Stereotyping

Stereotyping means to use a stereotype as a basis for the assessment of an individual and to apply this judgment interchangeably with other members of the relevant social group (Leyens et

al., 1994). Examples for explanations how the process of stereotyping takes place will be explained in the following section.

1.1.2.1 Impression formation models

In the last few decades, more than one impression formation model has been established to explain the process of stereotyping (e.g., Biernat, Manis, & Kobrynowicz, 1997; Bodenhausen &

Macrae, 1998; Brewer, 1988; Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Devine, 1989; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990;

Madon, Guyll, Hilbert, Kyriakatos, & Vogel, 2006; Stapel, 2007).

In her dissociation model, Devine (1989) divides the impression formation process in two phases: meeting a target person activates the social stereotype automatically, regardless of whether or not the perceiver holds this stereotypic beliefs. However, in the second phase, the perceiver can decide if he wants to apply the activated stereotype or control it volitionally to make an adequate impression of the target person.

Bodenhausen and Macrae (1998) break the stereotyping process down to three phases: in the first phase, the target person is categorized, that is, classified into a certain social group, like a woman, a foreigner, a student, and so forth. This process can be influenced by the current context (cf. Biernat & Vescio, 1993; Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff, & Ruderman, 1978), by the chronic accessibility of this category (cf. Bargh, Lombardi, & Higgins, 1988), or by the perceiver’s current goals (cf., Achtziger, 2003; Bruner, 1957). Second, the interpretation on basis of personal beliefs influences stereotype absorption. If the perceiver agrees with the activated category having certain characteristics, the stereotype will be activated. Hence, the perceiver may only notice information that is consistent with the activated stereotype and ignores stereotype-inconsistent information (cf. Bodenhausen, 1988; Bodenhausen & Wyer, 1985). Conversely, if the perceiver rejects the stereotype, stereotyping can be controlled. Finally, in the third phase, social standards influence the reaction of the perceiver and thus, the application of the stereotype. The target person will either be discriminated by the perceiver if discrimination fits the standard of the perceiver’s social group; or the perceiver will not discriminate the target person, if the standards of his or her ingroup forbid discrimination.

Madon, Guyll, Hilbert, Kyriakatos, and Vogel (2006) investigated how motivational and situational factors affect the stereotyping process and consequently developed the stereotype validity model. This model postulates that perceivers rely more on stereotypes if the information about the target person matches the current stereotype of the social group the target belongs to. If information that contradicts a certain stereotype is presented, then the stereotype appears unreliable and thus, the target person will be judged as less stereotypic. Attention moderates this effect insofar as more attention leads to a more accurate assessment of the match between the

stereotype and the target person. Less attention complicates the evaluation of the match, and the perceiver has to accordingly regress the match to the mean.

The interpretation comparison model (Stapel & Koomen, 2001; Stapel & Suls, 2007) also attaches importance to the match between the given information and the activated stereotype.

The model predicts that stereotype-relevant information does not necessarily cause a stereotypic impression of the target person. It instead depends on the manner in which the stereotype-relevant knowledge is used by the perceiver. When the information matches the target person’s social category, it serves as an interpretation frame and thus assimilation effects occur (i.e., stereotyping of the target person). Conversely, when the information is used as a comparison standard (e.g., exemplars of a social category like ‘Heidi Klum’) against which the evaluation of the target person is conferred, contrast effects can result (Stapel & Koomen, 1998). Studies done by the model’s authors (Stapel & Koomen, 2001) have actually shown that priming participants with an interpretation mindset produces assimilation during impression formation whilst priming them with a comparison mindset leads to contrast effects. Thus, knowledge accessibility can also be externally influenced from the outside.

All in all, the different models demonstrate that the impression formation process is not easily described in terms of a unifying concept. Different situational and motivational modalities influence the way in which people use their present knowledge to interpret stereotype-relevant information. For example, in the last few decades research has been influenced by the dispute about memory of stereotype-inconsistent and -consistent information dependent on cognitive demands (for reviews, see Fyock & Stangor, 1994; Rojahn & Pettigrew, 1992; Stangor &

McMillan, 1992). Because memory of inconsistent and consistent information serves as a dependent variable in this dissertation, the following section will discuss different conceptions on the encoding and processing of these kinds of information.

1.1.2.2 Processing of stereotype-relevant information subject to cognitive resources One way to attenuate based judgments is to take into account stereotype-inconsistent information, that is, information that contradicts the current stereotype (e.g., 'fast' or 'healthy' for the stereotype of elderly; e.g., Brewer, 1988; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). On the one hand, it has been discovered that people generally attempt to confirm their impression by seeking information that is consistent with their expectancies. Consequently, information that validates prior expectancies is stored and remembered preferentially (e.g., Rothbart, Evans, & Fulero, 1979; Snyder & Swann, 1978). On the other hand, other researchers have discovered that more

attention is focused on unexpected information than well-known stimuli (e.g., Brewer, Dull, &

Lui, 1981; Erber & Fiske, 1984; Macrae et al., 1993).

