In-group Stereotypes Research Articles

Investigating the Prevalence of Gender Stereotypes in a South African Mine

The existence of gender stereotypes is a common phenomenon. Pressure on organisations to establish workforce diversity evolves constantly. However, diversity encourages stereotyping. Once organisations know the stereotypes, they will be able to manage these more effectively. The main aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of gender stereotypes in a mine in South Africa. Limited research has been undertaken to date on the existence of gender stereotypes in the South African mining industry. A sample of 39 employees from a South African mine was selected and semi-structured interviews were conducted. The data were analysed by means of content analysis. Most of the employees who were interviewed understood the concept of gender stereotypes. The most prevalent stereotypes that were found were in-group stereotypes, out-group stereotypes and perceived in- and out-group stereotypes (meta stereotypes). The existence of gender stereotypes in a mine can be managed through establishing various interventions to assist employees to confront their own stereotypes and valuing employees for their contribution and not according to the gender group they belong to. This study adds to the literature and knowledge of gender stereotypes. Limited studies have been conducted on gender stereotypes in South African mines. The information obtained in this study provides insight into the stereotypes that should be managed in the South African mining industry.

Nature vs. nurture and the flexibility of gender stereotypes: Counterstereotypical information can both diminish and enhance ingroup stereotyping

Nature vs. nurture and the flexibility of gender stereotypes: Counterstereotypical information can both diminish and enhance ingroup stereotyping

Mapping gender stereotypes: a network analysis approach.

Stereotypes have traditionally been considered as "mental pictures" of a particular social group. The current research aims to draw the structure of gender stereotypes and metastereotype schemes as complex systems of stereotypical features. Therefore, we analyze gender stereotypes as networks of interconnected characteristics. Through an online survey (N = 750), participants listed the common female and male features to build the structure of the gender stereotypes. Participants also listed the common features of how members of one gender think they are viewed by people of the other gender to build the structure of gender metastereotypes. Our results suggest that female stereotypes are characterized by a single community of features consistently associated such as intelligent, strong, and hardworkers. Female metastereotype, however, combines the previous community with another characterized by weak and sensitive. On the contrary, the male stereotype projected by women is characterized by a community of features associated such as intelligent, strong, and hardworker, but male in-group stereotypes and metastereotypes projected by men are a combination of this community with another one characterized by features associated such as strong, chauvinist, and aggressive. A network approach to studying stereotypes provided insights into the meaning of certain traits when considered in combination with different traits. (e.g., strong-intelligent vs. strong-aggressive). Thus, focusing on central nodes can be critical to understanding and changing the structure of gender stereotypes.

Space-valence mapping of social concepts: Do we arrange negative and positive ethnic stereotypes from left to right?

The body-specificity hypothesis states that in right-handers, positive concepts should be associated with the right side and negative concepts with the left side of the body. Following this hypothesis, our study postulated that negative out-group ethnic stereotypes would be associated with the left side, and positive in-group stereotypes would be associated with the right side. The experiment consisted of two parts. First, we measured the spatial mapping of ethnic stereotypes by using a sensibility judgment task, in which participants had to decide whether a sentence was sensible or not by pressing either a left or a right key. The sentences included German vs. Arabic proper names. Second, we measured implicit ethnic stereotypes in the same participants using the Go/No-go Association Task (GNAT), in which Arabic vs. German proper names were presented in combination with positive vs. negative adjectives. Right-handed German native speakers (N = 92) participated in an online study. As predicted, in the GNAT, participants reacted faster to German names combined with positive adjectives and to Arabic names combined with negative adjectives, which is diagnostic of existing valenced in-and outgroup ethnic stereotypes. However, we failed to find any reliable effects in the sensibility judgment task, i.e., there was no evidence of spatial mapping of positive and negative ethnic stereotypes. There was no correlation between the results of the two tasks at the individual level. Further Bayesian analysis and exploratory analysis in the left-handed subsample (N = 9) corroborated the evidence in favor of null results. Our study suggests that ethnic stereotypes are not automatically mapped in a body-specific manner.

Negative implicit in-group stereotypes of Chinese male drug abusers: evidence from ERP.

