Stereotype Consistency Research Articles

When “Sometimes” Means “Often”: How Stereotypes Affect Interpretations of Quantitative Expressions

Two experiments investigated whether interpretations of quantitative expressions about described actors’ behaviors are influenced by stereotypic expectancies. Participants rated sentences containing frequency adverbs describing either stereotype-consistent or stereotype-inconsistent behaviors. Results showed that recipients inferred a higher numerical frequency when sentences described stereotype-consistent (vs inconsistent) behaviors. These effects of stereotype consistency were stronger for high (vs low) degree frequency adverbs. The findings show how neutral statements about a person can be interpreted as stereotype-confirming information and thus contribute to stereotype maintenance.

The effect of service robot occupational gender stereotypes on customers' willingness to use them.

Customers have obvious occupational gender stereotypes for service employees. In recent years, intelligent service robots have been widely used in the hospitality industry and have also been given gender characteristics to attract customers to use them. However, whether and when the usage of gendered service robots is effective remains to be explored. This research focuses on customers' occupational gender stereotypes and the gender of service robots, examining the influences of their consistency on customers' willingness to use service robots through three scenario studies. The findings suggest that: (1) The consistency between occupational gender stereotypes and service robot gender positively affects customers' willingness to use service robots. (2) Performance expectancy and trust are two psychological mechanisms underlying the above effect. (3) In the context of service failures, the consistency backfires and brings negative effects on willingness to use. This research extends the literature on customers' acceptance of anthropomorphized robots from the perspective of gender stereotypes and identifies the mechanisms behind the stereotype consistency effect. For practical implications, hotels should design and deploy gendered robots consistent with corresponding occupational gender stereotypes.

The impact of anti-gay bias on verdicts and sentencing with gay defendants

Previous research has documented conviction bias against gay men in stereotype-consistent crimes driven by moral outrage, stereotype consistency, and anti-gay bias. However, research has not demonstrated this conviction bias in stereotype inconsistent crimes. Other research has shown that jurors high in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) are lenient toward perpetrators of anti-gay hate crimes. However, authoritarianism and anti-gay bias have not been used to predict verdicts for gay defendants. This article examines the impact of juror gender, authoritarianism, sexual orientation, and anti-gay bias on verdicts for gay defendants in a stereotype consistent and stereotype inconsistent crime. Anti-gay bias and authoritarianism predicted convictions for gay defendants in both stereotype consistent and stereotype inconsistent crime scenarios, and the constructs were correlated. These findings add to the research base by showing that anti-gay bias and authoritarianism can predict verdicts for gay defendants in stereotype inconsistent cases.

Anti-Haitian stereotypes in three Dominican daily newspapers: a content analysis

ABSTRACT Anti-Haitian attitudes are widely acknowledged to exist in the Dominican Republic, but it has not been clear whether these are driven by anti-Black, anti-immigrant, or specifically anti-Haitian stereotypes. We conduct a quantitative content analysis of a disproportionally stratified probability sample from the universe of all articles containing the search term ‘Haiti’ that appeared in the online versions of the three main Dominican daily newspapers, El Listín Diario, Hoy, and El Caribe from 2013 to 2015. In each article, we counted references to anti-Black stereotypes, anti-immigrant stereotypes (regardless of race), and stereotypes of criminal violence that are common to both anti-Black as well as anti-immigrant stereotypes. We also distinguish specifically anti-Haitian stereotypes based on the Dominican Republic’s historical experience of Haitian invasion and occupation, portraying Haitians as attackers or invaders. We find the strongest stereotype consistency bias in the domain of crime and violence. This finding is consistent with the predominance of either anti-Black bias or anti-immigrant bias, evidence for which differs from one newspaper to another. There is surprisingly little to no evidence of the predominance of stereotypes that are particular to Haitian-Dominican relations. We discuss the implications of our findings for mainstream and revisionist approaches to Dominican history and sociology.

Open-Minded Midwifes, Literate Butchers, and Greedy Hooligans-The Independent Contributions of Stereotype Valence and Consistency on Evaluative Judgments.

