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Maintaining stereotypes in the face of disconfirmation: constructing grounds for subtyping deviants
1Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|April 1, 1995
Summary
People maintain stereotypes by creating subtypes for deviants, using neutral attributes to justify these categories. This subtyping prevents stereotype change when encountering counterstereotypic individuals.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- Stereotypes are cognitive frameworks that guide social perception.
- Encountering individuals who violate stereotypes (deviants) can challenge these frameworks.
- Subtyping is a cognitive mechanism used to maintain existing stereotypes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how people maintain stereotypes when encountering counterstereotypic individuals.
- To examine the role of additional, neutral attributes in the subtyping process.
- To understand how subtyping influences stereotype generalization.
Main Methods:
- Participants read about counterstereotypic targets.
- Experimental manipulation involved providing or withholding additional neutral attributes about the targets.
- Stereotype change and generalization were measured.
Main Results:
- Participants without additional information generalized from counterstereotypic targets, changing their stereotypes.
- Participants provided with neutral attributes used them as grounds for subtyping, preventing stereotype change.
- Neutral attributes were perceived as atypical and associated with deviance, justifying subtyping.
Conclusions:
- Neutral attributes serve to subtype deviants, thereby protecting stereotypes from contradictory evidence.
- Subtyping acts as a defense mechanism against stereotype change, particularly for strong counterstereotypic instances.
- The findings highlight the cognitive processes involved in maintaining social stereotypes.
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