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The Effect of In-Group/Out-Group Status on Memory for Consistent and Inconsistent Behavior of an Individual

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Abstract

Research has demonstrated better memory for behavior inconsistent wvith an expectation when the target is an individual. When the target is a group, consistent information is better recalled than inconsistent or irrelevant. In this study, the target was an individual, but the expectation derived from his or her membership in a social (gender) group. Mention of the target's gender was sufficient to evoke the gender stereotype, resulting in better memory for gender-inconsistent than consistent items, but only when the target was a member of the gender out-group. The explanation proposed is that low variability is expected among out-group members, rendering inconsistent behaviors particularly surprising. Individuals who perceived the target's gender group more stereotypically showed a marginally reliable tendency to better recall the inconsistent behaviors. Impressions of the target were driven by the target's gender and were largely unrelated to the contents of memory.

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... The recall advantage of inconsistent information has also been demonstrated with regard to stereotypes. For instance, Bardach and Park (1996) presented undergraduate participants with a number of statements describing either a male or female protagonist engaging in a masculine or feminine (i.e. SC or SI) behavior. ...
... opposite-sex protagonist) rather than an in-group member (same-sex). Bardach and Park (1996) explained that the out-group target likely elicited more elaborate processing because of stronger stereotypic expectations. ...
... This design was expected to allow us to directly compare the results to the existing evidence concerning individual memory (i.e. Bardach & Park, 1996). Participant pairs discussed the characteristics of a stimulus person possessing SC and SI characteristics. ...
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Two experiments examined the influence of stereotypes on dyadic conversations. Undergraduate students listened to a recorded interview of a student who was described as either a member of their in-group or of an out-group. The interview contained stereotype-consistent (SC) and stereotype-inconsistent (SI) descriptions of each group. Participants' conversations about the stimulus person were content-analyzed. One most consistent result was that for the out-group target, participants made more SI than SC utterances and spent more time discussing SI information. The difference between SC and SI utterances disappeared (Study 2) or was reversed (Study 1) for the in-group target. These patterns were observed particularly when the stimulus information contained a balanced combination of SC and SI characteristics. Furthermore, the stereotypicality of the conversations was related not only to the participant's own judgments but also to the partner's judgments. The significance of studying stereotypes as collectively shared intergroup attitudes is discussed.
... When the group was heterogeneous, typicality did not moderate reading times in any manner whatsoever, suggesting either that participants did not assess the typicality of the information in the first place or, alternatively, simply considered it to be an unimportant feature. Along these same lines, Bardach and Park (1996) showed that people have better memory for stereotype-inconsistent compared to stereotype-consistent information but, again, this was only true when the group was homogeneous. Taken together, this suggests that ''deviations from expectations,'' including perceptions of target typicality, looms larger when the category is homogeneous. ...
... Hence, although correlational designs cannot, of course, offer definitive evidence on causality, the convergence of two lines of research—one experimental , one correlational—on the same theoretical conclusions makes these issues somewhat less of a concern than they otherwise might be. Finally, it is worth noting that previous research on a variety of groups other than the elderly generated support for one of our key assumptions, regarding the importance of typicality/deviation from expectations for heterogeneous vs. homogeneous groups (Bardach & Park, 1996; Lambert, 1995; Verplanken et al., 1996; Vonk & van Knippenberg, 1995). This suggests that the implications of the present research are fairly generalizable, and not at all peculiar to something about the elderly stereotype. ...
... This could explain why typicality did not moderate the attitude–behavior relation among participants viewing the group as heterogeneous (see Tables 2 and 4). Although it is true that the present research did not directly assess the importance of typicality and its contingency on group variability, there is a plethora of previous work supporting this assumption (Bardach & Park, 1996; Lambert, 1995; Verplanken et al., 1996; Vonk & van Knippenberg, 1995). ...
Article
We propose and test two alternative hypotheses bearing on the dual roles of group variability and typicality when people form impressions of single category members. The latitude of acceptance hypothesis suggests that a wider range of individual group members are likely to be seen as good-fitting members (i.e., typical) if the group is heterogeneous, thereby increasing the extent to which stereotypical attitudes are used as a basis for responding to these persons. In contrast, the typicality-functionality hypothesis suggests that typicality plays different roles depending on group variability. This view suggests that typicality plays the ''gatekeeper function'' as postulated by Fiske and Neuberg (1990) when the group is homogeneous, but not when it is heterogeneous. Across two studies, stronger support was found for the typicality-functionality hypothesis. Implications for the extant literature on category-based processing are discussed. Ó 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Social psychologists have generated an impressive amount of research on perceived group variability over the past 20 years (see Linville, 1999 for a review). Nev-ertheless, this literature has mainly focused on the an-tecedents, rather than the consequences, of group variability. Hence, more is known about the factors that determine whether a group is seen as heterogeneous vs. homogeneous than about the difference that this factor might make in driving behavior and judgment. This state of affairs prompted Linville (1999) to observe that researchers ''have made only limited progress toward learning the consequences of variability'' (p. 448) and that there is ''more speculation than empirical fact'' (p. 454) with respect to the effects of this factor on social judgment. The overriding goal of this paper was to shed more light on this surprisingly understudied issue.
... This is particularly important because intergroup context may moderate the stereotype-memory link. Bardach and Park (1996) found that their participants recalled SI information better than SC information, but this general pattern was more pronounced for the participants' recall of the opposite gender target than for the same gender target. The authors argued that this is because one's stereotype about his or her outgroup is more homogeneous and coherent than that about his or her ingroup. ...
... For male participants, the results could be interpreted in general terms of the motive to make sense of the story. According to Bardach and Park (1996), one tends to engage in more elaborative processing of SI rather than SC information pertaining to one's outgroup. Male participants in the storytelling condition did show a marginally reliable tendency to engage in this process. ...
Article
Recent social cognition research showed that the individual often recalls stereotype-inconsistent (SI) information better than stereotype-consistent (SC) information. By contrast, classical studies in social psychology suggest that SC information is retained well in the collective remembering where a number of individuals are involved in the reproduction of stories. In the present experiment, individual and collective remembering were examined. A story about a man and a woman who exhibited gender-stereotype-relevant behaviors was transmitted through five-person communication chains. Although participants in earlier positions of the chains reproduced SI information more than SC information under some circumstances, SC information was retained better than SI information toward the end of the chains regardless. The stability of cultural stereotypes was discussed in terms of the tendency for collective information processing to favor the retention of information shared among individuals.
... Other studies investigated pre-existing or nonminimal groups, such as those based on gender (e.g. Bardach & Park, 1996;Lorenzi-Cioldi, Eagly, & Stewart, 1995), ethnicity (e.g. Cabecinhas & Amancio, 1999), religion (e.g. ...
... Kashima & Kashima, 1993;Park & Hastie, 1987), or (b) assessed perception of the ingroup vs. outgroup between-subjects (e.g. Bardach & Park, 1996;Linville et al., 1996). 2 We also excluded computer simulated data (e.g. Fiedler, Kemmelmeier, & Freytag, 1999;Linville, et al., Study 5, 1989). ...
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We meta-analytically synthesized the intergroup variability literature (177 effect sizes, from 173 independent samples, and 12,078 participants) to test the potential moderating effect of 11 measures of perceived variability. Aggregating across the measures, we detected a small but reliable tendency to perceive more variability among ingroup than outgroup members and such outgroup homogeneity was stronger among non-minimal than minimal groups. Furthermore, analyses that distinguished among the 11 measures revealed systematic discrepancies among the patterns of perception detected by those measures. Those systematic discrepancies further varied across social contexts defined by relative group status, with some measures yielding ingroup homogeneity and others outgroup homogeneity. We discuss the possibility that the measures of variability require different mental activities that interact with contextually induced cognitive and motivational processes to yield disparate intergroup perceptions.
... Consistent with predictions, the authors found that compared to the littering rate in the clean environment (10.7%), participants in the fully littered environment littered at a significantly higher rate (26.7%), whereas participants who encountered the watermelon rind in the otherwise spotless area littered at a significantly lower rate (3.6%). The finding that the completely litter-free environment actually yielded higher littering rates than the environment containing the lone rind is especially noteworthy because the data cannot be accounted for by other perspectives, such as social learning theory (e.g., Bandura, 1977). That is, if this were simply a modeling effect, participants who observed the discarded rind would have been more likely, not less, to litter than participants in the completely unadulterated environment. ...
... The second and third conditions were the two descriptive norm focus conditions used in Study 1 and Study 2; that is, one used the "citizen" terminology and the other used the "guest" terminology. The fourth condition allowed the researchers to pair the descriptive norm with a meaningful category more commonly utilized in social identity and self-categorization research -gender (e.g., Bardach & Park, 1996;Maccoby, 1988;Swan & Wyer, 1997;White et al., 2002). The message for the gender-based descriptive norm focus condition stated: "JOIN THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO ARE HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. ...
