Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón

Stereotype content model across cultures: Towards universal similarities and some differences

The stereotype content model (SCM) proposes potentially universal principles of societal stereotypes and their relation to social structure. Here, the SCM reveals theoretically grounded, cross-cultural, cross-groups similarities and one difference across 10 non-US nations. Seven European (individualist) and three East Asian (collectivist) nations (N=1,028) support three hypothesized cross-cultural similarities: (a) perceived warmth and competence reliably differentiate societal group stereotypes; (b) many out-groups receive ambivalent stereotypes (high on one dimension; low on the other); and (c) high status groups stereotypically are competent, whereas competitive groups stereotypically lack warmth. Data uncover one consequential cross-cultural difference: (d) the more collectivist cultures do not locate reference groups (in-groups and societal prototype groups) in the most positive cluster (high-competence/high-warmth), unlike individualist cultures. This demonstrates out-group derogation without obvious reference-group favouritism. The SCM can serve as a pancultural tool for predicting group stereotypes from structural relations with other groups in society, and comparing across societies.

Why do superiors attend to negative stereotypic information about their subordinates? Effects of power legitimacy on social perception

Power can be defined as control over peoples outcomes. using this definition, we explored the impact of power on attentional processes involved in impression formation. Because powerful individuals may want to maintain and justify their position, powerful participants should pay particular attention to negative stereotype-consistent information about their subordinates. In contrast, powerless participants should devote their attention to stereotype-inconsistent information in an attempt to increase their control over the social context. Study 1 directly manipulated control by assigning participants to the role of leader or subordinate ina task group. Results showed that, compared to subordinates, leaders devoted more attention to negative stereotypic attributes. Study 2 manipulated the legitimacy of power and replicated the pattern found in Study 1 but only when power was illegitimate. Our findings suggest that the experience of power can be associated with feelings of threat, especially when power is illegitimate, thereby orienting impression-formation processes toward information likely to maintain the existing social structure. We discuss our results in the context of current work on motivated social cognition, social identity, and legitimisation. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

An eye for the I: Preferential attention to the eyes of ingroup members.

Human faces, and more specifically the eyes, play a crucial role in social and nonverbal communication because they signal valuable information about others. It is therefore surprising that few studies have investigated the impact of intergroup contexts and motivations on attention to the eyes of ingroup and outgroup members. Four experiments investigated differences in eye gaze to racial and novel ingroups using eye tracker technology. Whereas Studies 1 and 3 demonstrated that White participants attended more to the eyes of White compared to Black targets, Study 2 showed a similar pattern of attention to the eyes of novel ingroup and outgroup faces. Studies 3 and 4 also provided new evidence that eye gaze is flexible and can be meaningfully influenced by current motivations. Specifically, instructions to individuate specific social categories increased attention to the eyes of target group members. Furthermore, the latter experiments demonstrated that preferential attention to the eyes of ingroup members predicted important intergroup biases such as recognition of ingroup over outgroup faces (i.e., the own-race bias; Study 3) and willingness to interact with outgroup members (Study 4). The implication of these findings for general theorizing on face perception, individuation processes, and intergroup relations are discussed.

Social categories as a context for the allocation of attentional control.

Recent studies of cognitive control have highlighted the idea that context can rapidly cue the control of attention. The present study shows that faces can be quickly categorized on the basis of gender, and these gender categories can be used as a contextual cue to allocate attentional control. Furthermore, the results reported here reveal processes implicated in the development and operation of implicit social stereotypes. Three of 4 faces from 1 gender group were associated with a high proportion of congruent trials in a flanker task, while 3 of 4 faces of the other gender group were associated with a low proportion of congruent trials. A single inconsistent face within each gender group was associated with the proportion congruency of the opposite gender group. A social context-specific proportion congruent effect (PCE) was observed (i.e., larger interference for the gender category associated with a high proportion of congruent trials), even for inconsistent members of the category. This effect is consistent with the view that a new implicit stereotype was created, linking gender with a specific proportion of congruency. In Experiment 2, the task goals modulated the use of the new created stereotype. Instructions to categorize versus individuate the target faces, respectively, led participants to allocate attention either toward the category-diagnostic or the identity-diagnostic facial features. Furthermore, and in line with stereotyping research, under instructions to categorize faces this social-context-specific PCE generalized to new faces of the same gender group with whom participants did not have previous experience. These results link attention with social categorization processes.

