Personalized versus generalized benefits of stereotype disconfirmation: Trade-offs in the evaluation of atypical exemplars and their social groups

Citation
H. Bless et al., Personalized versus generalized benefits of stereotype disconfirmation: Trade-offs in the evaluation of atypical exemplars and their social groups, J EXP S PSY, 37(5), 2001, pp. 386-397
Citations number
56
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology
Journal title
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
ISSN journal
00221031 → ACNP
Volume
37
Issue
5
Year of publication
2001
Pages
386 - 397
Database
ISI
SICI code
0022-1031(200109)37:5<386:PVGBOS>2.0.ZU;2-G
Abstract
We report two studies investigating the impact of how a stereotype-inconsis tent exemplar is categorized. In both studies, participants were presented with a description about a specific target and worked on different categori zation tasks. Categorization tasks eliciting an inclusion of the target int o the group category resulted in less stereotypic judgments about the group and in more stereotypic judgments about the target compared to categorizat ion tasks eliciting exclusion of the target from the category. The results Suggest that under exclusion conditions, a stereotype-inconsistent exemplar can increase stereotypic judgments about the group (Experiment 1). Experim ent 2 shows that these categorization effects are attenuated if participant s' processing motivation is increased at the encoding stage. The importance of a range of psychological variables that can influence the categorizatio n, and thus the impact, of atypical exemplars is discussed. (C) 2001 Academ ic Press.