The negation bias: When negations signal stereotypic expectancies.

Abstract

Research on linguistic biases shows that stereotypic expectancies are implicitly reflected in language and thereby subtly communicated to message recipients. We examined whether these findings extend to the use of negations (e.g., not smart instead of stupid). We hypothesized that people use more negations in descriptions of stereotype inconsistent behavior than in descriptions of stereotype consistent behavior. In three studies, participants either judged the applicability of experimentally controlled person descriptions, or spontaneously produced person descriptions themselves. Results provided support for this hypothesis. Moreover, a fourth study demonstrated that negations have communicative consequences. When a target person's behavior was described with negations, message recipients inferred that this behavior was an exception to the rule, and that it was more likely caused by situational circumstances than by dispositional factors. These findings indicate that by using negations people implicitly communicate stereotypic expectancies, and that negations play a subtle but powerful role in stereotype maintenance. The negation bias 3The Negation Bias: When Negations Signal Stereotypic ExpectanciesWhen people describe others' behaviors they can choose different words and formulations.For example, people can describe a person's dim comment as Harry was stupid or Harry was not smart. Which description they choose seems arbitrary at first sight. Both sentences adequately describe the event and people do not seem to give their choice of words muchthought. Yet, research shows that rather than being arbitrary, people's choice of words and language use is driven by systematic and implicit social cognitive processes. For instance, research on linguistic biases shows that people's prior expectancies and stereotypes influence their choice of words in describing others. That is, people use more abstract predicates to describe stereotype consistent behaviors than stereotype inconsistent behaviors. This biased language use not only reflects a speaker's stereotypic expectancies about a person, but, importantly, also transmits these expectancies to recipients. In this way, biased language use is one of the predominant means of stereotype maintenance at an interpersonal level (Maass, 1999;Maass, Salvi, Arcuri & Semin, 1989;Sekaquaptewa et al., 2003;Wigboldus, Semin & Spears, 2000).To extend our knowledge on linguistic biases, the present paper introduces the negation bias. Negation descriptions contain a negation marker such as not or no to deny the truth value of a particular proposition (e.g., Harry was not smart). We will refer to descriptions of others' behavior that include such negation markers as negations. Conversely, affirmation descriptions assert the truth value of a particular proposition and may be used to describe the same behavioral event (e.g., Harry was stupid). In the present research, we investigate whether the use of negations is influenced by people's stereotypic expectancies and whether negations...

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“…Beukeboom et al. () found that negation descriptions would communicate a more neutral impression of the described person than would affirmation descriptions. Extending these suggestions to the current study, when someone is presenting the desired (undesired) aspects of her identities by categorizing herself in a negational way, the negated undesired (desired) identities are still accessible.…”

“…The current research contributes to the extant literature in several ways. First, the research on the consequences of negational categorization has been extended from stereotyping and interpersonal communication (Beukeboom et al., ), out‐group derogation (Zhong et al., ), changes in people's attitudes toward minority group (Zhong, Galinsky, & Unzueta, ), etc. to consumer behavior (i.e., uniqueness seeking in choosing products) in this paper.…”

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“…concept (e.g., Beukeboom, Finkenauer & Wigboldus, 2010). This implies that, in utterance processing, negations of the word under discussion cannot be equated with an opposite meaning.…”

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“…From a social cognitive viewpoint, negation is an indicator of stereotyping (Beukeboom et al, 2010).…”