar." In Mohler's words, the essay interrogates "how Azur & Asmar both activates and disrupts commonly held personal and cultural understandings of Islam and Islamic culture while it seeks to build bridges . . . for cultures different from one's own." The issue concludes with the proud presentation of a lightly edited version of the 2016 Francelia Butler Lecture, "Bonding Time or Solo Flight? Picture Books, Comics, and the Independent Reader," by Charles Hatfield and Joe Sutliff Sanders. The authors have taken their literal dialogue concerning the "unease" located between the desire to pull children close to the parental breast and the simultaneous desire to empower those young minds to find independence and have made it into something that may be read with as much pleasure as it was heard in Columbus. By any...

A Comparative Investigation of 18 Interventions to Reduce Implicit Racial Preferences

Many methods for reducing implicit prejudice have been identified, but little is known about their relative effectiveness. We held a research contest to experimentally compare interventions for reducing the expression of implicit racial prejudice. Teams submitted seventeen interventions that were tested an average of 3.70 times each in four studies (total N = 17,021), with rules for revising interventions between studies. Eight of seventeen interventions were effective at reducing implicit preferences for Whites compared to Blacks, particularly ones that provided experience with counterstereotypical exemplars, used evaluative conditioning methods, and provided strategies to override biases. The other nine interventions were ineffective, particularly ones that engaged participants with others’ perspectives, asked participants to consider egalitarian values, or induced a positive emotion. The most potent interventions were ones that invoked high self-involvement or linked Black people with positivity and White people with negativity. No intervention consistently reduced explicit racial preferences. Furthermore, intervention effectiveness only weakly extended to implicit preferences for Asians and Hispanics.

Threatening the heart and mind of gender stereotypes: Can imagined contact influence the physiology of stereotype threat?

Research shows that when a gender stereotype is made salient and the target of the stereotype is asked to perform in the stereotyped domain, targets of the stereotype often perform at a lower level compared to situations when the stereotype was not made salient. The noticeable absence of female faculty and students in math and science departments at coed universities throughout the United States may increase the belief in gender stereotypes and discourage women from pursuing careers in these fields. Contact with counterstereotypical exemplars, such as female science experts, decreases belief in gender stereotypes and increases women's motivation to pursue careers in science. Thus, the present study examined whether imagining an interpersonal interaction with a counterstereotypical exemplar removes the physiological and performance effects of stereotype threat. Subjects were asked to imagine either a nature scene or meeting a female math professor, and were also assigned to either a control or stereotype threat condition. Imagination was used because studies have shown it to be an effective method of simulating interpersonal contact. Subjects were 139 young women (mean age 19 years) recruited from a pool of undergraduates. Results showed that the stereotype threat manipulation elicited greater vagal withdrawal and poorer working memory capacity during the n-back, and that vagal withdrawal was attenuated when the stereotype threat manipulation was preceded by a brief imagined interaction with a counterstereotypical exemplar. This study provides novel evidence that exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars can diminish cardiovascular reactions to salient information about threatening gender stereotypes.

Reducing implicit racial preferences: I. A comparative investigation of 17 interventions.

Many methods for reducing implicit prejudice have been identified, but little is known about their relative effectiveness. We held a research contest to experimentally compare interventions for reducing the expression of implicit racial prejudice. Teams submitted 17 interventions that were tested an average of 3.70 times each in 4 studies (total N = 17,021), with rules for revising interventions between studies. Eight of 17 interventions were effective at reducing implicit preferences for Whites compared with Blacks, particularly ones that provided experience with counterstereotypical exemplars, used evaluative conditioning methods, and provided strategies to override biases. The other 9 interventions were ineffective, particularly ones that engaged participants with others' perspectives, asked participants to consider egalitarian values, or induced a positive emotion. The most potent interventions were ones that invoked high self-involvement or linked Black people with positivity and White people with negativity. No intervention consistently reduced explicit racial preferences. Furthermore, intervention effectiveness only weakly extended to implicit preferences for Asians and Hispanics.

Reading Narrative Fiction Reduces Arab-Muslim Prejudice and Offers a Safe Haven From Intergroup Anxiety

Inquiry into the written narrative's effect on social cognition is normally left to literary scholars and philosophers. Two experiments demonstrated narrative fiction's power to elicit empathy and reduce implicit and explicit prejudice against Arab-Muslims. Participants were randomly assigned to read a full narrative, condensed narrative, or a non-narrative. Critically, the full and condensed narratives were matched on counterstereotypical exemplars and exposure to Arab-Muslim culture so that the additional reduction in prejudice in the full narrative condition represented the unique power of the narrative. The narrative was particularly effective at reducing implicit prejudice in low dispositional perspective-takers. Partially explaining this effect, the narrative appeared to provide a safe haven from intergroup anxiety so that they could use perspective-taking to reduce prejudice. These findings demonstrate the narrative's power to induce spontaneous empathy and perspective-taking and consequently reduce implicit and explicit prejudice.

The Impact of Stereotypical Versus Counterstereotypical Media Exemplars on Racial Attitudes, Causal Attributions, and Support for Affirmative Action

This study examines how exposure to media characters of color shapes viewers’ opinions of race-targeted policies. Exemplar-based information processing, attribution theory, and heuristic policy decision-making formed the theoretical foundation for the study. A 2 × 2 factorial experiment ( N = 363) exposed participants to stereotypical or counterstereotypical exemplars representing the in-group (Whites) and the out-group (Blacks). The experiment revealed that exposure to stereotypical African American media characters compared to exposure to counter-stereotypical ones influenced real-world beliefs of African American stereotypes, internal attributions for perceived failures of this out-group, prejudicial feelings toward this out-group, and lack of support for pro-minority affirmative action policies. A structural model established “internal attributions for out-group failures” as a crucial mediator. Implications for entertainment studies and political communication are discussed.

Implicit (and explicit) racial attitudes barely changed during Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and early presidency

As a high-status, omnipresent Black exemplar, Barack Obama and his rise to the presidency of the United States may have induced a cultural shift in implicit racial attitudes, much like controlled exposures to positive Black and negative White exemplars have done in the laboratory ( Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001). With a very large, heterogeneous sample collected daily for 2.5 years prior to, during and after the 2008 election season ( N = 479,405), we observed very little evidence of systematic change in implicit and explicit racial attitudes overall, within subgroups, or for particular notable dates. Malleability of racial attitudes – implicit or explicit – may be conditional on more features than the mere presence of high-status counter-stereotypic exemplars.