The communication of social stereotypes: The effects of group discussion and information distribution on stereotypic appraisals

Stereotypes are fundamentally social constructs, formulated and modified th rough discussion and interaction with others. The present studies examined the impact of group discussion on stereotypes. In both studies, groups of p articipants discussed their impressions about a hypothetical target group a fter having read behaviors performed by target group members. These behavio rs included both stereotypic and counterstereotypic examples, and the distr ibution of these behaviors varied across discussion group members. In some groups only 1 member knew of the counterstereotypic behaviors; in other gro ups this information was distributed across all group members. In general, discussion led to a polarization of the target group stereotypes, but this effect was lessened when the counterstereotypic behaviors were concentrated in I group member, In this case, these counterstereotypic behaviors were d iscussed more and retained better.