Intergroup stereotyping

You're heartless, I'm less: self-image and social norms in moral judgment

Are moral judgments to sacrificial dilemmas shaped by a latent social norm? The present research addresses this issue. We report a set of six studies (plus a supplementary one) which question the existence of a social norm in the longstanding deontism/utilitarian debate by relying on two original tools, namely substitution technique and self-presentation paradigm. Study 1 showed that American participants asked to answer like most Americans would do gave more utilitarian responses than control participants who answered in their own name (Study 1). Study 2 showed that participants instructed to answer in a disapproval fashion were more utilitarian than both participants instructed to answer in an approval fashion and control participants. Importantly, no difference was observed between the approval and control conditions, suggesting that participants naturally align their moral judgments with a latent norm they think is the most socially desirable. Studies 3-5 explored in addition the effect of the activation of a deontism-skewed norm using the substitution instruction on subsequent impression formation. For the latter task, participants were instructed to evaluate a random participant selected from a previous study who gave utilitarian-like responses (Studies 3a-3b), or to evaluate a fictitious politician who endorsed either a deontic or utilitarian orientation (Studies 4-5). Although we consistently replicated the effect of substitution instruction, we failed to show that attempts to activate a norm in a given individual shaped their evaluation of other people who do not align with this norm. Finally, we report a mini meta-analysis targeting the pooled effect and homogeneity among our studies.

The many faces of compensation: The similarities and differences between social and facial models of perception

Previous research shows that stereotypes can distort the visual representation of groups in a top-down fashion. In the present endeavor, we tested if the compensation effect-the negative relationship that emerges between the social dimensions of warmth and competence when judging two social targets-would bias the visual representations of these targets in a compensatory way. We captured participants' near spontaneous facial prototypes of social targets by means of an unconstrained technique, namely the reverse correlation. We relied on a large multi-phase study (N = 869) and found that the expectations of the facial content of two novel groups that differed on one of the two social dimensions are biased in a compensatory manner on the facial dimensions of trustworthiness, warmth, and dominance but not competence. The present research opens new avenues by showing that compensation not only manifests itself on abstract ratings but that it also orients the visual representations of social targets.

Explaining immigrants' social distance towards natives: A multilevel mediation approach across immigrant groups in Germany

What factors underlie immigrants' social distance towards natives? Previous studies found that immigrants who perceive themselves as rejected by natives express more negative intergroup attitudes towards natives. Another line of research found that contingent on their origin country, immigrants face different degrees of social distance from natives. In this study, we employ an intergroup threat approach to integrate these separate research strands. The theoretical model we develop predicts that immigrants from groups that receive greater social distance from natives will perceive more personal discrimination, which, as a mediating mechanism, will be associated with greater social distance towards natives. Empirically, we draw on a cross-sectional probability sample of 1789 immigrants from 38 origin countries living in Germany (i.e., a comparative origin design). The results of multilevel mediation analyses prove consistent with our theoretical expectations, which points to the benefits of examining social distance among immigrants and natives in conjunction.

How threatening are people with mental disability? it depends on the type of threat and the disability

There is clear evidence that people with mental disability suffer from discrimination at school, at work, and in society. Less is known about the psychological processes and perceptions that guide such behaviors and even less if these perceptions vary according to the type of disability. Our objective was to build on well-established social psychological models and investigate the perceptions (i.e., stereotypes, perceived threats, and emotions) of people towards different types of mental disability. Participants from two francophone countries completed a questionnaire measuring their perceptions towards 18 mental disabilities and their familiarity with disability (N = 560). As expected, results revealed heterogeneous perceptions across groups. Moreover, perceived threats mediated the link between the stereotype of warmth and emotions. Surprisingly, greater familiarity with mental disability went along with greater derogation. This research nuances the overly generalized perceptions often associated with mental disability. We discuss implications for the reduction of discrimination against people with mental disability.

Personality impressions predict intergroup trust behaviour of Southern Chinese

This research aimed to investigate whether the personality impressions Southern Chinese formed on people who were from South China or North China predicted intergroup trust. Study 1 adopted the one-shot trust game to measure intergroup trust, in which the participant decided the amounts of money they would like to invest with the members of the ingroup and the members of the outgroup. After that, they assessed the personality traits of the two groups with a set of trait words. Results suggested that participants invested more average amounts of money with the outgroup than with the ingroup, and the investment in the northerners was significantly correlated with the trait impressions of the northerners. Study 2 conducted a survey to specify the positive and negative aspects of personality impressions made on the two groups. Results revealed that some untrustworthy and dislike traits were regarded as the negative traits in the ingroup rather than in the outgroup, though participants distinguished the positive personality traits between the two groups. The complexity-extremity theory was applied to explain the results of preferring to trust the outgroup over the ingroup in relation to the representation of personality impressions of the two groups.

