The strategic confirmation of meta-stereotypes: How group members attempt to tailor an out-group's representation of themselves

This article is concerned with the influence of the group membership of an audience on the description of the in-group. Negative meta-sterotypes (ster eotype of the in-group believed to be held by members of a relevant out-gro up) have aversive consequences on the self (Vorauer, Main, & O'Connell, 199 8). Group members may therefore try to modify the meta-sterotype to their a dvantage by confirming positive traits and disconfirming negative ones. Suc h a strategy is not relevant when one addresses in-group members because on e does not expect them to adhere to the content of the meta-stereotype. The study varied the salience of the meta-stereotype orthogonally to the group membership of the audience tout-group vs, in-group). Participants (N = 75) were asked to pick traits that applied to their group. As predicted, parti cipants selected more positive traits belonging to the meta-stereotype and fewer negative ones when addressing out-group members than in-group members , but this occurred only when the meta-stereotype was salient. Both low and high identifiers displayed this tendency. These results suggest that stere otypes can be used as political weapons.