... Ditto and his colleagues have provided evidence for such motivated processes in a variety of domains, including impressions formed of liked and disliked others and self-diagnoses of threatening medical conditions (Ditto & Lopez, 1992;Ditto et al., 2003). In the stereotyping domain, research has shown that people tend to recall more stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent information about out-group but not in-group members (Bardach & Park, 1996;Wänke & Wyer, 1996), demonstrating that those presumably least motivated to form accurate and/or nonstereotypical impressions (out-group members) may be particularly likely to notice and remember counterstereotypical target information, perhaps because of the careful scrutiny given to this information. In other research, sexist individuals were shown to experience more agitation-related emotions in response to stereotype-inconsistent information, and to have superior memory for that information, than individuals low in sexism (Förster, Higgins, & Strack, 2000). ...
... Another important goal for future research will be to further specify the relationships among prejudice, processing motives, and attention. The recognition results from Experiment 1 are consistent with those reported elsewhere (Bardach & Park, 1996;Förster et al., 2000;Wänke & Wyer, 1996), showing that participants least motivated to form accurate impressions were most likely to remember counterstereotypical behaviors. These findings (and those from Experiment 3) are consistent with the view that people attend very carefully to information that challenges desired beliefs but give little scrutiny to preference-consistent information (e.g., Ditto & Lopez, 1992;Ditto et al., 2003;Eagly et al., 2000). ...
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Three experiments examined the relationship between prejudice and processing of stereotypic information. Higher levels of prejudice were associated with greater attention to and more thorough encoding of stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent behaviors but only when processing capacity was plentiful (Experiments 1 and 3). High-prejudice participants attributed consistent behaviors to internal factors and inconsistent behaviors to external forces (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that high-prejudice people attend carefully to inconsistent behaviors to explain them away but only if they have sufficient resources to do so. Results also showed that low-prejudice but not high-prejudice participants formed individuated impressions by integrating the implications of the target's behaviors (i.e., individuating). High levels of prejudice appear to be associated with biased encoding and judgment processes that may serve to maintain stereotypes.
... Although stereotypes can serve an adaptive function in people's lives, there are times when exceptions to stereotypes are noted (Bardach & Park, 1996). If someone is presented with information that contradicts a present stereotype, it may be processed differently from stereotype-consistent information and thought of as an exception to the rule, rather than the norm (Bardach & Park, 1996;Stangor & McMillan, 1992). ...
... Although stereotypes can serve an adaptive function in people's lives, there are times when exceptions to stereotypes are noted (Bardach & Park, 1996). If someone is presented with information that contradicts a present stereotype, it may be processed differently from stereotype-consistent information and thought of as an exception to the rule, rather than the norm (Bardach & Park, 1996;Stangor & McMillan, 1992). The resulting schema (exception) may affect the way one processes future information and lead to the formation of a subgroup of the stereotyped category-German shepherds, rather than all large dogs (Richards & Hewstone, 2001). ...
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The purpose of the study was to determine if brief exposure to a dog behaving badly or in a friendly manner affects subsequent perceptions of the target dog's and other dogs' adoptability. Participants viewed a videotape of an adoptable German shepherd behaving either aggressively or prosocially and were then asked to rate the characteristics and adoptability of the same and different dogs. The results showed that people who saw the aggressive behavioral schema perceived only the target dog and a dog of the same breed to be significantly less adoptable than dogs of other breeds (p<.01). Results of a principal components analysis showed participants perceived the adoptability of dogs to be related to "sociability": Adoptable dogs were more approachable, friendly, intelligent, and less dangerous and aggressive (p<.01). Brief exposure to a misbehaving dog prior to making a decision to adopt may unfairly penalize other dogs perceived to be similar to the misbehaving dog.
... In addition, urban-related identity also contributes to differentiate residents from other individuals. This function is particularly relevant considering the ingroup-outgroup social categorizations (Turner, 1981) and wethey distinctions (Deaux, 1997) by which the individual perceives intragroup similarities (between insiders) and intergroup dissimilarities (between insiders and outsiders) (Bardach & Park, 1996;Dixon & Durrheim, 2000;Jetten, Postmes, & McAuliffe, 2002). This distinction could be related to cultural interrelationships within a community to defend the good (self) from the bad (other) (Rijnks & Strijker, 2013;Sibley, 1995) and probably rising competitive insights such as rivalries between cities (Turok, 2004). ...
... Even in the most benign circumstances, however, many black residents still may believe that the police use a double standard of justice when dealing with urban residents: one for blacks and another for whites. Research in social psychology has provided compelling evidence that individuals often "selectively perceive" a social situation to make it consistent with their stereotyped preconceptions (Bardach and Park 1996). In any particular encounter, even the most contradictory evidence may be ignored or interpreted so as to support a stereotyped image of out-group behavior. ...
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This study was designed to test, in a controlled setting, the effects of racial identity of the police on perceptions of police brutality. We produced three videotapes, each showing a black male suspect being arrested by two police officers whose racial identity was varied. One version of the tape then was viewed by each randomly assigned subject, 28 white and 33 black college students. Subjects' perceptions of violence and illegality were influenced by the officers' racial identity: Both black and white subjects were significantly more likely to see violence and illegality when both arresting officers were white. Implications for social policy and future research were discussed.
... In addition, urban-related identity also contributes to differentiate residents from other individuals. This function is particularly relevant considering the ingroup-outgroup social categorizations (Turner, 1981) and wethey distinctions (Deaux, 1997) by which the individual perceives intragroup similarities (between insiders) and intergroup dissimilarities (between insiders and outsiders) (Bardach & Park, 1996;Dixon & Durrheim, 2000;Jetten, Postmes, & McAuliffe, 2002). This distinction could be related to cultural interrelationships within a community to defend the good (self) from the bad (other) (Rijnks & Strijker, 2013;Sibley, 1995) and probably rising competitive insights such as rivalries between cities (Turok, 2004). ...
... Memory for preexisting groups. In apparent contrast to conclusions from the present research, other researchers have reported that perceivers are more attentive to expectancy-incongruent information about the out-group than about the in-group (Bardach & Park, 1996;Wanke & Wyer, 1996). For example, Vonk and van Knippenberg (1995) reported that reading times were longer for stereotype-inconsistent than for stereotype-consistent behaviors when the target was an out-group member, but not when the target was an in-group member. ...
Article
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The authors argue that persons derive in-group expectancies from self-knowledge. This implies that perceivers process information about novel in-groups on the basis of the self-congruency of this information and not simply its valence. In Experiment 1. participants recalled more negative self-discrepant behaviors about an in-group than about an our-group. Experiment 2 replicated this effect under low cognitive load but not under high load. Experiment 3 replicated the effect using an idiographic procedure. These findings suggest that perceivers engage in elaborative inconsistency processing when they encounter negative self-discrepant information about an in-group but not when they encounter negative self-congruent information. Participants were also more likely to attribute self-congruent information to the in-group than to the out-group, regardless of information valence. Implications for models of social memory and self-categorization theory are discussed.
... In particular, because in-groups are perceived as more variable, information that is inconsistent with one's impressions of the overall group is more easily tolerated and less subject to extensive elaboration than is the equivalent information about an outgroup (Ostrom, Carpenter, Sedikides, & Li, 1993). Consequently, preferential recall of expectancy-inconsistent behaviors may not emerge when those behaviors relate to ingroup members (e.g., Barduch & Park, 1996). ...
... In particular, because in-groups are perceived as more variable, information that is inconsistent with one's impressions of the overall group is more easily tolerated and less subject to extensive elaboration than is the equivalent information about an outgroup (Ostrom, Carpenter, Sedikides, & Li, 1993). Consequently, preferential recall of expectancy-inconsistent behaviors may not emerge when those behaviors relate to ingroup members (e.g., Barduch & Park, 1996). ...
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“This is a fabulous collection of essays on memory in the real world. The leading scholars have been assembled to produce a volume that is intellectually rich, up-to-date, and truly important.” – Elizabeth F. Loftus, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine “An invaluable resource for anyone wishing to access the current state of knowledge of, or contemplating research into, the growing area of applied memory research. Its chapters are authored by leading international researchers who have been brought together to share their insights within its pages.” – Graham Davies, Editor, Applied Cognitive Psychology The SAGE Handbook of Applied Memory is the first of its kind to focus specifically on this vibrant and progressive field. It offers a broad and comprehensive coverage of recent theoretical and empirical research advances in ...
