Stereotyping the Stereotypic: When Individuals Match Social Stereotypes

This research examines how attention and accuracy motivation moderate stereotyping in person perception. Hypotheses were derived from the stereotype validity model, which proposes that perceivers are more likely to use a stereotype as the basis of their impressions when they believe that the generalized beliefs contained within it are valid for the particular target whom they are judging. Consistent with the model’s predictions, high attention and high accuracy motivation produced stronger label effects when a target’s individuating information matched a stereotype’s content. Also consistent with the model’s predictions, the opposite pattern was found when a target’s individuating information did not match a stereotype’s content. Under conditions of a poor match, high accuracy motivation produced weaker label effects. The authors discuss these findings with respect to accuracy and bias in the impression-formation process.