Psychological dependence is the most important factor leading to relapse, few studies have examined whether in-group stereotypes exist in drug abusers, while it's helpful for drug abusers in getting rid of psychological dependence. To investigate the presence of in-group stereotypes and the neural mechanisms in drug abusers, two experiments were designed in this study. Experiment 1 used a classification–verification paradigm and Experiment 2 used The Extrinsic Affect Simon Task (EAST), simultaneous collection of EEG data from China. 18 and 17 males were analyzed respectively in Experiment 1 and 2. The results in Experiment 1 showed that (1) there was no significant difference in reaction times or N400 amplitude between the condition "Drug abusers-Negative words" and the condition "Drug abusers-Positive words". In Experiment 2, we found that (2) participants in the condition "Drug abusers-Negative words" scored higher in accuracy rates than in the condition "Drug abusers-Positive words". (3) Participants in the condition "Drug abusers-Negative words" were shorter than "Drug abusers-Positive words" in reaction times (RTs). (4) Participants in the condition "Drug abusers-Negative words" were lower than "Drug abusers-Positive words" in the peak of N400. The conclusion is that there are significant negative implicit in-group stereotypes among Chinese male drug abusers. The experimental results and the uniqueness of Chinese male drug abusers in this study were discussed.

Effects of instagram sports posts on the athletic motivation of female elite athletes: Do they inspire or backfire?

The social networking site Instagram provides users with an abundance of photos and information in many domains including sports. The posts are often intended to inspire and motivate users. We argue that the display of success and failure of professional athletes may influence elite athletes’ own sports ambitions. Research has shown that exposure to positive ingroup stereotypes and exposure to negative outgroup stereotypes can increase performance (i.e., the stereotype boost effect and the stereotype lift effect, respectively). Based on this research, we conducted three experiments in two different cultural contexts. In all three experiments, we examined whether Instagram posts that showed either ingroup members’ success or outgroup members’ failure influenced athletic motivation, self-efficacy, and sports-related behavioral intentions of female elite athletes. Experiment 1 (n = 117) was conducted in Germany, whereas Experiments 2 (n = 137) and 3 (n = 143) were conducted in Norway. Results showed that in Germany, participants’ athletic motivation and self-efficacy was highest when they were exposed to failing outgroup members (Exp. 1); however, this was not the case in Norway (Exp. 2). In contrast, only Norwegian participants who were exposed to successful ingroup members reported a significant increase in their athletic motivation, but there were no effects regarding self-efficacy and sports-related behavioral intentions (Exp. 3). Boundary conditions for Instagram’s role in motivating users and reasons for the differences between the two cultural contexts are discussed.

Age Differences in Age Stereotypes

Abstract. We examined the domain-specific views of young and old people held by young (18–30 years, n = 278) and older adults (60–85 years, n = 289) in Germany, the USA, and India. Views about old and young people differed between life domains but were mostly similar across age groups and countries. Older adults in the USA and Germany – but not in India – held slightly less negative views about old people than did young people in some domains, possibly indicating a projection of better-than-expected own aging experiences of older adults into their in-group stereotypes in Western countries. The findings of our study can be explained by socialization processes, supporting mostly a developmental perspective regarding the acquisition and endorsement of age stereotypes.

Stereotypes from the Inside

Communication scholars often examine immigrants’ ingroup favoritism to study their intergroup/intercultural communication. Less is known about how some immigrants exhibit outgroup favoritism for the host culture and how outgroup favoritism relates to their ingroup communication. Drawn upon literatures on outgroup favoritism, this study understands international/intercultural communication in a global system where some immigrants favor the hosting outgroup. The researcher investigates how Chinese international students experience their peers’ performance of outgroup favoritism 崇洋媚外 in the U.S. Through in-depth interviews (n = 15), this study identified how outgroup favoritism enacts negative ingroup stereotyping and ingroup distancing. Students with outgroup favoritism strategically negotiate for less ingroup membership and more outgroup affiliation, creating mutual exclusion among ingroup members. Discussion focuses on Chinese international students’ communication dilemma with outgroup-favoring ingroup members

Just Hearing About It Makes Me Feel So Humiliated: Emotional and Motivational Responses to Vicarious Group-Based Humiliation

Witnessing a fellow ingroup member being humiliated might be the most common situation in which intergroup humiliation is experienced. Humiliation on a group level is as complex as humiliation on an interpersonal level because of shared appraisals with other emotions. We propose that witnessing a fellow ingroup member being negatively stereotyped by an outgroup member elicits anger and/or shame insofar as it is appraised as vicariously humiliating leading to anger-related approach and shame-related avoidance. Evidence for this proposition was experimentally assessed in three studies using two intergroup contexts: nationality (Study 1: n = 291) and gender (Study 2: n = 429 females and Study 3: n = 353 males). Across these intergroup contexts, the group-devaluing event emphasizing a negative ingroup stereotype evoked anger-related approach and shame-related avoidance indirectly through vicarious humiliation. We conclude that the accompanying emotions and thus resulting motivations determine whether vicarious humiliation results in intergroup conflict.

