Deborah A. Prentice

When small effects are impressive

Effect size is becoming an increasingly popular measure of the importance of an effect, both in individual studies and in meta-analyses. However, a large effect size is not the only way to demonstrate that an effect is important. This article describes 2 alternative methodological strategies, in which importance is a function of how minimal a manipulation of the independent variable or how difficult-to-influence a dependent variable will still produce an effect. These methodologies demonstrate the importance of an independent variable or psychological process, even though they often yield effects that are small in statistical terms

What Women and Men Should Be, Shouldn’t Be, Are Allowed to Be, and Don’t Have to Be: The Contents of Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes

This article presents a four-category framework to characterize the contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. The framework distinguishes between prescriptions and proscriptions that are intensified by virtue of ones gender, and those that are relaxed by virtue of ones gender. Two studies examined the utility of this framework for characterizing prescriptive gender stereotypes in American society (Study 1) and in the highly masculine context of Princeton University (Study 2). The results demonstrated the persistence of traditional gender prescriptions in both contexts, but also revealed distinct areas of societal vigilance and leeway for each gender. In addition, they showed that women are seen more positively, relative to societal standards, than are men. We consider the implications of this framework for research on reactions to gender stereotype deviants and sex discrimination.

Asymmetries in Attachments to Groups and to their Members: Distinguishing between Common-Identity and Common-Bond Groups

Two studies sought to validate the distinction between common-identity groups, which are based on direct attachments to the group identity, and common-bond groups, which are based on attachments among group members. Study 1 focused on members of selective and nonselective university eating clubs. Study 2 focused on members of a diverse sample of campus groups. Both studies revealed asymmetries in group and member attachments: Individuals in common-identity groups were more attached to their group than to its members, whereas individuals in common-bond groups were as attached to the members as to the group (or more so). Study 2 also demonstrated that attachment to the group was more strongly related to various evaluations of individual group members in common-bond than in common-identity groups. The authors discuss the implications of these results for the development of groups over time and speculate on how the dynamics of the two types of groups might differ.

Psychological Essentialism of Human Categories

Psychological essentialism is an ordinary mode of category representation that has powerful social-psychological consequences. This article reviews those consequences, with a focus on the distinctive ways people perceive, evaluate, and interact with members of human categories they essentialize. Why and when people engage in this mode of thinking remain open questions. Variability in essentialism across cultures, categories, and contexts suggests that this mode of representing human categories is rooted in a naturalistic theory of category origins, combined with a need to explain differences that cross category boundaries.

What readers bring to the processing of fictional texts

Research on text processing has generally focused on the types of inferences that all readers draw in common. Our research examines aspects of processing that depend on the particular relation of the reader to the text. Students read fictional stories that contained weak and unsupported assertions and that were set either at their own school or at another school. We expected that they would be prompted to process the story information thoroughly enough to reject the assertions only if they were familiar with the story setting. Consistent with this expectation, the results showed that the away-school story, but not the home-school story, had a significant impact on students’ beliefs. These results support the view that readers must actively construct disbelief when processing fictional information.

Collective Errors and Errors about the Collective

This article focuses on the circumstances in which individuals mistakenly assume that their beliefs, perceptions, and feelings differ from those of their peers. Pluralistic ignorance, as this phenomenon is called, yields numerous significant consequences for the self (e.g., illusory feelings of deviance) and for the collective (e.g., the perpetuation of unpopular social norms). It also illustrates several important ways in which the self and the collective influence each other. The authors propose that pluralistic ignorance has its roots in collectively shared misconceptions about the relative power of different motives. Specifically, it occurs when widely shared but erroneous social representations of human motivation lead people to view the motive guiding their behavior as one that would not exert a comparable influence on the behavior of others.

The Representation of Fictional Information

Much of the information we encounter every day appears in settings that are clearly marked as fictional (e.g., novels, television, movies). Our studies explore the extent to which information acquired through these fictional worlds is incorporated into real-world knowledge. We used short stories to introduce fictional facts. The first experiment demonstrated that fictional information penetrates into judgments about beliefs, suggesting incorporation. The second experiment demonstrated, nonetheless, that representations of fictional information retain features of compartmentalization. We suggest, accordingly, that readers create hybrid representations of fictional information.

Familiarity and differences in self- and other-representations.

Two studies compared representations of the self and of other people, guided by the hypothesis that self-other differences derive from ones greater familiarity with oneself than with others. For the first study, participants wrote open-ended descriptions of themselves, a familiar person, and an unfamiliar person, which were analyzed for the amount and types of information they contained and for consistency in specific content across stimulus people and situations. Participants returned for a second study 1 week later and made timed judgments of information taken from their written protocols. The response latencies for these judgments were used to infer how information is organized in self- and other-concepts. The results supported most of the predicted self-other differences, but almost all were matched by differences between familiar and unfamiliar others. Familiarity does provide a parsimonious explanation for many self-other differences.

Minimal conditions for the creation of a unit relationship: the social bond between birthdaymates

We hypothesize that sharing a birthday is sufficient to create a unit relationship. Two studies demonstrated that individuals cooperated more in a prisoners dilemma game when their (fictitious) opponent shared their birthday. They also reacted more negatively to betrayal and were less sensitive to relative gains for self versus other.

Essentializing Differences Between Women and Men

People represent many social categories, including gender categories, in essentialist terms: They see category members as sharing deep, nonobvious properties that make them the kinds of things they are. The present research explored the consequences of this mode of representation for social inferences. In two sets of studies, participants learned (a) that they were similar to a member of the other gender on a novel attribute, (b) that they were different from a member of the other gender on a novel attribute, or (c) just their own standing on a novel attribute. Results showed that participants made stronger inductive inferences about the attribute in question when they learned that it distinguished them from a member of the other gender than in the other conditions. We consider the implications of these results for the representation of social categories and for everyday social inference processes.