... Other times, expectancyconsistent information appears to have the cognitive upper hand (e.g., Bodenhausen, 1988;Cohen, 1981;Crawford & Skowronski, 1998;Hamilton & Rose, 1980;Snyder & Swann, 1978; for a meta-analysis, see Fyock & Stangor, 1994). There have been several attempts to identify the exact conditions under which each type of information (expectancyinconsistent versus consistent) prevails over the other (e.g., Bardach & Park, 1996;Fyock & Stangor, 1994;Higgins & Bargh, 1987;Stangor & McMillan, 1992;Wänke & Wyer, 1996). However, few studies have provided supportive evidence (but see Garcia-Marques & Hamilton, 1996;Garcia-Marques, Hamilton, & Maddox, 2002). ...
Article
We explored the possibility that the encoding flexibility processes postulated by Sherman and colleagues (1998) may also apply to intentional impression formation settings, even when cognitive resources are available to conceptually encode all of the behavioral information regardless of the relation of that information to the initial stereotypical expectancies. Three experiments offer evidence for the lower conceptual fluency for expectancy-incongruent behaviors, compared with congruent behaviors, as well as for the consequences of that difference for impression formation. Experiment 1 shows that incongruent behaviors are perceived as more difficult to understand in meaning. Experiment 2 links this lower conceptual fluency with a better discrimination of the specific trait implications of the behaviors. We further explore the role of conceptual encoding difficulty for developing personality impressions (Experiment 3). These studies reveal the implications of initial expectancies for the differential conceptual encoding of congruent and incongruent behaviors, even when the availability of cognitive resources is high, such as when forming an intentional impression about a person's personality. The link between this process and encoding the trait implications of behaviors may shed new light on impression formation processes and demand a revision of some of the assumptions that were made by the classical person memory model. We contend that behavior encoding in impression formation is likely to begin with default trait encoding but will be inhibited when the implications of the behavior conflict with previous trait expectancies (see also Wigboldus, Dijksterhuis, & van Knippenberg, 2003).
... To test the foregoing hypothesis that high self-monitors will remember a person s inconsistent, but not consistent, behavior better than low self-monitors, we used a paradigm first developed by Hastie and Kumar (1979). It has subsequently been employed in a vast number of studies investigating the topic of person memory (e.g., Bardach & Park, 1996;Crocker, Hannah, & Weber, 1983;Garcia-Marques & Hamilton, 1996;Sherman & Hamilton, 1994;Srull, 1981;Srull, Lichtenstein, & Rothbart, 1985). In this paradigm, individuals are presented with a series of written descriptions of behaviors performed by a target actor, with some of the behaviors being consistent and others being inconsistent with a prior impression of the actor. ...
Article
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Examines memory for consistent and inconsistent action-related information in 209 undergraduate high self-monitors and low self-monitors. Employing a paradigm used in studies of person memory, the authors found that high (relative to low) self-monitors demonstrated enhanced recall for the expectancy-inconsistent, but not the expectancy-consistent, behaviors of an observed other. Additional data indicated that higher self-monitoring tendencies were also associated with greater elaboration of the observed other and his behavior, and that this greater elaboration was, in turn, partly responsible for high self-monitors' better memory for inconsistent behaviors. The authors conclude that high self-monitors are particularly motivated to seek out and retain those behaviors of others that provide potentially new information about what those individuals are like and how they might react in future situations.
... Notre étude porte donc sur les rapports entre catégorisation et mémoire mais se différencie des travaux centrés sur le sujet individuel. Nous ne nous intéressons pas à l'impact de la catégorisation sur le traitement de l'information, qu'il s'agisse de l'organisation en mémoire des catégories (Van Twuyver & Van Knippenberg, 1998) ou de l'encodage (Bardach & Park, 1996;Koomen & Dijker, 1997)), mais aux règles de constitution du stéréotype. ...
Article
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This research investigates the effects of categorizatio n bias in the representation of an ethnic minority, in this instance the North African community in France. Students in their first year of psychology (N=100)
... Investigações posteriores demonstraram que este efeito dissociativo das expectativas é um resultado robusto. De facto, este efeito tem vindo a ser replicado em várias investigações, que recorrem a diferentes dimensões de traço, quer a expectativas de género quer ocupacionais, induzidas de forma implícita e explícita, e quer a alvos grupais quer individuais (Bardach & Park, 1996; Garcia-Marques, 1993; Garcia-Marques & Hamilton, 1996; Garcia-Marques et al., 2002). ...
Article
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The paper presents a model of person and group memory – o Model TRAP (Twofold Retrieval by Associative Pathways). The TRAP Model was primarily developed to account for the apparent discrepancy between congruency effects typically obtained in judgment measures and incongruency effects typically obtained in free recall measures. The Model distinguishes between two retrieval modes – the heuristic and the exhaustive mode. This distinction enabled us to solve the frequently obtained discrepancy between judgment and recall measures. The development of the TRAP Model allowed us to find both news variables that dissociate the two retrieval modes and to derive new hypotheses concerning the process of impression formation. The present work discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the model and presents the main empirical findings obtained so far. Key words: Incongruency effect, illusory correlations, TRAP Model.
... The confluence of status and power most obviously affects studies that test status-effects among existing groups, such as those defined by gender (e.g. Bardach & Park, 1996;Lorenzi-Cioldi, 1993), ethnicity (e.g. Cabecinhas & Amancio, 1999), military rank (e.g. ...
Article
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Status and power covary such that higher status groups are typically higher power groups. This research explored the effect of status on intergroup perception controlling for power. Experiment 1 manipulated the relative status of social groups and explicitly provided the groups equal power. Experiment 2 manipulated status and power orthogonally. Multiple measures yielded consistent patterns indicating that status affected perceived group centrality and variability independent of power. The patterns were consistent with a strategic intergroup comparison account as suggested by social identity theory. Specifically, the effect of status on intergroup perception varied with the relevance and valence of the dimension of comparison in a manner that balanced social reality with a positive social identity.
... Even in the most benign circumstances, however, many black residents still may believe that the police use a double standard of justice when dealing with urban residents: one for blacks and another for whites. Research in social psychology has provided compelling evidence that individuals often "selectively perceive" a social situation to make it consistent with their stereotyped preconceptions (Bardach and Park 1996). In any particular encounter, even the most contradictory evidence may be ignored or interpreted so as to support a stereotyped image of out-group behavior. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study was designed to test, in a controlled setting, the effects of racial identity of the police on perceptions of police brutality. We produced three videotapes, each showing a black male suspect being arrested by two police officers whose racial identity was varied. One version of the tape then was viewed by each randomly assigned subject, 28 white and 33 black college students. Subjects' perceptions of violence and illegality were influenced by the officers' racial identity: Both black and white subjects were significantly more likely to see violence and illegality when both arresting officers were white. Implications for social policy and future research were discussed.
... Questions concerning the accuracy of social stereotypes continue to be the subject of considerable interest and debate (Allen, 1995;Dawes, Singer, & Lemons, 1972;Eagly, 1994;Judd, Ryan, & Park, 1991;Judd & Park, 1993;Martin, 1987;McCauley & Stitt, 1978;Swim, 1994). Interest in these questions stems from basic theoretical issues related to how people process information about individuals and groups (e.g., Allison & Messick, 1985;Bardach & Park, 1996;Rothbart, Fulero, Jensen, Howard, & Birrell, 1978) and about how they perceive covariation (cf., Crocker, 1981;Linville, Fischer, & Yoon, 1996). Interest in stereotype accuracy also arises from important real-life concerns about prejudice, discrimination, and social conflict (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996). ...
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Three studies were undertaken to assess the accuracy of people's estimates of the attitudes of men and women. In Exp 1, attitudes of male and female college students were assessed on a broad range of social and political issues. In Exp 2, 30 male and 30 female college students estimated the attitudes of typical males and females on the same statements. These estimates were used to select a set of stereotypic male statements and a set of stereotypic female statements. In Exp 3, 44 male and 53 female college students estimated the attitudes of male and female students on the 2 sets of statements. Results of the 1st 2 studies indicated that both men and women expected larger gender differences in attitudes than actually exist. In the 3rd study, this result was confirmed and it was found that people were least accurate in their estimates of the attitudes of men. Partial support was obtained for the hypothesis that in-group stereotypes would be more accurate than out-group stereotypes. Men were more accurate than women in estimating the attitudes of men but men and women were equally accurate in estimating the attitudes of women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... They suggested that participants with high prejudice remembered more inconsistent behaviors because it took them longer to encode that information and try to make it fit into the stereotypes that they held. Bardach and Park (1996) asked males and females to assess stereotypes about their in/out-group based on an action someone from their in-group or out-group did, and found that if the target was part of the out-group then there was better recall for genderinconsistent information. Reflecting previous research, these results may be due to the time taken to encode this new information. ...