The Impact of Music on Automatically Activated Attitudes: Flamenco and Gypsy People

The two studies reported in this article agree in demonstrating that activating a positive side of the stereotype of a traditionally prejudiced group could be a useful strategy to improve the implicit attitude toward that group. The goal of the current research was to explore whether activating the present association between Flamenco music and Gypsy people would decrease the negative view of this group in Spain, using the IAT measure. In the first study, when a stereotype-consistent but positive feature of Gypsies (i.e. Flamenco music) was used as a positively valued attribute in the IAT measure, the IAT effect was lower than when a different positive stimulus was used (classical music clips). The findings of Study 2 showed that for the North African community—another highly discriminated group in Spain—the use of Flamenco or classical music clips did not have any effect on the implicit attitudes of participants toward them. The implications for attitudes toward discriminated groups and the use of music to improve intergroup relationships are discussed.

When subordinates think of their ideals: power, legitimacy and regulatory focus.

Power influences the way people set and pursue their goals. Recent Studies have shown that powerful people, when compared with powerless individuals, have greater accessibility of their promotion goals (for instance, their ideals, their aspirations, etc.). In the current research we aim to explore the moderating role of powers legitimacy in such effect. In Study 1, after manipulating power and legitimacy, the accessibility of ideals was measured. Results showed that in the legitimate condition, the powerful, compared to the powerless people, showed greater accessibility of their ideals. However, in the illegitimate condition the opposite was true. In Study 2, the accessibility of a different type of goal: oughts, was explored. Results showed that the illegitimate powerholders, when compared with legitimate ones, had their oughts more accessible. The importance of these results is discussed in line with recent theorizing within social psychology of power.

Perceiving emotions: Cueing social categorization processes and attentional control through facial expressions

Individuals spontaneously categorise other people on the basis of their gender, ethnicity and age. But what about the emotions they express? In two studies we tested the hypothesis that facial expressions are similar to other social categories in that they can function as contextual cues to control attention. In Experiment 1 we associated expressions of anger and happiness with specific proportions of congruent/incongruent flanker trials. We also created consistent and inconsistent category members within each of these two general contexts. The results demonstrated that participants exhibited a larger congruency effect when presented with faces in the emotional group associated with a high proportion of congruent trials. Notably, this effect transferred to inconsistent members of the group. In Experiment 2 we replicated the effects with faces depicting true and false smiles. Together these findings provide consistent evidence that individuals spontaneously utilise emotions to categorise others and that such categories determine the allocation of attentional control.

Si merezco tener poder, ¿qué más puedo esperar?: Poder, Legitimidad y Optimismo

Resumen Estudios recientes han mostrado que el estar en una posición de poder (vs. estar en una situación de bajo poder) tiene diversas consecuencias cognitivas. Una de ellas es que los poderosos desarrollan ciertos sesgos cognitivos que los hacen percibir las situaciones desde una perspectiva más optimista. Partiendo de esta idea, el presente trabajo tiene tres objetivos: a) Replicar estos resultados en una muestra española; b) Explorar el papel moderador de una variable psicosocial como la legitimidad sobre estos resultados; y c) Analizar el papel de la controlabilidad como mecanismo explicativo de la relación predicha entre poder y optimismo. Con objeto de probar los efectos del poder y su legitimidad sobre el optimismo se realizó un experimento en el que ambas variables se manipularon. Los resultados muestran que el estar en una situación de poder hace que las personas tiendan a ser más optimistas; sin embargo, esto sólo sucede si el poder se obtiene de manera legítima. Además, y de manera interesante, la controlabilidad de los eventos negativos que los participantes esperaban vivir en el futuro medió la relación entre poder y optimismo mostrada por los poderosos (vs. los no poderosos) en la condición legítima.

Procesamiento automático y medición implícita de los estereotipos relacionados con el poder

Resumen El Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee y Schwartz, 1998) es un instrumento flexible para la medida de las asociaciones automáticas que subyacen a los estereotipos y al prejuicio. El presente estudio mide los estereotipos implícitos sobre poderosos y no poderosos. Algunas líneas previas de investigación han mostrado que el contenido de estos estereotipos parece ser sistemático: los grupos poderosos son generalmente percibidos como competentes pero no sociables, mientras que los grupos subordinados son vistos como sociables pero incompetentes. Se realizó un estudio utilizando el IAT, el cual apoya esta hipótesis respecto al componente automático de los estereotipos de poderosos y no poderosos. Se discuten las implicaciones de nuestros resultados para el mantenimiento de la estructura social y su cambio.

Who’s to blame? Causal attributions of the economic crisis and personal control

In this research, we examined how people cope with threats to personal control related to the global economic crisis. Three studies (one correlational and two experimental) tested the prediction that blaming social outgroups could serve as a means to restore a threatened sense of personal control. We found that outgroup blaming attributions are related to higher levels of personal control over the effects of the economic crisis (Study 1). Further, blaming outgroups helps to restore a sense of personal control (Study 2) only when blaming attributions are related to specific versus global causes (i.e., outgroups but not the economic system; Studies 2 and 3). We discuss individual and social implications of outgroup blaming as a form of coping with lack of control in the context of economic crises.