“An Impression of Asian People”: Asian American Comedy, Rhetoric, and Identity in Ali Wong’s Standup Comedy

Abstract While many have critiqued the racist, sexist, and otherwise prejudiced nature of comedic rhetorics, few have considered how identity-based comedy, particularly racial comedy, functions productively, rather than merely oppressively. Studies of comedic rhetorics have primarily focused on Black and white comedians, but the increasing number and variety of popular comedians of color demands investigation into how comedians from different racial backgrounds use humor to rhetorically articulate the boundaries of their racial(ized) identities. This essay theorizes comedic rhetoric, particularly stereotypes in comedy, as a constitutive form of rhetoric that can articulate generative racial identities as they exist within the ambivalent spaces of in-group stereotypes. By pairing polysemy, Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony, and Tina Chen’s theory of impersonation to analyze the standup performances of Asian American comedian Ali Wong, this essay ultimately represents a necessary intervention into understanding racial comedy and stereotypes as potentially productive sites for examining racial identity.

Effect of emotional intelligence on sensitivity to stereotype threat among girls learning to play football

This study assesses sensitivity to stereotype threat among girls learning to play football. It fits precisely in the perspective of works on the reduction factors of this phenomenon. It proposes emotional intelligence as a factor that can reduce sensitivity to this threat; hence the hypothesis: among girls learning to play football, high emotional intelligence reduces sensitivity to stereotype threat more than low emotional intelligence. Specifically, participants’ exposure to an ingroup stereotype of incompetence was expected to impact them differently, depending on their level of emotional intelligence. This hypothesis was tested through an experiment carried out with 61 female pupils attending the Government Bilingual High School of Penka-Michel (Cameroon). That exeperiment was conducted in a natural setting, following the stereotype threat’s experimental paradigm. The results do not support the hypothesis of the study, although it can be observed that the average performance of participants with high emotional intelligence is higher than that of their counterparts with low emotional intelligence (f (1, 61) = 6.79; Ŋ2 = .98; p = .135˃.05; t = .63; p = .532˃.05; M high IE = 3566.67> M low IE = 3433.72). It is concluded that emotional intelligence does not significantly reduce sensitivity to stereotype threat.

Qualitative analysis of pre-licensure student perceptions of ingroup professional stereotypes

Current interprofessional education quantitative instruments used to assess student stereotypes of their own and other professions may not be the most effective tool to measure outcomes. An investigation of current stereotyping terms being used to describe health professions is warranted. Students, representing twenty academic programs, reflected on one positive and one negative perception that existed about their future profession. Using an exploratory inductive approach, reviewers read student written reflections and used a codebook to track words and phrases identified by students. 787 student reflection papers were reviewed. Sixteen themes describing in-group stereotypes were identified. There were eight positive perceptions and eight negative perceptions. Five words and three themes were identified from existing assessment tools. Eight new perception themes not included in existing quantitative tools were found. There is a need to consider refinement of current stereotype assessment instruments or development of a new instrument, which is more inclusive of a variety of health professions and language used worldwide.

How Variations in Behavior and Phenotype Affect In-Group Stereotyping and Belonging Among African American Adolescents and Emerging Adults

The present study based on social identity theory and phenotypic bias models examined how variations in phenotype and behavior related to in-group belonging and stereotyping for African American adolescents and emerging adults. Although ethnic-racial typicality is often considered as either phenotypic or behavioral, little research has investigated the interaction of these two dimensions. Forty African American high school students ( Mage = 15.38, SD = 0.81) and 42 college students ( Mage = 19.55, SD = 1.35) watched animated clips of African American male characters varying in typicality. Participants rated the character’s stereotypical traits, academic potential, and likelihood of intraracial group belonging. Results showed that characters who were stereotypical in behavior were rated with higher averages of stereotypical traits, lower averages of counterstereotypical traits, and more likely to belong than were characters with less-typical behaviors. There was also an interaction between a character’s behavior and phenotype for judgments of academic potential among high school students, but not college students. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for African American youth are discussed.

Sorority see, sorority do: How social identity and media engagement relate to in-group stereotyping and self-stereotyping.

Sorority see, sorority do: How social identity and media engagement relate to in-group stereotyping and self-stereotyping.

Impulsivity, internalizing symptoms, and online group behavior as determinants of online hate.