Influence of membership in outgroups varying in competence and warmth on observers' Level-2 visual perspective taking

Visual perspective taking (VPT), the ability to adopt another person's viewpoint, entails two distinct processes, Level-1 (L1)-VPT and Level-2 (L2-VPT), referring to the ability to perceive whether and how a target sees an object, respectively. Whereas previous efforts investigated the impact of targets' social characteristics on L1-VPT, the present work is the first to do so regarding L2-VPT. Specifically, we investigate the impact of targets' membership in outgroups varying in perceived competence and warmth, the two fundamental dimensions of social perception. Participants in four experiments engaged in a L2-VPT task. Avatars belonged to a low competence low warmth group (LCLW; e.g. the homeless) or to a high competence low warmth group (HCLW; e.g. bankers) in Experiments 1-3, and to a LCLW or high competence high warmth group (HCHW; e.g. female students) in Experiment 4. Participants answered as quickly as possible whether a cued number matched a number present in a scene from either their own or the avatar's perspective. We consistently found support for the presence of both egocentric and altercentric interference, but this was not modulated by group competence and warmth, suggesting that membership in outgroups varying in competence and warmth does not influence L2-VPT. We discuss the findings' implications in the light of recent views on VPT.

The relation between conspiracism, government trust, and COVID-19 vaccination intentions: The key role of motivation

Rationale

Vaccination willingness is a critical step in the effort to reach herd immunity and control the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, many people remain reluctant to be vaccinated.

Objective

Integrating the literature on Self-Determination Theory, trust in authorities, and conspiracy theories, this research examines (a) the direct and indirect effect of government trust and conspiracism via underlying forms of motivations for (not) getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and (b) whether these associations differ across the two largely politically independent Belgian linguistic groups.

Methods

Using Structural Equation Modeling, we tested our models in two independent samples, in February 2021 (T1) and April 2021 (T2) (Total N = 8264).

Results

At T1 and T2, Government trust and conspiracism both predict COVID-19 vaccination intention, respectively positively and negatively. These relations are fully mediated by motivational factors, with identified motivations having a larger positive contribution. Looking at linguistic context, differences emerge at T2, with French-speaking Belgians showing lower levels of government trust and higher levels of conspiracism than Dutch speakers.

Conclusions

Results highlight the importance of integrating distal (trust in government, conspiracism) and proximal (motivational) variables to understand vaccination intentions.

Role of discrimination and resilience on birth weight: A systematic examination in a sample of Black, Latina, and White women

Introduction:

Health inequities begin before birth with Black women being more likely to have low birth weight babies than White and Latina women. Although both Latina and Black women experience discrimination, only Black women appear to be affected.

Methods:

In this study using medical records and face-to-face interviews, we systematically examined the role of discrimination (daily, environmental, vicarious) on continuous birth weight (controlling for gestational age and baby’s gender) in a sample of 329 Black, Latina, and White pregnant women, as well as whether familism, prayer, and/or discrimination attribution buffered this association.

Results:

Linear regression analyses revealed that only prayer acted as a resilience factor, with Latina women appearing to benefit from prayer in the link between vicarious and daily discrimination on birth weight conditional on gestational age, whereas Black women showed no moderation and White women showed an exacerbation in the link.

Discussion:

The results of this study suggest that sociocultural norms may play a role in explaining the Latina epidemiological paradox, but more research is needed to understand the significance.

Investigating Managers' Fine-Grained Evaluation Processes in Organizations: Exploring Two Dual-Process Perspectives

The dual-process theory is a significant theory in both organizational theory and social psychology and two conjectures about this theory are considered in this manuscript; the default-interventionist vs. parallel-competitive account. Our research goal is to empirically investigate these two views. In concrete terms, by using event-related potentials (ERPs), we seek to study the fine-grained brain processes and self-reported feelings involved in managers' evaluations of target employees within an economic context (firing employees) vs. a social network context (excluding employees). Using the stereotype content model categories, each target employee has high (or low) warmth and high (or low) levels of competence. In the fine-grained ERP analysis of the brain process, we focus on three time windows of interest: novelty detection (N2) and goal violation detection (N400) at the unconscious level, and we then evaluate conscious emotional arousal (late positive potential, LPP). Finally, we focus on the self-reported feelings when having to fire or exclude target employees. As goal pursuit theory predicts, the brain dynamics and self-reported measures differ widely across the two organizational contexts; in concrete terms, processes at a later stage overrule early stages depending on the context. This implies that the data bespeaks more for the parallel-competitive account than the default-interventionist account. We discuss the implications of these findings for research in management and management practice.

