When you say “women collaborate more”, do I hear you say that men do not collaborate? Consequences of communicators’ choices of comparative formats in messages about social groups.

People who read or hear messages about similarities and differences between social groups may respond differently to messages that are worded differently, even if they are logically equivalent (e.g., ‘Women are more intuitive than men’ vs ‘Men are less intuitive than women’). The project is about the effects of different wordings of stereotypical and counter-stereotypical messages on receivers’ judgments of messages and their sources, their interpretations of messages, and their inferences from them. The results will contribute to the understanding of why some messages entail stereotype change whereas others do not, will yield recommendations for communication training, and will help the general audience critically analyze media messages.

Keywords:Stereotypes, Stereotype change, Verbal communication, Comparatives, Persuasion, Impression formation, Framing, Social cognition

Disciplines:Social perception and cognition, Interpersonal communication, Cognitive processes