Online hate is widely identified as a social problem, but its social psychological dimensions are yet to be explored. We used an integrative social psychological framework for analyzing online hate offending and found that both personal risk factors and online group behavior were associated with online hate offending. Study 1, based on socio-demographically balanced survey data (N = 1200) collected from Finnish adolescents and young adults, found that impulsivity and internalizing symptoms were positively associated with online hate offending. Furthermore, social homophily was positively associated with online hate offending but only among those with average or high level of internalizing symptoms. Social identification with online communities was not associated with hate offending. In Study 2, based on a vignette experiment (N = 160), online hate offenders were more likely than others to rely on in-group stereotypes (i.e. self-stereotype) in anonymous online interaction and, as a consequence, follow perceived group norms. These associations were found only when a shared group identity was primed. We conclude that both personal risk factors and group behavior are related to online hate but they have different implications for reducing hateful communication in social media.

What did they say? How subgroup stereotypes influence memory for superordinate groups

Members of different groups often disagree when it comes to determining which group most accurately represents a shared superordinate group. Many studies have shown that the ingroup is often perceived as more prototypical of a superordinate category than the outgroup (i.e., relative prototypicality effect). This higher perceived congruence (overlap) between ingroup and superordinate group representations should be reflected in individuals' information processing and memory regarding the superordinate group. The authors hypothesized that in recall paradigms (H1), individuals would initially show better memory for information from the superordinate group that is inconsistent (rather than consistent) with the ingroup stereotype. We assumed that in recognition paradigms (H2), individuals would be more likely to attribute information to the superordinate group if the information was consistent with ingroup vs. outgroup stereotypes. Finally, we hypothesized that in recognition paradigms, individuals would confuse the ingroup with the superordinate group more often than they would confuse the outgroup with the superordinate group (H3). Five experiments testing these hypotheses (N = 314) and using different groups and stimulus modalities generally support these assumptions. The findings suggest that perceivers initially engage in inconsistency processing when confronted with information from a superordinate group that contradicts their ingroup-based expectation. However, even though perceivers initially recall such information particularly well, they are not able to integrate contradictory information successfully. More generally, our findings indicate that the perceived overlap between ingroup and superordinate group representations affects individuals' memory and thus helps explain why the relative prototypicality effect is such a robust phenomenon.

Stereotype activation and self-regulation by conservatives and liberals in political encounters

ABSTRACTWe examined stereotyping and its effect on self-regulation in preparation for inter-ideological interactions. Turkish conservative and liberal students anticipated interacting with a political outgroup (vs. ingroup) member and the accessibility of outgroup and ingroup stereotypes was measured. Conservatives in both outgroup and ingroup interaction conditions showed higher accessibility for outgroup stereotypes. Liberals, however, showed lower accessibility for both outgroup and ingroup stereotypes in both conditions. Liberals’ suppression of stereotypes about the anticipated partner led to worse self-regulation when the anticipated partner was conservative but better self-regulation when the partner was liberal. Conservatives’ stereotype accessibility did not affect their self-regulation. These findings show that liberals may tend to rely on self-regulatory resources to suppress their stereotypes while anticipating inter-ideological interactions, while conservatives rely on stereotypes to navigate such interactions.

NCAA Division I Athlete STEM Graduates: Stereotypes, Microaggressions, Race, and Gender

The purpose of this study was to explore how NCAA Division I athlete STEM graduates viewed their undergraduate experiences with members of the campus community such as academic advisors, other athletes, faculty, nonathlete students, and coaches. Using several interpretive frameworks, this study found that stereotypical assumptions, whether positive or negative, were conditional upon the athlete’s gender. Moreover, male athletes reported feeling a level of acceptance from campus members, although this same experience was eventually interpreted as token or conditional acceptance, largely because they were subjected to salient athlete microaggressions and considered exceptional but not entirely accepted by the academic community. The study also discovered that athletes who pursued degrees in STEM fields engaged in in-group stereotyping of other athletes, and some were aware of the social significance of race and intersectional identities in shaping the quality of their college experiences. These findings hav...

We are the opposite of you! Mirroring of national, regional and ethnic stereotypes

ABSTRACTThe content of stereotypes can be shaped by multiple mechanisms, one of them possibly being the “mirroring effect.” Mirroring describes a phenomenon whereby people rate their ingroup characteristics as opposite to characteristics typical of a relevant outgroup. The aim of our study was to explore mirroring in three intergroup contexts—in national, regional, and ethnic stereotypes. In Study 1, 2,241 participants rated national ingroup stereotype and outgroup stereotypes of five Central European countries. In Study 2, 741 Czech participants rated regional ingroup and outgroup stereotypes of people living in two distinct parts of the Czech Republic. In Study 3, 463 majority and Hungarian minority participants in Slovakia rated ethnic ingroup and outgroup stereotypes. The results showed a clear presence of mirroring in all three contexts.

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 nonhumorous text. 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 led 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.