Men generally express more negative attitudes than women toward homosexuals. This study aims to determine if social norms saliency can rely on this "gender effect" and influence attitudes toward homosexuals. Gender characteristics (attitudes and lexical markers) concerning homosexuality were identified in Study 1 and used to construct male- (i.e., promoting a prejudice-related norm) and female-marked (i.e., promoting an anti-prejudice-related norm) messages. Social norms saliency was primed using these messages (Studies 2 and 3) and the participant's immediate context (Study 3). Results show that promoting a prejudiced norm eases expression of males' negative attitudes toward homosexuals, whereas the promotion of an anti-prejudice norm inhibits their attitudes. Theoretical elaborations and potential applications for promotion of tolerance are discussed.

The present research investigated whether the impact of the Linguistic Intergroup Bias (LIB; Maass, 1999) is related to the effects of linguistic abstraction on social attribution (Yzerbyt & Rogier, 2001). We did this by assessing the impact of abstract descriptions versus concrete descriptions on the generalization of a group member's behaviors to the whole group. A target's behaviors were more attributed to the group when the description was abstract than when it was concrete, and this effect of language abstraction was stronger when the description was positive than when it was negative. Our results provide an insight into how the LIB is involved in the perpetuation of intergroup bias.

This research deals with the interplay between language use and social identity. Social lexical markers used by two leaders of two opposed groups (French and American presidents) on the Second Gulf War were identified. Experimental texts were constructed on this basis and were read by French participants. The authors compared two types of social identity activation, either indirect (in-group vs. out-group lexical markers) or direct (in-group vs. neutral priming). Attitude and intergroup perception were measured on three groups (French, American, and Iraqi). Whereas no effect of direct activation was observed, results notably showed that using out-group marker leads participants to emphasize their in-group attitude, whereas an in-group marker leads them to “open-up” toward out-group attitude. Besides, an interesting in-group bias was evidenced despite the use of negatives outcomes and the three groups’ evaluation. Potential applications for intergroup communication are discussed and theoretical and practical elaborations are proposed.

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