Do people evaluate an open-minded midwife less positively than a caring midwife? Both open-minded and caring are generally seen as positive attributes. However, consistency varies—the attribute caring is consistent with the midwife stereotype while open-minded is not. In general, both stimulus valence and consistency can influence evaluations. Six experiments investigated the respective influence of valence and consistency on evaluative judgments in the domain of stereotyping. In an impression formation paradigm, valence and consistency of stereotypic information about target persons were manipulated orthogonally and spontaneous evaluations of these target persons were measured. Valence reliably influenced evaluations. However, for strongly valenced stereotypes, no effect of consistency was observed. Parameters possibly preventing the occurrence of consistency effects were ruled out, specifically, valence of inconsistent attributes, processing priority of category information, and impression formation instructions. However, consistency had subtle effects on evaluative judgments if the information about a target person was not strongly valenced and experimental conditions were optimal. Concluding, in principle, both stereotype valence and consistency can play a role in evaluative judgments of stereotypic target persons. However, the more subtle influence of consistency does not seem to substantially influence evaluations of stereotyped target persons. Implications for fluency research and stereotype disconfirmation are discussed.

Flexibility of Spontaneous Trait Inferences: The Interactive Effects of Mood and Gender Stereotypes

Recent research has indicated that people draw spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) flexibly from others’ behaviors. In two experiments, we examined how perceiver's mood states and actor's gender-behavior stereotypic consistency affected the likelihood of STIs. In Experiment 1, positive mood participants made STIs from trait-implying behavior sentences, while those in negative moods did not draw such trait inferences. In Experiment 2, we further examined the role of gender stereotypes in the effects of mood on STIs and found that positive mood participants made STIs only from gender stereotype-consistent behaviors, not from gender stereotype-inconsistent behaviors, while negative mood participants still did not make STIs regardless of gender stereotype consistency. Extending prior work, we provided initial evidence for the flexible formation of STIs in response to perceiver's mood states and actor's gender-behavior stereotypic consistency.

The Stereotype Consistency Effect Is Moderated by Group Membership and Trait Valence

ABSTRACT People generally have better memories for traits that are stereotypic consistent rather than stereotypic inconsistent. From social identity theory, we hypothesized that this stereotype consistency effect would be moderated by group membership and trait valence. Specifically, we expected the typical stereotype-consistency effect when the target person was an outgroup member (different ethnicity from the participant). However, if the target person was an ingroup member (same ethnicity as the participant), we expected stereotypicality to facilitate memory for positive traits but not negative traits. Participants (N = 104) read a series of statements about an ingroup member or an outgroup member and subsequently completed a memory test. The results confirmed our main prediction. The findings have implications for social identity theory, social cognition research, and for understanding intergroup relations.

The Effects of Thunder, Stereotyping, and Cognitive Load on Impression Formation

The current study examined the effect of stereotypes and stolen thunder on impressions of a person who committed a crime. One hundred twenty undergraduate students from a small private college in rural western Pennsylvania participated in an impression formation task. Participants were given either a 2 digit or a 16 digit number to memorize, followed by a short vignette featuring an African American man whose traits were either consistent or inconsistent with current stereotypes. It was either revealed by the narrator (thunder) or the man (stolen thunder) that he had been convicted of assault. Participants also completed the Need for Cognition scale. A two-way interaction between stereotype consistency and thunder condition emerged. Mainly, when the man was stereotype inconsistent, participants found him to be less guilty than when he was stereotype consistent if he did not reveal the information himself. Future research should focus on the interaction between stolen thunder and stereotype information.

Power Can Increase Stereotyping

Previous research indicates that power increases attention to stereotype-consistent information. The ecological validity of this hypothesis was tested in managers and subordinates in the hotel industry. Participants were presented with stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent information about an ingroup or outgroup target, and their task was to judge the suitability of the target for a job that was either consistent or inconsistent with the stereotype. Subordinates attended more to individuating information and paid overall more attention to social information than managers. In addition, the managers’ judgments of the suitability of the outgroup target were dependent on the stereotype consistency of the job, whereas the subordinates’ judgments were not. These findings are consistent with experimental research and shed light on the conditions that promote stereotyping and discrimination.

Intergroup Influences on the Stereotype Consistency Bias in Communication: Does it Matter Who We Are Communicating About and to Whom We Are Communicating?

