Causal Uncertainty and Stereotype Avoidance: The Role of Perceived Category Fit

Abstract

Past research has found that high levels of causal uncertainty (cu) are associated with less reliance on available stereotypes. In the current research, we examined lack of category fit and a consequent movement along the impression formation continuum as the underlying process. Participants who were high or low in cu read about an honors student or junior. They learned 10 details: 5 suggested a low gPA and 5 suggested a high gPA. We found that high compared to low cu participants relied on the honors student stereotype less and predicted a lower gPA in the honors student condition. This effect was mediated by perceived typicality. high compared to low cu participants thought the target resembled a typical honors student to a lesser extent. In addition, an examination of participants' open-ended comments about the target revealed that high compared to low cu participants were further along the impression formation continuum.People have a primary need to understand cause-and-effect relations in the social world (Heider, 1958). Unfortunately, the causal structure of social events often is complex, vague, and difficult to verify. Our causal analyses, therefore, frequently are probabilistic and may be associated with beliefs and feelings that we do not completely comprehend reality. Consider the seemingly happily married couple who suddenly files for divorce or, worse, the shooting of students and teachers at Virginia Tech. Both such events likely would give rise to questions about how well we understand the underlying causal structure. Both might well result in a search for more information to repair our state of knowledge about the world in which we live.

The Effects of Causal Uncertainty, Causal Importance, and Initial Attitude on Attention to Causal Persuasive Arguments

“…In comparing the re-sults of the different studies, it is important to note that lack of stereotype use in Weary et al's (2001) study does not necessarily indicate higher levels of elaboration. Indeed, recent research suggests that automatic vigilance to social information among high CU participants can dilute the judgmental impact of a stereotype even when individuals are unable to engage in effortful processing (Tobin, Weary, Brunner, Han, & Gonzalez, 2007).…”

Influence of the Order of Provided Information on the First Impression

“…Regardless of such automaticity, other empirical results point to factors, which diminish effect of categorization and stereotypic thinking: categorization lessens its power, when the observer has a negative mood or is depressed (Bless, Schwarz, & Wiekand, 1996;Chartard, Bargh, & Baaren, 2006), when has strong stereotypical beliefs (toward a certain life issue e.g. ethnicity) (Gawronski et al, 2003), when the target is already known, rather than an unknown person (Quinn et al, 2009), when along with the stereotypic information clear individuating information is presented as well (Baron, Albright, & Malloy, 1995;Mettrick & Cowan, 1996;Locksley et al, 1980;Locksley et al, 1982;Kunda & Sherman-Williams, 1993;Bargh & Pratto, 1986); in addition, having motivation (Fiske, 1988;Fiske & Neuberg, 1990;Tobin et al, 2009), or/and having less overwhelmed cognitive apparatus (Bodenhausen & Lichtenstein, 1987), with enough capacity of attention (Bargh & Pratto, 1986;Fiske & Neuberg, 1990) and being aimed at causal thinking (Tobin et al, 2009) also undermine the process of stereotypic thinking.…”