Alex Koch

The ABC of stereotypes about groups: Agency/socioeconomic success, conservative–progressive beliefs, and communion.

Previous research argued that stereotypes differ primarily on the 2 dimensions of warmth/communion and competence/agency. We identify an empirical gap in support for this notion. The theoretical model constrains stereotypes a priori to these 2 dimensions; without this constraint, participants might spontaneously employ other relevant dimensions. We fill this gap by complementing the existing theory-driven approaches with a data-driven approach that allows an estimation of the spontaneously employed dimensions of stereotyping. Seven studies (total N = 4,451) show that people organize social groups primarily based on their agency/socioeconomic success (A), and as a second dimension, based on their conservative-progressive beliefs (B). Communion (C) is not found as a dimension by its own, but rather as an emergent quality in the two-dimensional space of A and B, resulting in a 2D ABC model of stereotype content about social groups. (PsycINFO Database Record

A General Valence Asymmetry in Similarity: Good Is More Alike Than Bad.

The density hypothesis (Unkelbach, Fiedler, Bayer, Stegmüller, & Danner, 2008) claims a general higher similarity of positive information to other positive information compared with the similarity of negative information to other negative information. This similarity asymmetry might explain valence asymmetries on all levels of cognitive processing. The available empirical evidence for this general valence asymmetry in similarity suffers from a lack of direct tests, low representativeness, and possible confounding variables (e.g., differential valence intensity, frequency, familiarity, or concreteness of positive and negative stimuli). To address these problems, Study 1 first validated the spatial arrangement method (SpAM) as a similarity measure. Using SpAM, Studies 2-6 found the proposed valence asymmetry in large, representative samples of self- and other-generated words (Studies 2a/2b), for words of consensual and idiosyncratic valence (Study 3), for words from 1 and many independent information sources (Study 4), for real-life experiences (Study 5), and for large data sets of verbal (i.e., ∼14,000 words reported by Warriner, Kuperman, & Brysbaert, 2013) and visual information (i.e., ∼1,000 pictures reported in the IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005; Study 6). Together, these data support a general valence asymmetry in similarity, namely that good is more alike than bad. (PsycINFO Database Record

Fluency and positivity as possible causes of the truth effect

Statements rated truth increases when people encounter them repeatedly. Processing fluency is a central variable to explain this truth effect. However, people experience processing fluency positively, and these positive experiences might cause the truth effect. Three studies investigated positivity and fluency influences on the truth effect. Study 1 found correlations between elicited positive feelings and rated truth. Study 2 replicated the repetition-based truth effect, but positivity did not influence the effect. Study 3 conveyed positive and negative correlations between positivity and truth in a learning phase. We again replicated the truth effect, but positivity only influenced judgments for easy statements in the learning phase. Thus, across three studies, we found positivity effects on rated truth, but not on the repetition-based truth effect: We conclude that positivity does not explain the standard truth effect, but the role of positive experiences for truth judgments deserves further investigation.

A density explanation of valence asymmetries in recognition memory

The density hypothesis states that positive information is more similar than negative information, resulting in higher density of positive information in mental representations. The present research applies the density hypothesis to recognition memory to explain apparent valence asymmetries in recognition memory, namely, a recognition advantage for negative information. Previous research explained this negativity advantage on the basis of valence-induced affect. We predicted that positive information’s higher density impairs recognition performance. Two old–new word recognition experiments tested whether differential density between positive and negative stimuli creates a negativity advantage in recognition memory, over and above valence-induced affect. In Experiment 1, participants better discriminated negative word stimuli (i.e., less false alarms) and showed a response bias towards positive words. Regression analyses showed the asymmetry to be function of density and not of valence. Experiment 2 varied stimulus density orthogonal to valence. Again, discriminability and response bias were a function of density and not of valence. We conclude that the higher density of positive information causes an apparent valence asymmetry in recognition memory.

Why Good Is More Alike Than Bad: Processing Implications

Humans process positive information and negative information differently. These valence asymmetries in processing are often summarized under the observation that bad is stronger than good, meaning that negative information has stronger psychological impact (e.g., in feedback, learning, or social interactions). This stronger impact is usually attributed to peoples affective or motivational reactions to evaluative information. We present an alternative interpretation of valence asymmetries based on the observation that positive information is more similar than negative information. We explain this higher similarity based on the non-extremity of positive attributes, discuss how it accounts for observable valence asymmetries in cognitive processing, and show how it predicts hitherto undiscovered phenomena.