Stereotype Content at the Intersection of Gender and Sexual Orientation

According to the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), the content of stereotypes differs on two dimensions: communion and agency. Research shows that for stereotypes about the general gender categories of “women” and “men,” there is an ambivalent pattern of communion and agency, where high levels on one dimension are associated with low levels on the other. For sexual minority stereotypes, a gender inversion has been found, whereas homosexual women are seen as more similar to men in general than to women in general, whereas homosexual men are seen as more similar to women in general than to men in general. However, there is limited research on how stereotype content for general groups relate to stereotype content for subgroups with intersecting category memberships. This research addresses this gap by investigating stereotype content at the intersection of gender and sexual orientation, including stereotype content for general gender groups, heterosexual groups, homosexual groups, and bisexual groups. In Study 1, a community sample from Sweden (N = 824) rated perceived communion and agency for women and men in general, as well as hetero-, homo-, and bisexual women and men. In Study 2, a nationally representative Swedish sample (N = 424) performed the same rating task, and in addition completed Single-Category IATs (SC-IATs) for warmth and competence. Results from both studies show that the stereotype content for the general categories “women” and “men” overlap with the stereotype content for heterosexual same-gender targets. Homosexual and bisexual groups were rated as more similar to their non-congruent gender category than same gender heterosexual categories were, but stereotype content for sexual minority groups did not overlap with either general gender categories, thus showing only incomplete gender inversion of stereotype content. Implicit associations between “women” and “warmth” were significantly stronger than associations between “men” and “warmth.” There were no other significant relations between implicit associations to warmth/competence and gender or sexual orientation. Theoretical and methodological implications for future research into intersectional stereotype content are presented, including how the findings inform the co-dependent relationship between a binary gender structure and a heteronormative ideology.

Warmth is more influential than competence: an fMRI repetition suppression study

Previous neuroimaging studies have revealed neural representation of traits in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), but related studies mainly investigated the neural representation of warmth or competence trait respectively. To identify the potential differences of trait codes of warmth and competence in the mPFC, we applied functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) repetition suppression which is a rapid reduction of neuronal responses upon repeated presentation of the same implied trait. Participants read two successive trait-implying behavioral descriptions. In each trial, the critical target sentence implied either a warmth-related or competence-related trait was preceded by a prime sentence that implied trait from the other dimension of the 'Big Two' with a same or opposite valence, or no trait. The results revealed robust repetition suppression from prime to target in the mPFC only when the prime was a warmth-related trait, regardless of valence. Critically, the suppression effect was much stronger after being primed with a similar and opposite warmth trait compared with a trait-irrelevant prime. This suppression pattern was found nowhere else in the brain. The result seems to indicate that humans do not completely interpret and represent warmth and competence traits as independent dimensions and the warmth trait is more influential than Competence trait. The finding extends the understanding of the 'Big Two' theory of impression formation from the aspect of neural activity.

The academic success of boys and girls as an identity issue in gender relations: when the most threatened is not the one expected

The present research aims to determine whether girls' higher academic achievement, which should grant them a higher academic status than boys, could prevent them from experiencing social-identity threat on this dimension. Because they fear situations questioning their superiority, we argue that an unfavorable intergroup comparison would be more threatening for the high-status, rather than low-status, group on the dimension of academic achievement. Two studies were conducted, respectively, in high school, where girls should represent the high-status group (Study 1), and middle school, where students might perceive their own group as the high-status group (Study 2). Although both middle-school and high-school students perceived girls as the high-status group, they appraised the outgroup superiority differently. Indeed, it had more impact on girls' perceived threat and boys' perceived challenge in high school (Study 1), but not in middle school (Study 2). The results, however, did not show significant impact of context on performance.

The "Big Two" in Hiring Discrimination: Evidence From a Cross-National Field Experiment

We tested whether signaling warmth and competence (“Big Two”) in job applications increases hiring chances. Drawing on a field experimental data from five European countries, we analyzed the responses of employers (N = 13,162) to applications from fictitious candidates of different origin: native candidates and candidates of European, Asian, or Middle-Eastern/African descent. We found that competence signals slightly increased invitation rates, while warmth signals had no effect. We also found ethnic discrimination, a female premium, and differences in callbacks depending on job characteristics. Importantly, however, providing stereotype signals did not reduce the level of ethnic discrimination or the female premium. Likewise, we found little evidence for interactions between stereotype signals and job demands. While speaking against the importance of “Big Two” signals in application documents, our results highlight the importance of group membership and hopefully stimulate further research on the role of in particular ethnic stereotypes for discrimination in hiring.

