L7 Stereotypes

Dovido, Evans & Tyler

1986

To explore whether stereotype consistent information is processed faster than inconsistent information

12 male and 24 female undergrads were presented ‘black’ and ‘white’ as primes, followed by positive and negative black and white stereotypic words then responded whether word was ever true or always false and measured reaction times.

Whatever the person was primed with made them more likely to quickly respond with positive traits for that group and negative traits for the other group, reaction time was slowest for negative black stereotypes when primed with black.

Katz & Braly

1933

Shows the traits most strongly associated with the group (stereotypes) and the degree of consistency in trait selection (consensus).

100 male Princeton students surveyed about traits associated with 10 ethnic national groups, 84 traits provided and 5 had to be assigned to each group.

Jews - shrewed, mercenary, industrious… Americans - industrious, intelligent, materialistic… African Americans - superstitious, lazy, ignorant… Italians - artistic, impulsive, passionate…

Madon et al

2001

Re-examined Katz & Braly’s findings/repeated study

Same method (different sample)

African American - Lazy, Ignorant, Musical (but at significantly lower %), however new traits appeared like - athletic, rhythmic, low in intelligence.

Dasgupta & Asgari

2004

See the influence of different environments on stereotypes

Assessed female college student’s gender sterotypes in 1st & 2nd year of co-ed or women’s college

Women’s college context led to a decrease in implicit gender stereotypes y1-2 but they increased y1-2 in co-ed.

‘Women are Wonderful’ effect - Eagly & Mladinic

1994

Find traits associated with men and women?

??

Women had many warm traits and slightly lacked competence while men had competence traits with little warmth.

Deutsch, LeBaron & Fryer

1987

See how physical appearance effects traits associated with them.

Asked Ps to rate how warm, happy, carefree, and relaxed people were based on a verbal description accompanied by no photo, smiling photo, or non-smiling photo.

When not smiling women were perceived as less happy etc than men, non-smiling was rated lower than no photo for women by a lot compared to men so warm stereotypes of women mean they face harsher critique when not fitting it.

Steele & Aronson

1995

Examine stereotype threat in race

Examined performance on intellectual ability test among 24 black and23 white undergrad Ps with race salient or not (asking their race).

When race salient, black Ps performance decreased while white Ps performance increased (demonstrating stereotype threat).

Spencer, Steele & Quinn

1999

Examine stereotype threat in gender (and maths)

Male and female Ps asked to take a math test described as diagnostic of gender differences in maths or not.

When Ps told it’s investigating gender differences in maths, women performed a lot worse than men (and themselves compared to the 1st study which was equal) AND in a third study where it’s unclear/not said that gender differences investigated, women still performed worse.

Aronson, Fried & Good

2002

To counter the effects of stereotype threat on African American college students’ performance in academic tests

Stanford undergraduates, 42 Black, 37 White, asked Ps to write letters to fake penpals about how intelligence isn’t finite (growth mindset instead of fixed), penpals were portrayed as malleable (growth mindset), a control, or non pen pal control

Writing to a malleable pen pal led Ps to have increased short and long term malleability beliefs, academic enjoyment and importance, and slight GPA increase.