Premium
The importance of social structure and social interaction in stereotype consensus and content: is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?
Author(s) -
Stott Clifford,
Drury John
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.183
Subject(s) - outgroup , ingroups and outgroups , psychology , social psychology , categorization , stereotype (uml) , context (archaeology) , social identity theory , social group , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , biology
This paper addresses the hypothesis derived from self‐categorization theory (SCT) that the relationship between groups and stereotyping will be affected by the social structural conditions within which group interaction occurs. A mixed design experiment (n=56) measured low‐status groups' stereotypes and preferences for conflict with a high‐status outgroup prior to and after within‐group discussion across varying social structural conditions. Over time, participants in [open] conditions consensualized around positive conceptions of the outgroup and endorsed acceptance of their own [low status] position. However, in [closed] conditions participants consensualized around positive conceptions of the ingroup, negative conceptions of the outgroup, and tended towards preferences for collective protest. It is argued that the data support S‐CT's contention that stereotyping and group processes are fundamentally interlinked and that neither can be properly understood in isolation from the dynamics of the surrounding intergroup context. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.