Direct and indirect dimensional compensation: Is there a difference between observers and group members?

Dimensional compensation takes place when perceivers judge one of two social targets higher on one of the two fundamental dimensions while judging the other target higher on the second dimension. Interestingly, the majority of studies on the dimensional compensation effect focused on direct measures, with almost no attempt to rely on more indirect measures. We tested whether dimensional compensation also takes place at a more indirect level (Brief-IAT). In Experiment 1, observers presented with unknown groups dimensionally compensated both directly and indirectly. Experiment 2 had participants assigned to one of two novel groups. Whereas low-competence group members dimensionally compensated on both direct and indirect measures, high-competence group members dimensionally compensated at the direct level but did not conceed any advantage to the low-competence group at the indirect level. As a set, our findings shed new light on direct and indirect dimensionally compensatory judgments as a function of perceivers’ vantage points as observers and group members.

To punish or to assist? Divergent reactions to ingroup and outgroup members disobeying social distancing

In response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, societies face the formidable challenge of developing sustainable forms of sociability‐cumsocial‐distancing – enduring social life while containing the virus and preventing new outbreaks. Accordant public policies often balance between retributive (punishment‐based) and assistance (solidarity‐based) measures to foster responsible behaviour. Yet, the uncontrolled spreading of the disease has divided public opinion about which measures are best suited, and it has made salient group disparities in behaviour, potentially straining intergroup relations, elevating heated emotions, and undercutting coordinated international responses. In a 2 × 2 between‐subjects experiment, British citizens (N = 377) read about national in‐group or outgroup members (categorical differentiation), who were either conforming to or deviating from the corona regulations (normative differentiation). Participants then reported moral emotions towards the target national group and indicated support for public policies. In general, support for assistance policies outweighed support for retributive measures. Second, however, norm deviation was associated with less positive and more negative moral emotions, the latter category further relating to more punitiveness and less assistance support. Finally, respondents who read about norm‐violating outgroup members especially reported support for retributive measures, indicating that people might use norm deviation to justify outgroup derogation. We discuss implications for policymakers and formulate future research avenues.

Is there "smoke without fire"? Applying the theory of values to the study of motivational aspects of ethnic stereotypes: The case of Jewish stereotypes in Russia

Few studies have examined to what extent commonly held stereotypes reflect real intergroup differences in motivational goals. Taking a values perspective (Schwartz et al., 2012), the study examines value preferences among Jews and Russians in Russia, to assess the extent to which commonly held stereotypes reflect values of group members. Results showed that Jews reported substantially higher levels of universalism-tolerance, benevolence (both caring and dependability), and tradition values, and lower levels of power (both dominance and resources), and universalism-nature values, than Russians. Results indicated that the widespread Jewish stereotypes of power, achievement, and rootlessness/cosmopolitanism are ungrounded, while the stereotypes of liberalism and particularism are upheld by the reported differences in the value preferences between Jews and the majority population in Russia. The present study underscores the importance of value comparisons between ethnic minority and majority groups for understanding their motivational goals and thus fighting prejudices and discrimination.

Of Nice and Mean: The Personal Relevance of Others’ Competence Drives Perceptions of Warmth

Past research shows that when forming an impression of an interdependent person, perceivers are motivated to look for information relevant to their goals and interests. The present experiments examined what happens after this information-seeking stage and showed that the relevance of the target’s attributes for one’s goals and interests drives warmth impressions. Using both a scenario (Experiment 1) and realistic methodologies (Experiment 3), we showed that when the perceiver had to collaborate with a target, the more competent the target, the more perceivers anticipated success and the more the target came across as warm. By contrast, in a competition setting, the competence of the target negatively affected prospects of success and impressions of warmth. Experiment 2 further showed that the target’s competence drove warmth impressions only when perceivers attached a great value to the success of the task, suggesting that these inferences have a motivational underpinning.

