The cultural stereotype of professional groups: Consensus, accessibility and typicality of stereotypic contents

Ana Sofia Santos, Filipa de Almeida, Tomás A. Palma, Manuel Oliveira, Leonel Garcia-Marques

Abstract


The purpose of the present work was to measure the stereotypic content of several professional groups, by determining the culturally shared stereotypic attributes, their accessibility and typicality. Study 1 used a spontaneous attribute-generation-task to collect the stereotypic content of 28 professional groups in a Portuguese samples. The frequency of generation was used to measure consensus on the attributes generated. The order of generated attributes was used to determine their accessibility. To further explore the link between attributes and the professional group, a new sample (Study 2) rated how typical each attribute was of the professional group. We map out the usefulness of studying professional stereotype's content.


Keywords


Professional stereotypes, Shared content of stereotypes, Attribute generation task, Attributes accessibility, Attributes typicality

References


Barsalou, L. W. (1989). Intraconcept similarity and its

implications for interconcept similarity. In S. Vosniadou & A. Ortony (Eds.), Similarity and analogical reasoning (pp. 76-121). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bessenoff, G. R., & Sherman, J. W. (2000). Automatic and controlled components of prejudice toward fat people: Evaluation versus stereotype activation. Social Cognition, 18, 329-353. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2000.18.4.329

Bogart, L. M., Bird, S. T., Walt, L. C., Delahanty, D. L., & Figler, J. L. (2004). Association of stereotypes about physicians to health care satisfaction, help-seeking behavior, and adherence to treatment. Social Science & Medicine, 58(6), 1049–1058.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(03)00277-6

Cox, W. T. L., & Devine, P. G. (2015). Stereotypes possess heterogeneous directionality: A theoretical and empirical exploration of stereotype structure and content. PLoS

ONE, 10(3), e0122292.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122292

Devine, P. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5-18.

https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.56.1.5

Devine, P. G., & Elliot, A. (1995). Are racial stereotypes really fading? The Princeton trilogy revisited. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 21(11), 1139-1150.

https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672952111002

Fazio, R. H., Jackson, J. R., Dunton, B. C., & Williams, C. J. (1995). Variability in automatic activation as an unobtrusive measure of racial attitudes: A bona fide pipeline? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1013–1027.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.6.1013

Garcia-Marques, L., Santos, A. S., & Mackie, D. M. (2006). Stereotypes: Static abstractions or dynamic knowledge structures? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 814-831.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.5.814

Hamilton, D. L., & Sherman, J. (1994). Stereotypes. In R. Wyer & T. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition: Volume 2: Applications (2º ed.). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Katz, D., & Braly, K. W. (1933). Racial stereotypes in one hundred college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 280-290. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0074049

Krueger, J. (1996). Personal beliefs and cultural stereotypes about racial characteristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 536-548. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.3.536

Macrae, C. N., Milne, A. B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (1994). Stereotypes as energy-savingdevices: A peek inside the cognitive toolbox. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 37-47.

https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.66.1.37

Macrae, C. N., Mitchell, J. P., & Pendry, L. F. (2002). What’s in a forename? Cue familiarity and stereotypical thinking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 186-193.

https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.2001.1496

Mather, M., Johnson, M. K., & De Leonardis, D. M. (1999). Stereotype reliance in source monitoring: Age differences and neuropsychological test correlates. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 16, 437-458. https://doi.org/10.1080/026432999380870

McGarty, C., Yzerbyt, V. Y., & Spears, R. (Eds.). (2002). Stereotypes as explanations: The formation of meaningful believes about groups. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Moreira, S., Garcia-Marques, L., & Santos, A.S. (2008). Traços estereotípicos associados a 32 grupos profissionais. Laboratório de Psicologia, 6 (1), 3-14.

Santos, A.S., Garcia-Marques, L., Mackie, D. M., Ferreira, M.B., Payne, B. K., & Moreira, S. (2012). Implicit open-mindedness: Evidence for and limits on stereotype malleability. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 1257-1266.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.05.013

Schneider, D. J. (2003). The psychology of stereotyping. New York: The Guilford Press.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124




DOI: https://doi.org/10.14417/ap.1385

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Nº ERC: 107494 | ISSN (in print): 0870-8231 | ISSN (online): 1646-6020 | Copyright © ISPA - CRL, 2012 | Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34, 1149-041 Lisboa | NIF: 501313672 | The portal and metadata are licensed under the license Creative Commons CC BY-NC