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The strategic confirmation of meta‐stereotypes: How group members attempt to tailor an out‐group's representation of themselves
Author(s) -
Klein Olivier,
Azzi Assaad E.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1348/014466601164759
Subject(s) - psychology , group (periodic table) , social psychology , representation (politics) , ingroups and outgroups , group dynamic , meta analysis , politics , medicine , chemistry , organic chemistry , political science , law
This article is concerned with the influence of the group membership of an audience on the description of the in‐group. Negative meta‐sterotypes (stereotype of the in‐group believed to be held by members of a relevant out‐group) have aversive consequences on the self (Vorauer, Main, & O'Connell, 1998). Group members may therefore try to modify the meta‐sterotype to their advantage by confirming positive traits and disconfirming negative ones. Such a strategy is not relevant when one addresses in‐group members because one does not expect them to adhere to the content of the meta‐stereotype. The study varied the salience of the meta‐stereotype orthogonally to the group membership of the audience (out‐group vs. in‐group). Participants ( N = 75) were asked to pick traits that applied to their group. As predicted, participants selected more positive traits belonging to the meta‐stereotype and fewer negative ones when addressing out‐group members than in‐group members, but this occurred only when the meta‐stereotype was salient. Both low and high identifiers displayed this tendency. These results suggest that stereotypes can be used as political weapons.