Stereotype incongruent information as a determinant of stereotype change.

Stereotypes are beliefs about differences between and within social groups. They are beliefs about how group members hold different positions on various dimensions (e.g. women are better housekeepers than construction workers) and about how groups differ from other groups on specific dimensions (e.g. men are better construction workers than women). These stereotypical beliefs may or may not reflect real differences and they mayor may not accurately describe all group members. To the extent that stereotypes do not adequately describe some or all group members, people may sometimes encounter stereotype-incongruent information. The goal of this project is to examine when and to which extent stereotype-incongruent information leads to stereotype change. More specifically, it addresses the question whether stereotype-incongruent information about one group (the target group) affects the stereotype of another group (the alternative group). </>
The novelty of this project rests in it addressing what we may call indirect stereotype change. Traditionally, research hasfocused on direct forms of stereotype change (addressing the question whether stereotype-incongruent information about a target group affects the stereotype of that target group). Recently, demonstrations of the compensation effect (change in stereotypical beliefs on one dimension underthe influence of stereotype-relevant information on another dimension) have supported the idea that stereotypes can change indirectly within groups. My dissertation investigates the possibility of indirect change between groups. </>
I demonstrated that stereotype-incongruent information about a target group induces change in the stereotype of an alternative group (Chapters 2 and 3). I called this phenomenon Indirect Stereotype-incongruence Induced (ISI) Change. ISI change occurred asymmetricallyin the competence domain but symmetrically in the warmth domain. The studies described in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 demonstrated ISI Change in newly learned artificial stereotypes. After having established ISI Changesin these circumstances, I demonstrated ISI Change in real-life stereotypes about male and female leaders (Chapter 4). The studies described in Chapter 5 tested and supported the cognitive resources hypothesis implying that ISI change occurs if people are willing and have sufficient cognitive recourses available to engage in meta-stereotypic thinking.</>

Keywords:Stereotype change, Stereotype incongruent information, Causal attribution, Stereotype congruent information, Attention processes

Disciplines:Animal experimental and comparative psychology, Applied psychology, Human experimental psychology, Social psychology

Project type:PhD project