Past research in the area of stereotype communication has shown, using various paradigms, a reliable bias toward the communication of stereotype consistent information over stereotype inconsistent information (a stereotype consistency bias). One aspect of such communication that has received little attention, however, is the social context in which such communication occurs, and in particular, the group membership of the individuals involved. In the present study, we further unpack the stereotype consistency bias by varying the relative group memberships of the communicator, target, and audience of a narrative and examine the effect of the communication of stereotype consistent and inconsistent information. Our results suggest that these group memberships can have a dramatic effect upon stereotype communication, with the stereotype consistency bias only being evident in specific communicative contexts. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical implications for the stereotype communication field, with particular focus on the socially connective functions of stereotypes.

Stereotypes influence false memories for imagined events

Two experiments tested the influences of vivid imagery and person schemata on eyewitness accuracy. Participants watched an event sequence including actors performing stereotype-consistent and inconsistent actions. Additionally, participants either read descriptions of actions (Experiment 1) or vividly imagined actions (Experiment 2). After either 30 minutes or 2 days, recognition memory, source memory, and remember/know judgements were made. After 2 days, false alarms to imagined events increased, relative to the 30-minute test; those false alarms were more often misattributed to stereotype-consistent actors, relative to the same actions in the reading condition. In addition, the accompanying remember judgements were higher for false alarms to imagined events, relative to read events, regardless of stereotype consistency. Overall the results suggest that, over time, vivid imagery reinforces schema activation, increasing stereotype-consistent false memories.

Stereotypes help people connect with others in the community: A situated functional analysis of the stereotype consistency bias in communication.

Communicators tend to share more stereotype-consistent than stereotype-inconsistent information. The authors propose and test a situated functional model of this stereotype consistency bias: stereotype-consistent and inconsistent information differentially serve 2 central functions of communication--sharing information and regulating relationships; depending on the communication context, information seen to serve these different functions better is more likely communicated. Results showed that stereotype-consistent information is perceived as more socially connective but less informative than inconsistent information, and when the stereotype is perceived to be highly shared in the community, more stereotype-consistent than inconsistent information is communicated due to its greater social connectivity function. These results highlight the need to examine communication as a dynamic and situated social activity.

Schema‐driven source misattribution errors: remembering the expected from a witnessed event

AbstractWhen recollection is difficult, people may use schematic processing to enhance memory. Two experiments showed that a delay between witnessing and recalling a visual sequence increases schematic processing, resulting in stereotypic memory errors. Participants watched a slide show of a man and a woman performing stereotype‐consistent and stereotype‐inconsistent actions, followed by an immediate or delayed memory test. Over a two‐day delay, stereotype‐inconsistent actions were increasingly misremembered as having been performed by the stereotype‐consistent actor (Experiment 1). All the source errors increased, regardless of stereotype consistency, when the wrong actor was suggested. When we merely suggested that ‘someone’ performed an action (Experiment 2), only stereotype‐consistent source errors were increased. Although visual scenes are typically well remembered, these results suggest that when memory fades, reliance on schemata increases, leading to increased stereotypic memory errors. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of Affect, Stereotype Consistency, and Valence of Behavior on Causal Attributions

The authors examined 3 hypotheses about the effects of 2 positive and 2 negative affects on causal attributions. On the basis of cognitive appraisal theories of emotion, they predicted that the grateful and angry participants would attribute causality for like-valenced behaviors to the target more strongly than would the happy and sad participants, respectively. Following an affect-induction procedure, 229 Anglo-American participants read a description of an African American target whose behavior was stereotype consistent or stereotype inconsistent and positive or negative in valence. As predicted, when the behavior was negative, the angry participants attributed it more strongly to the target than did the sad participants. When the behavior was positive, the grateful participants attributed it more strongly to the target than did the happy participants. The importance of distinguishing among affects and considering their multidimensional nature in predicting effects on social judgments is emphasized.

The Effects of Stereotype Consistency and Consensus Information on Predictions of Performance

Abstract The effects of gender stereotypes and consensus information on predictions of task performance were examined. We hypothesized that stereotype-consistent behavior would result in stronger predictions of future similar behavior than stereotype-inconsistent behavior would, and that consensus information would influence predictions only when behavior was stereotype-inconsistent. American undergraduates watched videotapes of female or male targets succeeding or failing at a task, followed by consensus information from a same-gender or other-gender consensus provider. The results indicated that stereotypes influenced predictions for males but not for females, whereas the reverse was true for consensus information. In particular, predictions of future success were higher for successful males than for successful females. Low consensus for success undermined predictions of future success for females but not for males.