How Orthogonal Are the Big Two of Social Perception? On the Curvilinear Relation Between Agency and Communion:

Humans make sense of their social environment by forming impressions of others that allow predicting others’ actions. In this process of social perception, two types of information carry pivotal importance: other entities’ communion (i.e., warmth and trustworthiness) and agency (i.e., status and power). Although commonly thought of as orthogonal dimensions, we propose that these Big Two of social perception are curvilinearly related. Specifically, as we delineate from four different theoretical explanations, impressions of communion should peak at average agency, while entities too high or too low on agency should be perceived as low on communion. We show this pattern for social groups across one novel and five previously published data sets, including a meta-analysis of the most comprehensive data collection in the group perception literature, consisting of 36 samples from more than 20 countries. Addressing the generalizability of this curvilinear relation, we then report recent and unpublished experiments establishing the effect for the perception of individuals and animals. On the basis of the proposed curvilinear relation, we revisit the primacy of processing communion (rather than agency) information. Finally, we discuss the possibility of a more general curvilinear relation between communion and dimensions other than agency.

The “common good” phenomenon: Why similarities are positive and differences are negative.

Positive attributes are more prevalent than negative attributes in the social environment. From this basic assumption, 2 implications that have been overlooked thus far: Positive compared with negative attributes are more likely to be shared by individuals, and people’s shared attributes (similarities) are more positive than their unshared attributes (differences). Consequently, similarity-based comparisons should lead to more positive evaluations than difference-based comparisons. We formalized our probabilistic reasoning in a model and tested its predictions in a simulation and 8 experiments (N = 1,181). When participants generated traits about 2 target persons, positive compared with negative traits were more likely to be shared by the targets (Experiment 1a) and by other participants’ targets (Experiment 1b). Conversely, searching for targets’ shared traits resulted in more positive traits than searching for unshared traits (Experiments 2, 4a, and 4b). In addition, positive traits were more accessible than negative traits among shared traits but not among unshared traits (Experiment 3). Finally, shared traits were only more positive when positive traits were indeed prevalent (Experiments 5 and 6). The current framework has a number of implications for comparison processes and provides a new interpretation of well-known evaluative asymmetries such as intergroup bias and self-superiority effects.

The Political Domain Appears Simpler to the Politically Extreme Than to Political Moderates

How does political preference affect categorization in the political domain? Eight studies demonstrate that people on both ends of the political spectrum—strong Republicans and strong Democrats—form simpler and more clustered categories of political stimuli than do moderates and neutrals. This pattern was obtained regardless of whether stimuli were politicians (Study 1), social groups (Study 2), or newspapers (Study 3). Furthermore, both strong Republicans and strong Democrats were more likely to make inferences about the world based on their clustered categorization. This was found for estimating the likelihood that geographical location determines voting (Study 4), that political preference determines personal taste (Study 5), and that social relationships determine political preference (Study 6). The effect is amplified if political ideology is salient (Study 7) and remains after controlling for differences in political sophistication (Study 8). The political domain appears simpler to the politically extreme than to political moderates.

Response Category Width as a Psychophysical Manifestation of Construal Level and Distance

The present research suggests that people adjust their mental response scales to an object’s distance and construal level. People make use of wider response categories when they judge distant and abstract as compared with close and concrete stimuli. Across five experiments, participants worked on visual and verbal estimation problems (e.g., length or quantity judgments). Answers were provided in interval format, and differences between minimal and maximal estimates served as a measure of response category width. When target objects were framed as spatially distant rather than close (Studies 1 and 3), as unlikely rather than likely (Study 2), and as abstract rather than concrete (Study 4), category widths increased. Similarly, priming a high-level rather than a low-level mindset yielded wider interval estimates (Study 5). The general discussion highlights the usefulness of category width as a basic measure of construal level and as a theoretical link between various branches of construal-level theory.

Studying the Cognitive Map of the U.S. States

What are the spontaneous stereotypes that U.S. citizens hold about the U.S. states? We complemented insights from theory-driven approaches to this question with insights from a novel data-driven approach. Based on pile sorting and spatial arrangement similarity ratings for the states, we computed two cognitive maps of the states. Based on ratings for the states on ∼20 candidate dimensions, we interpreted the dimensions that spanned the two maps (Studies 1 and 2). Consistent with the agency/socioeconomic success, conservative-progressive beliefs, and communion (ABC) model of spontaneous stereotypes, these dimensions that participants spontaneously used to rate the states’ similarity included prosperity (A) and ideology (B) stereotypes (states seen as more liberal and atheist were seen as more educated and wealthy). Study 3 showed that states seen as more average on A and B were stereotyped as more likable. Additionally, Study 3 showed that interstate similarity in stereotypic ideology and prosperity mattered, as it predicted interstate prejudice.