The consequences of communicating social stereotypes

At the extreme, social stereotypes can be learned either from direct contac t with individual target group members or from communications about the tar get group received from others. These two forms of stereotype acquisition h ave consequences for the nature and content of the stereotype that is forme d (Park & Hastie, 1987). The present studies examine these consequences usi ng, in the first study, a rumor transmission design and, in the second, gro up discussions. The first study demonstrates that stereotypes that are rece ived from others are more extreme, contain less variability information, an d have higher social consensus than stereotypes learned from contact with i ndividual target group members. The second study demonstrates that stereoty pes that are communicated and learned through informal group discussions ma nifest the same properties. We argue that stereotypes are fundamentally alt ered through social communication and these effects are in part responsible for the biases that stereotypes induce. (C) 2000 Academic Press.