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Related Experiment Videos

Doing is for thinking! Stereotype activation by stereotypic movements.

Thomas Mussweiler1

  • 1University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. thomas.musswiler@uin-koeln.de

Psychological Science
|December 24, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Stereotypic movements activate corresponding stereotypes. Studies show that mimicking behaviors associated with stereotypes, like moving slowly like elderly people, leads to increased activation of those stereotypes.

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Area of Science:

  • Social Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Stereotypes are cognitive structures influencing social perception.
  • Previous research has explored various stereotype activation methods.
  • The link between embodied cognition and stereotype activation remains an area of interest.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether stereotypic movements can activate corresponding stereotypes.
  • To examine the effect of induced movements on stereotype endorsement.
  • To explore the role of embodied cognition in stereotype activation.

Main Methods:

  • Three studies were conducted using different movement inductions and stereotypes (overweight, elderly).
  • Participants were unobtrusively induced to perform stereotypic movements.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Stereotype activation was measured using social attribution tasks and a lexical decision task.

    • Main Results:

    • Participants induced to move in a portly manner showed increased overweight-stereotypic attributions.
    • Participants induced to move slowly exhibited increased elderly-stereotypic attributions.
    • Induced slow movement facilitated faster responses to elderly-stereotypic words.

    Conclusions:

    • Stereotypic movements serve as a mechanism for activating corresponding stereotypes.
    • Embodied cognition plays a role in the activation and expression of social stereotypes.
    • Movement-based stereotype activation offers new insights into social cognition.