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Maintaining stereotypes in communication: Investigating memory biases and coherence‐seeking in storytelling
Author(s) -
Lyons Anthony,
Kashima Yoshihisa
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-839x.2006.00184.x
Subject(s) - psychology , stereotype (uml) , social psychology , storytelling , context (archaeology) , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , cognitive psychology , phenomenon , narrative , linguistics , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
When communicating, a general tendency exists for people to transmit more stereotype consistent (SC) than inconsistent (SI) information. Although some communicative factors have been shown to play a role, it is still not yet known the extent to which general memory biases (i.e. independent of communicative context) contribute to this phenomenon. To examine this issue, and to explore further mechanisms of the bias, the present paper presents quantitative and qualitative data of an experiment involving the transmission of a stereotype‐relevant story through 20 four‐person chains using the method of serial reproduction. An SC bias emerged when participants had an intention to communicate but not when they reproduced the story from memory with no such intention. Results also suggest that trying to tell a coherent story may be one further factor that contributes to the bias. These and other findings were discussed in terms of the role of communicative processes in maintaining stereotypes.