These contradictory findings suggest that more than just the kind of information (inconsistent or consistent with common expectancies) is responsible for the processing of stereotype-based information. Meanwhile, different variables have attracted interest, including instructions for the task (e.g., Wyer, Bodenhausen, & Srull, 1984), nature of the target persons, for example, group vs. individual (e.g., Srull, Lichtenstein, & Rothbart, 1985), motivation (e.g., Dunton & Fazio, 1997a; Plant & Devine, 1998; Wyer, 2007), type of memory probe task (e.g., Sherman & Frost, 2000), strength of expectancy (e.g., Fiske & Neuberg, 1990), type of information, that is, behavioral vs. trait information (e.g., Hastie & Kumar, 1979), social environment (e.g., Carnaghi & Yzerbyt, 2006), and cognitive resources (e.g., Bodenhausen, Macrae, & Sherman, 1999; Gilbert & Hixon, 1991; Sherman & Frost, 2000), to name just a few.

Of notable interest for this dissertation is the amount of cognitive resources that are available through the processing of stereotype-relevant information.

Existing person memory models predict different processes in encoding and memorizing social information. Schematic information-processing models assume that the processing of social information is guided by schemata. Information that is congruent with the existing schema will be preferentially encoded and retrieved from memory than information that contradicts former expectations. Thus, stereotypes work as filter that facilitates the encoding and representation of stereotype-consistent information compared to stereotype-inconsistent information (e.g., Bodenhausen & Lichtenstein, 1987; Bodenhausen, Macrae, & Garst, 1998; Hamilton & Sherman, 1994; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994; Stangor & McMillan, 1992). Especially when capacity is low, consistent information is relatively easily understood, because it fits with a schematic framework. In contrast, inconsistent information is difficult to comprehend under such conditions and therefore receives little attention (e.g., Bodenhausen, 1988; Macrae et al., 1994; Stangor & Duan, 1991). By means of memory tests different studies showed that when people are asked to judge or respond to different kinds of information, these schemata are used in the previously described way (e.g., Clark & Woll, 1981; Stangor, 1988).

The associative network model suggests that stereotype-consistent information is more strongly associated with the present stereotype in an associative network, thus resulting in better memory of congruent information than information that is irrelevant to contents of the stereotype.

Information that contradicts the expectations is not ignored, but is actually better remembered. It has to be processed more extensively than congruent information as it has to be considered in relation to the target person and other available information. It must furthermore be integrated into pre-existing beliefs about the target person. This effortful cognitive process (Bodenhausen et

al., 1999; Brewer, 1988) is called inconsistency resolution or incongruency effect. It results in many cognitive associations between incongruent items and other kinds of information that help people retrieve the inconsistent information from memory (Hastie, 1980; Hastie & Kumar, 1979;

Srull, 1981; Srull & Wyer, 1989). However, if cognitive resources are low, stereotype-incongruent information cannot be connected with other available items, which results in a long-term memory disadvantage instead of a benefit (Macrae, Bodenhausen, Schloerscheidt, & Milne, 1999).

Garcia-Marques and Hamilton (1996) developed the twofold retrieval by associative pathways (TRAP) model to dissolve both the contradictory mechanisms of the incongruency effect (incongruent information is remembered better under impression formation instructions; Hastie

& Kumar, 1979) and the expectancy-based illusory correlation effect (information that is congruent to expected information is remembered better; Hamilton & Rose, 1980). In this model, an exhaustive and a heuristic retrieval mode are distinguished. The exhaustive mode is an effortful search process that navigates through the associative memory using the last retrieved item as cue for the next one. Through its resource consuming characteristics, this mode is affected by cognitive load. The heuristic mode on the other hand uses memory traces and the salience of cues for the retrieval output and thus is not directly dependent on cognitive resources.

Garcia-Marques, Hamilton, and Maddox (2002) illustrated in a recall task (in which the exhaustive mode is active) that inconsistent information was recalled better than stereotype-consistent information, provided that incongruent items became more densely associated with other items. However, this effect disappeared under cognitive load.

In contrast to these models, Sherman, Lee, Bessenoff, and Frost (1998) propose an encoding flexibility model of stereotype efficiency. They postulate that even under cognitive load stereotype-inconsistent information is encoded preferentially. While the details of the consistent information are well-known and thus easily comprehendible when capacity is low, the remaining attentional resources can be redirected to encode the inconsistent information, that is, information that is more difficult to understand. As a result, stereotype-consistent information is encoded conceptually (i.e., extraction of the gist or meaning of the stimulus) and attention is allocated to the stereotype-inconsistent information to extract perceptual details (i.e., extraction of information of the physical details of the stimulus). Nevertheless, the meaning (i.e., the semantic aspect) of the inconsistent information is neglected when capacity is low.

Another line of research (Carnaghi & Yzerbyt, 2006; Yzerbyt, Coull, & Rocher, 1999) has shown that cognitive capacity is required to discard stereotype inconsistencies (e.g., by subtyping).

Because information that is incongruent with prior expectations fosters additional processing at the encoding stage (Hastie & Kumar, 1979; Sherman & Frost, 2000; Srull & Wyer, 1989), people with low cognitive resources are not able to dismiss the inconsistent information and thus have to

change their stereotype. Instead of opposing these contradictory conceivabilities of the different models, Yzerbyt, Coull, and Rocher (1999) try to integrate the findings: “After all, stereotypes seem to take advantage of both the absence or the presence of cognitive resources. In the first case, the unique features of the target are scarce to thoroughly examine the incoming data. In the second case, the stereotype persists despite the inconsistency because perceivers have all the necessary resources to build a case against the typicality of the target” (Yzerbyt et al., 1999, p.

459).