Article
A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science - Psychology, Experimental at The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, 2009 Age stereotypes, both positive and negative, are unique because people who hold them will one day become part of that stereotyped group. The current research asked if age priming college students (N = 61) affects their memory for pictorial images of older persons. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (one year from now prime, age 70 prime, and no prime). After writing about the future self (in one year or at the age 70), or simply receiving the instructions (no prime), each participant was shown a series of images depicting stereotypes of older adults, both positive and negative and consistent and inconsistent. Research on priming suggested that having participants think about themselves at age 70 would influence identification with a new in-group (older adults). However, all groups remembered more negative (p < .001) and inconsistent ( p < .001) stereotype pictures of older adults. This may be due to the novelty of the images. The priming of a different age group may also be difficult because college students strongly identify with their roles as young adults. Future research should assess if different types of priming affect memory for age stereotyped behaviors.
... The other two signs conveyed norms of reference groups that are considered to be important and personally meaningful to people's social identities. Specifically , a third sign paired the descriptive norm with the reference group identity of citizen (see Madrigal 2001), whereas a fourth sign paired it with a meaningful social category commonly used in reference group and social identity research, that of gender (Bardach and Park 1996; Maccoby 1988; Meyers-Levy 1988; Stitka and Maslach 1996). Based on the premise that it is generally beneficial to follow the norms that most closely match one's environment , situation, or circumstances, we hypothesized that the appeal conveying the descriptive norm of that particular room's previous occupants—the identity that should be the least meaningful but most relevant to guests' local circumstances—would result in higher towel reuse rates than the other descriptive norm appeals. ...
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Two field experiments examined the effectiveness of signs requesting hotel guests' participation in an environmental conservation program. Appeals employing descriptive norms (e.g., "the majority of guests reuse their towels") proved superior to a traditional appeal widely used by hotels that focused solely on environmental protection. Moreover, normative appeals were most effective when describing group behavior that occurred in the setting that most closely matched individuals' immediate situational circumstances (e.g., "the majority of guests in this room reuse their towels"), which we refer to as provincial norms. Theoretical and practical implications for managing proenvironmental efforts are discussed. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
... Recognition of memory deviations that derive from these factors has important forensic implications because such deviations are liable to affect the admission or rejection of eyewitness accounts. Research findings show that the two most important factors that affect memory are stereotypes and suggestion (Bardach & Bernadette, 1996;Ceci & Bruck, 1996;Endres, 1997;Fyock & Stangor, 1994;Gudjonsson, 1993;Rothbart, Sriram, & Davis-Stitt, 1996). ...
Article
In this study, the interactive effect of stereotype and suggestion on accuracy of memory was examined by presenting 645 participants (native Israelis and immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia) with three versions of a story about a worker who is waiting in a manager's office for a meeting. All versions were identical except for the worker's name, which implied a Russian or an Ethiopian immigrant or a person of no ethnic origin. Each participant was presented with one version of the story. After an hour delay, the participants' memories were tested via two questionnaires that differed in terms of level of suggestion. Data analyses show that (a) when a suggestion matched the participant's stereotypical perception, the suggestion was incorporated into memory but (b) when the suggestion contradicted the stereotype, it did not influence memory. The conclusion was that recall is influenced by stereotypes but can be enhanced by compatible suggestions.
... In particular, when dissonant information is perceived to be useful in the long run, or when consonant information is highly familiar, people may instead choose to focus on dissonant information. Interestingly, Bardach and Park (1996) recently demonstrated relatively greater memory advantages for stereotype-inconsistent versus stereotype-consistent information among out-group members (vs. in-group members) and those with higher (vs. ...
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According to the encoding flexibility model, stereotypes are efficient because they facilitate, in different ways, the encoding of both stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent information when capacity is low. Because stereotypical information is conceptually fluent, it may be easily understood, even when resources are scant. As a result, processing resources may shift from stereotypical toward counterstereotypical information, which is difficult to comprehend under such conditions. Thus, whereas inconsistent information receives greater attention (Experiments 1-3) and perceptual encoding (Experiment 4) when resources are depleted, the conceptual meaning of consistent information is extracted to a greater degree under such conditions (Experiment 5). Potential moderating roles of stereotype strength and perceiver motivations are discussed, as are the implications of these results for dual process models of stereotyping.
... An original set of 114 statements were developed that we believed might be perceived as characteristic of a male or a female, or gender neutral. Some of these items were based on materials drawn from Bem (1981) and Bardach and Park (1996) whereas others were devised in-house. These were randomised into a single order and presented to the pilot participants as a paper and pencil task. ...
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We propose and test two alternative hypotheses bearing on the dual roles of group variability and typicality when people form impressions of single category members. The latitude of acceptance hypothesis suggests that a wider range of individual group members are likely to be seen as good-fitting members (i.e., typical) if the group is heterogeneous, thereby increasing the extent to which stereotypical attitudes are used as a basis for responding to these persons. In contrast, the typicality-functionality hypothesis suggests that typicality plays different roles depending on group variability. This view suggests that typicality plays the “gatekeeper function” as postulated by Fiske and Neuberg (1990) when the group is homogeneous, but not when it is heterogeneous. Across two studies, stronger support was found for the typicality-functionality hypothesis. Implications for the extant literature on category-based processing are discussed.
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Research has shown that stereotyping other persons is difficult to control. One strategy of stereotype control is processing stereotype-inconsistent information, that is, processing information that is in contrast to current stereotypic expectations about a target person (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Pettigrew, 1998). Restricting stereotypes by processing stereotype-inconsistent information can be easily realized if cognitive resources are available. However, if load is induced during the processing of this information, it is more often forgotten than stereotype-consistent information (see Sherman & Frost, 2000; Wigboldus et al., 2004a). This neglect of stereotype-inconsistent information is observed even if goals are formed to acquire a stereotype-free impression of the target person (Pendry & Macrae, 1994). As Norman and Shallice (1986) maintain that successful goal pursuit requires cognitive resources, it is not surprising that setting goals is not sufficient for processing stereotype-inconsistent information under load. Thus, supporting the processing of stereotype-inconsistent information under load should be improved by an intention that does not require cognitive resources. As implementation intentions are proven to be realized automatically (Gollwitzer, 1993, 1999), it can be suggested that by means of these if-then plans the processing of stereotype-inconsistent information can be supported even under conditions of cognitive load. In order to test this assumption, the present dissertation investigated the effects of cognitive load on the processing of stereotype-inconsistent and stereotype-consistent information. Participants were thus presented with information that was either inconsistent or consistent with stereotypes of elderly people and long-term memory tests measured memory of the different types of information. Different experimental paradigms were established. Information regarding the target person was either presented as a verbal description on a sheet of paper, as behavioral information on a computer screen, or visually in the form of pictures of objects. Thereby, different kinds of cognitive load were applied (central executive load, phonological loop load, and visuospatial sketchpad load, respectively). Results of Study 1 showed that implementation intentions successfully improved memory on stereotype-inconsistent information independent of cognitive load. Furthermore, specificity (Study 1) and automaticity (Study 2b) of implementation intentions’ effectiveness was demonstrated, while the realization of goal intentions proved to be dependent on cognitive capacity (Study 1, Study 2a). Study 3 and 4 were conducted to establish new paradigms testing the overall effects of implementation intentions on the processing of not only one, but equally distributed items of inconsistent and consistent information. Results partially replicated prior findings, thus still more thorough investigation is necessary. Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse sprechen dafür, dass man die Stereotypisierung anderer Personen schwer verhindern kann. Eine Möglichkeit Stereotype zu kontrollieren besteht darin, stereotyp-inkonsistente Informationen, d.h. Informationen, die den eigenen Erwartungen über die Zielperson widersprechen, zu verarbeiten (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Pettigrew, 1998). Allerdings ist dies nur möglich, wenn ausreichend kognitive Ressourcen zur Verfügung stehen. Wird kognitive Belastung induziert, werden diese Informationen häufiger vergessen als stereotyp-konsistente Informationen (see Sherman & Frost, 2000; Wigboldus, Sherman, Franzese, & van Knippenberg, 2004a), auch wenn man sich das Ziel gesetzt hat, sich einen vorurteilsfreien Eindruck von einer bestimmten Person zu bilden (Pendry & Macrae, 1994). Da erfolgreiches Zielstreben allerdings selbst kognitive Ressourcen verbraucht (Norman & Shallice, 1986), ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass es nicht ausreicht, sich ein Ziel zu setzen, um stereotyp-inkonsistenten Informationen unter kognitiver Belastung Beachtung zu schenken. Dafür ist eine Intention gefragt, die selbst keine kognitiven Kapazitäten benötigt. Da sich Vorsätze als solch eine Art von Intentionen erwiesen haben, die automatisch realisiert werden können (Gollwitzer, 1993, 1999), wird vorgeschlagen, dass mit Hilfe von Vorsätzen die Verarbeitung stereotyp-inkonsistenter Informationen trotz kognitiver Belastung unterstützt werden kann. Um diese Annahme zu testen, untersuchte die vorliegende Dissertation die Effekte kognitiver Belastung auf die Verarbeitung von Informationen, die entweder inkonsistent oder konsistent zum Altersstereotyp waren. Es wurde gemessen, inwieweit sich die Teilnehmer noch an die verschiedenen Informationen im Langzeitgedächtnis erinnern konnten. Mittels Entwicklung verschiedener experimenteller Paradigmen wurden die Informationen über die Zielperson entweder schriftlich auf einem Blatt Papier, als Verhaltensweisen am PC oder als visuelle Informationen in Form von Gegenständen präsentiert. Dabei fanden verschiedene Formen der kognitiven Belastung Anwendung (kognitive Belastung der Zentralen Exekutive, der Phonologischen Schleife bzw. des Visuell-räumlichen Skizzenblocks). Studie 1 konnte zeigen, dass Vorsätze die Verarbeitung stereotyp-inkonsistenter Informationen unabhängig von kognitiver Belastung verbesserten. Darüber hinaus wurde die Spezifität (Studie 1) und Automatizität (Studie 2b) von Vorsätzen demonstriert, während sich Ziele als Ressourcen abhängig erwiesen (Studie 1, Studie 2a). Für Studie 3 und 4 wurden neue Paradigmen entwickelt, um die generelle Wirkungsweise von Vorsätzen, d.h. nicht nur die Verbesserung einer einzelnen Information, sondern mehrerer gleich verteilter inkonsistenter und konsistenter Informationen, zu untersuchen. Die gefundenen Ergebnisse replizierten die vorangegeangenen Resultate nur teilweise. In diesem Bereich ist also noch weitere Forschung notwendig.