"Si eres moral y competente adoptaré elementos de tu cultura”: el rol mediador de las emociones positivas en el proceso de aculturación de inmigrantes ecuatorianos en España

Los procesos psicosociales implicados en las preferencias de aculturación de las personas inmigrantes son importantes para comprender las relaciones interculturales en contextos multiculturales. Este trabajo analiza las relaciones entre tres dimensiones estereotípicas y las emociones positivas experimentadas hacia españoles con las preferencias de aculturación de inmigrantes ecuatorianos en España. Noventa y dos personas ecuatorianas (53.3% mujeres; Medad = 31.58 años) respondieron a un cuestionario que evaluaba la moralidad, sociabilidad, y competencia percibidas en los españoles, las emociones positivas experimentadas hacia ellos y sus preferencias de mantenimiento y adopción cultural. Los resultados muestran que la percepción estereotípica de ecuatorianos sobre españoles (en las dimensiones de moralidad y competencia) predice su preferencia por adoptar costumbres españolas a través de las emociones positivas.

The Power of Projection for Powerless and Powerful People

Past social projection research has mainly focused on target characteristics as a moderator of projective effects. The current research considers the power of the perceiver and how it affects projection of competence and warmth. In three studies, participants first rated themselves on a list of traits/preferences, then performed a power manipulation task, and, finally, rated a target person on the same list. Studies 1 and 2 reveal that the effect of power on social projection is moderated by dimension of judgment: high-power/low-power participants project more on competence/warmth than low-power/high-power participants. A meta-analysis conducted on Studies 1, 2, 3, and two additional studies confirmed those results. Study 3 additionally shows that high power increases the salience of competence, whereas low power increases the salience of warmth. Implications for both the power and the social perception literatures are discussed.

Age-related differences in social influence on risk perception depend on the direction of influence

Adolescents are particularly susceptible to social influence. Here, we investigated the effect of social influence on risk perception in 590 participants aged eight to fifty-nine-years tested in the United Kingdom. Participants rated the riskiness of everyday situations, were then informed about the rating of these situations from a (fictitious) social-influence group consisting of teenagers or adults, and then re-evaluated the situation. Our first aim was to attempt to replicate our previous finding that young adolescents are influenced more by teenagers than by adults. Second, we investigated the social-influence effect when the social-influence group's rating was more, or less, risky than the participants' own risk rating. Younger participants were more strongly influenced by teenagers than by adults, but only when teenagers rated a situation as more risky than did participants. This suggests that stereotypical characteristics of the social-influence group - risk-prone teenagers - interact with social influence on risk perception.

The Dynamics of Compensation: When Ingroup Favoritism Paves the Way for Outgroup Praise

Compensation research suggests that when people evaluate their own and another group, the search for positive differentiation fuels the emergence of compensatory ratings on the two fundamental dimensions of social perception, competence and warmth. In two experiments, we tested whether obstacles to positive differentiation on the preferred dimension disrupted compensation. Both experiments showed that high-status (low-status) group members grant the outgroup a higher standing on warmth (competence) when positive differentiation can be achieved on the orthogonal dimension, competence (warmth). Moreover, and in line with the " noblesse oblige" effect, Experiment 2 confirmed that, among high-status group members, perceived higher pressures toward nondiscrimination were linked to outgroup bias on warmth only when ingroup bias on competence had been secured. The discussion focuses on compensation as one of the factors contributing to cooperative intergroup relations.

Fuming with rage! Do members of low status groups signal anger more than members of high status groups?

Owuamalam, Weerabangsa, Karunagharan and Rubin found that Malaysians associate people in low status groups with anger more than their higher status counterparts: the hunchback heuristic. But is this belief accurate? Here, we propose the alternative possibility that members of low-status groups might deliberately suppress anger to counter this stigma, while members of high-status groups might disinhibit their anger to assert their superiority. To test these propositions, we manipulated undergraduate students' relative group status by leading them to believe that provocative comments about their undergraduate social identity came from a professor (low-status condition) or a junior foundation year student (high-status condition). Using eye-tracking, we then measured their gaze durations on the comments, which we used as a physiological signal of anger: dwelling (Experiment 1). Results revealed that dwelling was significantly greater in the high-status condition than in the low-status condition. Experiment 2 conceptually replicated this pattern using a self-report method and found that the suppression-disinhibition effect occurred only when reputational concerns were strong.

Stereotypes, Emotions, and Behaviors Toward Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual Women, and Bisexual Men

The utility of the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) and the Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes map (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007) were examined in the context of heterosexuals' attitudes toward sexual minorities. Heterosexual adults completed a survey measuring stereotypes, emotions, and behavioral tendencies toward lesbians, gay men, bisexual women, and bisexual men. Stereotype content differed across groups and showed "gendered" and "valenced" effects on emotions and behavioral tendencies. Competence predicted behaviors for men, whereas warmth and competence predicted behaviors for women, and, for the most part, more was better. Admiration and contempt mediated most of these relationships across most subgroups, but pity and envy played smaller roles for some subgroups. Across all groups, competence played a more predictive role than warmth.