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The authors argue that persons derive in-group expectancies from self-knowledge. This implies that perceivers process information about novel in-groups on the basis of the self-congruency of this information and not simply its valence. In Experiment 1, participants recalled more negative self-discrepant behaviors about an in-group than about an out-group. Experiment 2 replicated this effect under low cognitive load but not under high load. Experiment 3 replicated the effect using an idiographic procedure. These findings suggest that perceivers engage in elaborative inconsistency processing when they encounter negative self-discrepant information about an in-group but not when they encounter negative self-congruent information. Participants were also more likely to attribute self-congruent information to the in-group than to the out-group, regardless of information valence. Implications for models of social memory and self-categorization theory are discussed.
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Three studies are reported about children's memory for stereotypic behaviors attributed to ingroup and outgroup members. According to research and theory in social cognition, cues present in the situation make cultural representations about group members accessible, and once primed, influence all phases of the information processing sequence. In Study 1, Euro Canadian and Native Canadian children (N=98) recalled stereotypic behaviors attributed to ingroup and outgroup members. In Study 2 (N=87), the influence of individual difference variables was explored. In Study 3 (N=32), the memory of Native Canadian children living on a First Nation reserve for behaviors attributed to ingroup and outgroup members was studied. Biases in recall were found in Studies 1 and 2, but in Study 3, outgroup favoritism, typically found among low status group members, was reversed among children attending a heritage school. Among the individual difference measures examined, age and level of cognitive development predicted what was remembered about group members. Older Euro Canadian children recalled more negative behaviors about outgroup members than did younger children, and more cognitively mature children recognized more information about ingroup than outgroup members. Results were discussed in terms of cognitive and situational factors influencing children's processing of group-relevant information and the challenges children in low status groups face in maintaining a sense of cultural identity.
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Two information-processing mechanisms that could potentially contribute to judgmental discrimination against the members of stereotyped social groups were examined in two experiments, using a mock juror decision-making task. Both postulated mechanisms involve biased processing of judgment-relevant evidence. The interpretation hypothesis asserts that the activation of stereotypic concepts influences the perceived probative implications of other evidence. The selective processing hypothesis asserts that stereotype-consistent evidence is processed more extensively than is inconsistent evidence. Judgment and memory data from the first experiment supported the general notion that stereotype-based discrimination emerges from biased evidence processing. The specific pattern of results supported selective processing rather than interpretation biases as the critical process underlying observed judgmental discrimination. The second experiment corroborated this conclusion by showing that a manipulation that prevents selective processing of the evidence effectively eliminated biases in judgments and recall pertaining to stereotyped targets. Implications for a general understanding of stereotyping and discrimination are discussed.
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In this article, a general associative storage and retrieval theory of person memory is proposed, and seven experiments that test various aspects of the theory are reported. Experiment 1 investigated memory for behavioral information that is congruent with, incongruent with, or irrelevant to a prior impression. The results indicated that incongruent events are best recalled and irrelevant events are most poorly recalled. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and demonstrated that there are systematic individual differences that are consistent with the general nomothetic model proposed. The results of Experiment 3 indicated that, relative to a baseline condition, adding incongruent items to the list increases the probability of recalling congruent items but has no effect on the recall of irrelevant items. Both effects are predicted by the model. Experiment 4 provided support for the retrieval assumptions of the theory by demonstrating that there is a systematic order in which various types of items are recalled, as well as consistent differences in interresponse times. Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrated that the model is relevant to situations in which data driven, as well as conceptually driven, processes are involved. Finally, Experiment 7 examined a special case in which the theory predicts greater recall of congruent than incongruent behavioral events. The results of all seven experiments provide converging evidence for a general theory of person memory, and they have implications for a number of issues related to the study of person memory and social judgment.
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This article examines alternative measures of perceived variability of a group. The pattern of correlations among the measures suggests that variability can be thought of in 2 ways: the perceived dispersion of group members from the group central tendency and the extent to which the group is seen as fitting the group stereotype. Evidence of out-group homogeneity was present for both types of variability judgments, using men and women as the target groups. Judgments of group variability were not predicted by the variance of a retrieved set of group members around their own mean. In the case of the in-group, judgments of variability were predicted by the discrepancy of the retrieved set of group members from the group mean. Likewise, in-group, but not out-group, variability was also predicted by discrepancy of self from the group mean. A 2nd study using talk-aloud protocols revealed that the self and subgroups were more likely to be discussed when one was making variability judgments about the in-group than about the out-group. Instances of the group were almost never discussed for the in-group and were discussed for the out-group. Implications of the results for models of group variability judgments are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Conducted 2 experiments with 138 undergraduates to demonstrate that individual–group distinction is important in obtaining a recall superiority of schema-inconsistent behaviors (Exp I) and to investigate a mechanism hypothesized to underlie these effects that attribute the recall enhancement to extra processing given to inconsistent items (Exp II). It is noted that researchers who have investigated the effect of expectancy on memory for behavioral information have found a recall superiority for schema-inconsistent information; however, this finding occurred most clearly only when an individual, rather than a group, was seen as performing the behaviors. Results of Exp I indicate that, when an observer believed that behaviors were all performed by a single individual, the memory advantage for impression-inconsistent actions was more pronounced than when the observer believed the behaviors were performed by group members. Results of Exp II support the hypothesized mechanism. The relevance of these findings to recent experiments is discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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In 3 experiments, a total of 96 undergraduates studied and recalled sentences describing behaviors while performing a laboratory impression-information task. Recall was high for behaviors that were incongruent with a personality-trait impression for a character, whereas recall was much lower for behaviors that were congruent or neutral with reference to the impression. Set size, the number of congruent and incongruent behaviors attributed to the character, was shown to be a major determinant of this result. The smaller the size of the incongruent set, the higher the probability of recalling an item from the set. There was no tendency for behaviors to cluster by trait category in recall output protocols. This result is interpreted as evidence that a simple analogy to hierarchical noun categories, studied in many verbal learning experiments on organization of memory, did not apply to the present results. Three theoretical analyses—an associative network model, a depth-of-processing model, and a schema model—are reviewed in light of these results. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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The serial position curve is characterized by a steep, possibly exponential, primacy effect extending over the 1st 3 or 4 words in the list, an S-shaped recency effect extending over the last 8 words in the list, and a horizontal asymptote spanning the primacy and recency effect. The shape of the curve may well result from proactive and retroactive inhibition effects occurring within the list itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Bogus resumes were evaluated by 212 business professionals to discover what mediates sex discrimination in hiring decisions. We hypothesized that discrimination against women and men who applied for stereotypically "masculine" and "feminine" jobs, respectively, could be reduced by providing individuating information suggesting that the applicant was an exception to his or her gender stereotype and possessed traits usually associated with the opposite gender. We also hypothesized that individuating information consistent with stereotypes about an applicant's gender would decrease the probability that an applicant would be evaluated favorably for a job usually considered appropriate for the other gender. We found that individuating information eliminated sex-typed personality inferences about male and female applicants and affected applicants' perceived job suitability; however, sex discrimination was not eliminated. We suggest that sex discrimination is mediated by occupation stereotypes that specify both the personality traits and the gender appropriate for each occupation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Investigated whether stereotypic knowledge would influence social perception in a more realistic setting. In Exp I, 96 undergraduates watched a videotape of a target woman identified either as a waitress or a librarian; Ss more accurately remembered features of the woman that were consistent with their prototype of a waitress (librarian) than features that were inconsistent. The prototype-consistency effect did not interact with the delay time before recognition memory was assessed. In Exp III, 56 Ss learned the occupational information either before or after watching the tape. The prototype-consistency effect from Exp I was replicated. In addition, knowing the target's occupation while watching her led to increased accuracy for both consistent and inconsistent information. The probable role of both encoding and retrieval processes in contributing to this effect is noted. Perceivers' stereotypic prior knowledge influenced their memory of a target person's behavior even in a realistic person-perception situation. Conditions that favor the memorability of consistent vs inconsistent information are discussed. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Tested the proposal by M. Snyder and S. W. Uranowitz (see record 1980-05464-001) that there exists a memory-priming mechanism by which information about a person that is normally unavailable in episodic memory is made available by the activation of a person stereotype that subsumes that information. In 2 experiments 128 college students read a biography of Betty K, who was later labeled as either a heterosexual or a lesbian before Ss took a recognition memory test. A signal-detection model was used to assess the effects of labeling on response bias as well as on the amount of information available in memory. The memory availability hypothesis predicted that Ss primed with a lesbian label for Betty K would have more availability in memory of lesbian information, and Ss primed with a heterosexual label would remember more heterosexual material. Neither experiment produced any improved recognition memory for biographic information due to activation of a sexual stereotype. Both experiments found a response bias (guessing) acting in the direction of the label S received. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Three experiments, with 60 undergraduates, examined what types of events instigate causal reasoning and what effects causal reasoning has on the subsequent use of information stored in memory. Ss were shown descriptions of behaviors performed by hypothetical characters, wrote brief continuations, and were given a surprise recall test on the behavior description phrases. Memory and use of explanatory content were assessed. Results indicate that unexpected events elicit causal reasoning and that causal reasoning produces relatively elaborate memory representations of these events so that they are more likely to be recalled. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of causal reasoning during acquisition, retention, and retrieval in social memory tasks. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Hypothesized that an observer's tendency to generalize from the behavior of a specific group member to the group as a whole is proportional to the observer's perception of the group's homogeneity, at least when the observer lacks a clear preconception on the behavioral dimension witnessed. 95 undergraduates from 2 rival universities viewed target persons alleged to be students either at their own university or its rival. Each of 3 such target persons made a simple decision within a different decision scenario. After observing the decision made, each S made estimates of the percentage of people likely to make the same decision in the parent group. The results confirm the main predictions: (a) Percentage estimates tended to be consistent with the target person's decision; (b) the degree of consistency was greater for out-group than for in-group target persons; and (c) both of these effects were clearest for the decision scenario where Ss' preconceptions about the most likely decision were weakest. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Three studies examined the structure of young persons' perceptions of the elderly within the framework of E. Rosch's (1978) theory of natural categories; 189 undergraduates served as Ss. The 1st 2 studies employed picture-sorting, trait-rating, and statement-sorting tasks to demonstrate that the cognitive representation of the elderly as a social category was differentiated into meaningful subcategories associated with distinctive physical features and personality and behavioral characteristics. In addition, behavioral and personality associations were stronger for "prototypic" instances of the different subcategories than for less prototypic instances. The 3rd study investigated the effects of category prototypicality on the processing and recall of information about specific individuals. It was found that information that mixes features from different subcategories (within the general category of the elderly) was recalled less well than was homogeneous information. On the other hand, information describing an elderly individual that was inconsistent with generalized stereotypes of the aged took longer to process and was recalled as well as was prototype-consistent information. Results support the general conclusion that stereotyping of individuals occurs at the level of basic rather than superordinate categories. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Developed and tested a model that assumes that people have a more complex schema regarding in-groups than out-groups and consequently, that appraisals of out-group members will be more extreme or polarized than appraisals of in-group members. Four experiments with 415 White male and female undergraduates tested this model, as well as predictions derived from attribution principles. In Exp I, Ss read and evaluated a law school application containing incidental information about the applicant's race and gender. A Black applicant with strong credentials was judged more favorably than an identical White applicant, supporting a prediction derived from the augmentation principle. In Exp II, an applicant with weak credentials was included in the design. Results support the prediction that out-group members would be evaluated more extremely: When the application credentials were positive, the out-group member (a Black or opposite-sex applicant) was evaluated more favorably than the in-group member (a White or same-sex applicant). When the application credentials were weak, the out-group member was evaluated more negatively. Exp III and IV provided support for the 2 assumptions underlying the complexity–extremity hypothesis: First, White Ss demonstrated greater complexity regarding Whites than Blacks. Second, greater complexity resulted in evaluative moderation. (20 ref)
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A meta-analysis of 54 experiments investigated the influence of social expectations on memory for information that is congruent and incongruent with those expectations. Results showed that, overall, memory was better for expectancy-incongruent than expectancy-congruent information on recall and recognition sensitivity measures. Recognition measures that were uncorrected for response biases produced an overall tendency to report expectancy-congruent information as having been seen. A number of moderator variables influenced the strength of these overall effects, including the strength of the expectancy used to guide information processing, the complexity or cognitive demands of the processing task, set size, the type of expectancy, the type of target, Ss' information-processing goals, and the delay between exposure to the stimulus information and the memory test. Results appear to be most parsimoniously explained in terms of the influence of contextual variables on the perceiver's motivation to resolve incongruity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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408 undergraduates participated in 4 experiments examining an associative model of memory, according to which the encoding of an incongruent item will result in the formation of a large number of associative paths between items, facilitating subsequent recall. Ss were better at recalling items that were incongruent with a prior expectancy than those that were congruent, and the difference was as pronounced after a delay of 48 hrs as it was after only a few minutes. Adding incongruent items to the list increased the proportion of congruent items that were recalled, but adding congruent items had no effect on the recall of incongruent items. It is suggested that unexpected or incongruent behaviors are difficult to comprehend and are considered in relation to behaviors already known about the target person during the process of encoding. Requiring Ss to allocate a portion of their processing capacity to an irrelevant task interfered with their ability to form such linkages and reduced the advantage of incongruent over congruent items in a free-recall task. Although the results are consistent with a variety of associative models that allow for the formation of linkages between items, it is suggested that the data place important constraints on the way such models may be formulated. (67 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Gave a sex-role stereotype questionnaire consisting of 122 bipolar items to 79 actively functioning clinicians with 1 of 3 sets of instructions: to describe a healthy, mature, socially competent (a) adult, sex unspecified, (b) a man, or (c) a woman. It was hypothesized that clinical judgments about the characteristics of healthy individuals would differ as a function of sex of person judged, and that these differences would parallel sterotypic sex-role differences. A 2nd hypothesis predicted that behaviors and characteristics judged healthy for an adult, sex unspecified, which are presumed to reflect an ideal standard of health, will resemble behaviors judged healthy for men, but not for women. Both hypotheses were confirmed. (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Explored the hypothesis that in-group members perceive their own group as more variegated and complex than do out-group members (the out-group homogeneity principle). In Exps I and II, 168 men and 171 women estimated the proportion of men or women who would endorse a variety of personality/attitude items that varied on stereotypic meaning (masculinity–femininity) and social desirability (favorable–unfavorable). It was predicted and found that out-group members viewed a group as endorsing more stereotypic and fewer counterstereotypic items than did in-group members. Findings are interpreted as support for the out-group homogeneity principle, and it is argued that since this effect was general across items varying in social desirability, the phenomenon was independent of traditional ethnocentrism effects. Exp III asked 90 members of 3 campus sororities to judge the degree of intragroup similarity for their own and 2 other groups. Again, each group judged its own members to be more dissimilar to one another than did out-group judges. In Exp IV, a theory was proposed suggesting that different "levels of social categorization" are used to encode in- and out-group members' behavior and that this process could account for the perception of out-group homogeneity. It was predicted and found that 109 men and 131 women were more likely to remember the subordinate attributes of an in- than out-group member, which provides some evidence for the theoretical model. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Investigated systematic retrospective distortions of past events precipitated by one's current beliefs about another individual. 212 undergraduates read an extensive narrative about the life of a woman named Betty K. Either immediately after reading the case history or 1 wk later, some participants learned that she was currently living a lesbian life-style; others learned that she was currently living a heterosexual life-style; still others learned nothing about her life-style. The impact of this new information on recognition memory for factual events in Betty K.'s life was assessed 1 wk after reading the case history. Ss selectively affirmed events that supported and bolstered their current interpretations of Betty K. Performance was the same whether Ss learned this information immediately after reading the case history or 1 wk later. Additional evidence suggests that these results are best characterized as the product of an interaction between stereotyped beliefs about sexuality and genuine memory for factual events. Implications of these findings for the nature, function, and consequences of social knowledge are discussed. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Tested the assumption that sexual stereotypic beliefs affect the judgments of individuals in an experiment with 98 male and 97 female undergraduates. No evidence was found for effects of stereotypes on Ss' judgments about a target individual. Instead, Ss judgments were strongly influenced by behavioral information about the target. To explain these results, it is noted that the predicted effects of social stereotypes on judgments conform to Bayes' theorem for the normative use of prior probabilities in judgment tasks, inasmuch as stereotypic beliefs may be regarded as intuitive estimates for the probabilities of traits in social groups. Research in the psychology of prediction has demonstrated that people often neglect prior probabilities when making predictions about people, especially when they have individuating information about the person that is subjectively diagnostic of the criterion. An implication of this research is that a minimal amount of subjectively diagnostic target case information should be sufficient to eradicate effects of stereotypes on judgments. Results of a 2nd experiment with 75 female and 55 male undergraduates support this argument. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Five alternative information processing models that relate memory for evidence to judgments based on the evidence are identified in the current social cognition literature: independent processing, availability, biased retrieval, biased encoding, and incongruity-biased encoding. A distinction between 2 types of judgment tasks, memory-based vs online, is introduced and is related to the 5 process models. In 3 experiments, using memory-based tasks where the availability model described Ss' thinking, direct correlations between memory and judgment measures were obtained. In a 4th experiment, using online tasks where any of the remaining 4 process models may apply, prediction of the memory–judgment relationship was equivocal but usually followed the independence model prediction of zero correlation. It is concluded that memory and judgment will be directly related when the judgment was based directly on the retrieval of evidence information in memory-based judgment tasks. (61 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Three experiments with 273 college students were conducted to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the well-established finding that initial impressions are resistant to incongruent (ICG) information and the finding that information ICG with an impression is particularly likely to be recalled. Using a procedure similar to that of R. Hastie and P. A. Kumar (1979), a situational or dispositional attribution was provided for a target item, which was either congruent (CG) or ICG with an initial impression. The ICG item was more likely than the CG item to be recalled only when attributed to dispositional causes (Exp I). The congruence of the target had greater impact on impressions when attributed to dispositional causes, particularly when Ss were given little other information about the target (Exps I and II). Exp III revealed that Ss preferred situational attributions for ICG items and dispositional attributions for CG. The authors conclude that Hastie and Kumar's findings may be limited to conditions in which situational attributions for TCG information are not provided. Possible mediators of the effects of causal attributions on recall, and the relation between recall and impressions are discussed. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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Social stereotypes may be defined as beliefs that various traits or acts are characteristic of particular social groups. As such, stereotypic beliefs represent subjective estimates of the frequencies of attributes within social groups, and so should be expected to “behave like” base-rate information within the context of judgments of individuals: specifically, individuating target case information should induce subjects to disregard their own stereotypic beliefs. Although the results of previous research are consisten with this prediction, no studies have permitted normative evaluation of stereotypic judgments. Because the hypothesis equates base rates and stereotypes, normative evaluation is essential for demonstrating equivalence between the base-rate fallacy and neglect of stereotypes in the presence of individuating case information. Two experiments were conducted, allowing for normative evaluation of effects of stereotypes on judgments of individuals. The results confirmed the hypothesis and established the generalizability of the effect across controversial and uncontroversial, socially desirable and socially underirable stereotypic beliefs. More generally, an examination of the differences between intuitive and normative statistical models of the judgment task suggest that the base-rate fallacy is but one instance of a general characteristic of intuitive judgment processes: namely, the failure to appropriately adjust evaluations of any one cue in the light of concurrent evaluations of other cues.
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Two general types of information about a person are considered in this article: One pertains to specific behaviors a person has manifested, and the other refers to more abstract personality dispositions or behavioral tendencies. A theoretical model of person memory that incorporates both types of information is developed. The model accounts for a large number of factors that are known to affect the recall of social information, the making of interpersonal judgments, and the relation between what is recalled and the judgments that are made. A major strength of the model is its applicability to a wide range of person memory and judgment phenomena that are observed in several different experimental paradigms.
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This research studied 2 properties of perceived distributions of the characteristics of social category members: the probability of differentiating (making distinctions) among category members and the perceived variability (variance) of category members. The results of 4 experiments supported the hypothesis that greater familiarity with a social group leads to greater perceived differentiation and variability regarding that group. In-group members formed more differentiated and variable distributions for groups defined by age and more differentiated distributions for groups defined by nationality. For gender (where students were roughly equally familiar with people of both genders), no in-group--out-group differences occurred. Also, students perceived greater differentiation and variability among classmates over the course of a semester. To explain these results, we developed PDIST, a multiple exemplar model that assumes that people form perceived distributions by activating a set of category exemplars and then judging the relative likelihoods of different feature values on the basis of the relative activation strengths of these feature values. The results of a computer simulation experiment indicated that PDIST is sufficient to explain the results of our 4 experiments. According to the perceived distributions formed by PDIST, increasing familiarity leads to greater differentiation and variability, has a concave impact, and has greater impact on differentiation than on variability.
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In three experiments, we explored the effects of categorical information (stereotypes) and case information (traits or behaviors) on judgments about an individual's characteristics. Subjects judged a target person's aggressiveness on the basis of a description containing both a broad social category and specific case information. In Experiment 1, the description included (a) a category that was either weakly or strongly related to aggressiveness and (b) a behavior that was unrelated, moderately diagnostic, or highly diagnostic of aggressiveness. Trait inferences were a function of both the stereotypic and the behavioral information. A single behavior was not sufficient to override the category effect. In Experiment 2, temporally consistent behaviors were presented as case information; under these conditions, category information had no effect on trait judgements. This finding was extended in Experiment 3 in which subjects predicted behaviors on the basis of the target person's sex and a moderately diagnostic trait.
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Two information-processing mechanisms that could potentially contribute to judgmental discrimination against the members of stereotyped social groups were examined in two experiments, using a mock juror decision-making task. Both postulated mechanisms involve biased processing of judgment-relevant evidence. The interpretation hypothesis asserts that the activation of stereotypic concepts influences the perceived probative implications of other evidence. The selective processing hypothesis asserts that stereotype-consistent evidence is processed more extensively than is inconsistent evidence. Judgment and memory data from the first experiment supported the general notion that stereotype-based discrimination emerges from biased evidence processing. The specific pattern of results supported selective processing rather than interpretation biases as the critical process underlying observed judgmental discrimination. The second experiment corroborated this conclusion by showing that a manipulation that prevents selective processing of the evidence effectively eliminated biases in judgments and recall pertaining to stereotyped targets. Implications for a general understanding of stereotyping and discrimination are discussed.
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Subjects read information about a defendant in a criminal trial with initial instructions to judge either his guilt (guilt judgment objective) or his aggressiveness (trait judgment objective). The defendant was either Hispanic or ethnically nondescript. After considering the evidence, subjects made both guilt and aggressiveness judgments (regardless of which type of judgment they were instructed to make at the time they read the information) and then recalled as much of the information they read as they could. Results favored the hypothesis that when subjects face a complex judgmental situation, they use stereotypes (when available and relevant) as a way of simplifying the judgment. Specifically, they use the stereotype as a central theme around which they organize presented evidence that is consistent with it, and they neglect inconsistent information. Subjects with a (complex) guilt judgment objective judged the defendant to be relatively more guilty and aggressive and recalled more negative information about him if he was Hispanic than if he was ethnically nondescript. In contrast, subjects with a (simple) trait judgment objective did not perceive either the guilt or aggressiveness of the two defendants to be appreciably different, and did not display any significant bias in their recall of the evidence. These and other results are discussed in terms of the information-processing strategies subjects are likely to use when they expect to make different types of judgments.
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Describes the development of a new sex-role inventory that treats masculinity and femininity as 2 independent dimensions, thereby making it possible to characterize a person as masculine, feminine, or "androgynous" as a function of the difference between his or her endorsement of masculine and feminine personality characteristics. Normative data, provided by 561 male and 356 female college and junior college students, are presented, as well as the results of various psychometric analyses. Findings indicate that: (a) The dimensions of masculinity and femininity are empirically and logically independent. (b) The concept of psychological androgyny is a reliable one. (c) Highly sex-typed scores do not reflect a general tendency to respond in a socially desirable direction, but rather a specific tendency to describe oneself in accordance with sex-typed standards of desirable behavior for men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Locksley, Hepburn, and Ortiz have argued that when individuating information is available, (a) Ss rely on this and not gender stereotypes, and (b) Ss' judgments are reliably deviant from a Bayesian normative standard. The authors argue these effects depend on the salience of the base-rate information. In this study, Ss learned about targets' gender and past behavior regarding assertiveness. Half the Ss also received photographs to increase the salience of the targets' gender Ss in the photo condition were influenced by their gender stereotypes, whereas those in the no-photo condition were not. Judgments in the photo condition did not differ from Bayesian expectations, whereas those in the no-photo condition were reliably nonnormative. In the photo condition, Ss' prior estimates of assertiveness among men and women predicted their use of gender in judgments of specific individuals, whereas this relationship was not found in the no-photo condition.
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The stereotyping literature heretofore has not fully addressed individual differences in the relative construct accessibility of social stereotypes. Stereotyping research has tested the influence of explicitly activated stereotype knowledge on information processing, but paid little attention to the spontaneous application of stereotypes when stimulus information is processed. Although stereotypes are known to influence both encoding and response stages of information processing, the latter effect has received little attention in comparison to the former. The present research tested the hypothesis that gender stereotypes would affect how individuals encode and respond to gender-related behaviors and that individual differences in the construct accessibility of gender-stereotypical attributes would moderate these effects. Subjects saw a series of behavioral descriptions, some of which were stereotypically masculine or feminine, performed by two men and two women, and then participated in a recognition memory test. Subjects were more likely to report stereotype-consistent (versus inconsistent or irrelevant) behaviors as having been seen and also made more within-sex than cross-sex false alarms. Supporting the hypothesis that stereotype accessibility is an important individual-difference variable, individuals who displayed high (versus low) levels of individual construct accessibility for gender showed a greater tendency to respond consistently with gender stereotypes and made more within-sex (versus cross-sex) false alarms. These results suggest that highly gender-accessible individuals were especially likely to process stimulus information in terms of gender.
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Members of four undergraduate clubs rated their own club as more heterogeneous on a series of personal characteristics than they rated the three other clubs. This tendency was unrelated to the number of in-group or out-group members known, or to the degree of preference for the in-group.
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In two experiments, Ss were read sets of 6 or 8 personality adjectives, and asked to rate their liking of the person so described. In some conditions, S was also requested to recall the adjectives just read.The personality impression data showed a primacy (first impression) effect when recall was not required. Introduction of recall reduced the primacy and, in one condition, caused a recency effect. These results were interpreted as indicating that the primacy was primarily caused by decreased attention to the later adjectives, and that the use of concomitant recall destroyed this primacy by causing S to attend to the later adjectives more completely.The serial recall curves showed a small to moderate primacy component, and a very strong recency component. Further detailed analyses of the recall data were also given.Two implications were drawn from the data. First, it was concluded that the impression memory is distinct from the verbal memory for the adjectives. This conclusion was based on contrasts between the observed impression effects and those that would be expected if the impression depended on the verbal memory. Three objections to this conclusion, based on the possibility that recall probability was an inappropriate index of verbal-memory strength, were also discussed.Second, it was tentatively suggested that a linear model, together with the attention decrement notion, gave the best account of the data. It was finally noted that the linear model also provides a representation of the impression memory that is in harmony with the first conclusion.
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An experiment investigated the effects of (a) initial trait adjective descriptions of a person, and (b) predictions of the person's behavior on subsequent judgments of this person. Subjects received adjectives describing a particular trait of a person, and then estimated the likelihood that the person would manifest behaviors that exemplified both this and a second trait. Their subsequent judgments of the person with respect to the second trait were biased toward the descriptive implications of the behaviors they had predicted, and also toward the evaluative implications of the original stimulus adjectives. These and other results suggested that a cognitive representation of the target person is formed in the course of making initial judgments and predictions, and that features of this representation, rather than the information that led to its construction, are used as bases for later judgments. Other implications of the results for the influence of trait and behavioral information on judgments are considered.
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Past research suggests that in judging a person's category membership, people largely ignore the population frequency of membership in the category (base rates) in favor of individuating information about the particular person. This study tested the hypothesis that base rates will be utilized to the extent that the usefulness of the individuating information for diagnosing category membership is diminished. Subjects were given problems in which both base rates of membership in each of two categories and individuating information about a target person were presented. Then, in each case, they were asked to assess the probability that the target person belonged to each category. In three sets of problems, the diagnostic usefulness of the individuating information (personality characteristics) was diminished by including individuating information that was either inconsistent or irrelevant, or by increasing the similarity of the two alternative membership categories. In a fourth set of problems, the individualistic information included consistent, relevant personal characteristics and the membership categories were dissimilar. As expected, base rates were used in each of the first three sets of problems but were ignored in the fourth set. The results were interpreted in terms of informational factors that induce a shift away from a habitual, spontaneous reliance on a source of information (e.g., personality traits) for which one has well-developed rules (e.g., intuitive personality theories), and toward a more controlled, deliberate mode of thinking wherein other sources of information (e.g., base rates) are attended to and incorporated into judgment through less frequently used rules (e.g., sampling rules).
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Two experiments tested the hypothesis that memory for trait information describing social groups would be more congruent with prevailing expectations about those groups when group impressions are formed under conditions in which the perceiver is required to engage in multiple concurrent tasks. In Experiment 1, subjects read behaviors describing members of one, two, or four social groups with instructions to form impressions of all of the groups. The recall advantage for expectancy-incongruent over expectancy-congruent behaviors decreased as the number of groups increased. The number of behaviors describing each group did not affect the type of behaviors recalled. In Experiment 2, all subjects formed impressions of two social groups, but one-half of the subjects were required to simultaneously listen and attend to a distracting news broadcast. Nondistracted subjects recalled a greater proportion of incongruent than congruent behaviors, whereas distracted subjects recalled a greater proportion of congruent than incongruent behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of the conditions under which group stereotypes may be formed and maintained through preferential memory for expectancy-congruent information.
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To examine the effects of stereotypic expectancies on memory for behavioral events that confirm or disconfirm these expectancies, subjects were all presented with the same set of 50 behavior descriptions, where each behavior was associated with the name of one member of a group of 50 men. The 50 items consisted of 17 intelligent, 17 friendly, 3 nonintelligent, 3 unfriendly, and 10 unrelated behaviors. Half of the subjects were led to believe that the group was intellectual and half that the group was friendly. In addition, to assess whether superior memory for confirming or disconfirming events could be localized in the retrieval or encoding process, approximately half of the subjects were given the expectancy prior to presentation of the behaviors, while the other half received the expectancy afterward. Subjects exhibited superior recall and higher frequency estimates for behaviors confirming the stereotype when the expectancy was induced prior to presentation of the behaviors; no such effects were observed for expectancies induced after the behaviors were presented. It was concluded that subjects' superior recall of expectancy-confirming events may account for the selfperpetuating character of social stereotypes, and that memory effects were not due solely to the selective retrieval of behavioral events.
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The research on memory for schema-relevant information has produced sharply contradictory results. Some studies demonstrate memory selectivity for schema-consistent information, others demonstrate memory selectivity for schema-inconsistent information. Meta-analytic procedures are applied to a sample of 60 independent studies with 165 comparative tests. The overall result shows a slight overall memory advantage for schema-inconsistent information. As the effect sizes are highly heterogeneous, it was hypothesized that schema-based processing is moderated by an array of variables. In large part the direction of the effect is dependent on the memory measure used. Both recognition tests corrected for guessing and recall tests reveal consistently better memory for schema-inconsistent information. But recognition tests uncorrected for guessing consistently uncover better memory for schema-consistent information. In addition, several moderators derived from Wyer & Srull's (1989) Associative Network model of person memory influence the amount of inconsistent information recalled. Processing demands, length of exposure to inconsistent information, delay between presentation of the stimulus and the memory test, proportion of inconsistent items, order of schema-presentation, degree of inconsistency and importance of categories to subjects all had significant impacts on inconsistency resolution. Most of these moderator effects support the Wyer-Srull model; but several of its contentions are called into question. In particular, inconsistency resolution emerges as a more robust consequence than schema-bolstering of longer stimulus exposure and delays between exposure and memory test. The results are compared with a similar meta-analysis, then discussed in relation to the possibilities for stereotype change.
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It has frequently been proposed that stereotypes are self-maintaining at least in part because people tend to better remember expectancy-confirming (versus expectancy-disconfirming) information about social groups. This memory bias is assumed to occur because stereotype-consistent behaviours and traits are more easily associated with the social group label in memory, and thus are more readily activated from memory when thinking about the group or about group members. The results of 26 experiments that studied memory for information describing members of existing social groups were meta-analytically investigated to assess the validity of this hypothesis. As predicted, this analysis revealed an overall consistency effect for both free recall memory and for recognition memory measures that were not controlled for guessing. Analysis of relevant moderating variables suggested that these effects were due to more strongly developed mental associations between expectancy-consistent (versus -inconsistent) information and the group label. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for stereotype maintenance, and for the process of stereotyping.