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Introduction to the book symposium on Katherine Puddifoot’s HowStereotypes Deceive Us.

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In this paper I discuss the interrelated topics of stereotype threat and attributional ambiguity as they relate to gender and gender identity. The former has become an emerging topic in feminist philosophy and has spawned a tremendous amount of research in social psychology and elsewhere. But the discussion, at least in how it connects to gender, is incomplete: the focus is only on cisgender women and their experiences. By considering trans women's experiences of stereotype threat and attributional ambiguity, we gain (...) a deeper understanding of the phenomena and their problematic effects. (shrink)

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Stereotypes are false or misleading generalizations about groups, generally widely shared in a society, and held in a manner resistant, but not totally, to counterevidence.Stereotypes shape the stereotyper’s perception of stereotyped groups, seeing the stereotypic characteristics when they are not present, and generally homogenizing the group. The association between the group and the given characteristic involved in a stereotype often involves a cognitive investment weaker than that of belief. The cognitive distortions involved in stereotyping lead to various (...) forms of moral distortion, to which moral philosophers have paid insufficient attention. Some of these are common to allstereotypes—failing to see members of the stereotyped groups as individuals, moral distancing, failing to see subgroup diversity within the group. Other moral distortions vary with the stereotype. Some attribute a much more damaging or stigmatizing characteristic (e.g. being violent) than others (e.g. being good at basketball). But the characteristic in question must also be viewed in its wider historical and social context to appreciate its overall negative and positive dimensions. (shrink)

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Though stereotype threat is most well-known for its ability to hinder performance, it actually has a wide range of effects. For instance, it can also cause stress, anxiety, and doubt. These additional effects are as important and as central to the phenomenon as its effects on performance are. As a result, stereotype threat has more far-reaching implications than many philosophers have realized. In particular, the phenomenon has a number of unexplored “epistemic effects.” These are effects on our epistemic lives—i.e., the (...) ways we engage with the world as actual and potential knowers. In this paper I flesh out the implications of a specific epistemic effect: self-doubt. Certain kinds of self-doubt can deeply affect our epistemic lives by exacerbating moments of epistemic injustice and by interacting with pernicious ideals of rationality. In both cases, self-doubt can lead to a person questioning their own humanity or full personhood. Since we have reasons to believe that stereotype threat can trigger this kind of self-doubt, then stereotype threat can affect various aspects of ourselves besides our ability to perform to our potential. It can also affect our very sense of self. (shrink)

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Both mindreading and stereotyping are forms of social cognition that play a pervasive role in our everyday lives, yet too little attention has been paid to the question of how these two processes are related. This paper offers a theory of the influence of stereotyping on mental-state attribution that draws on hierarchical predictive coding accounts of action prediction. It is argued that the key to understanding the relation between stereotyping and mindreading lies in the fact thatstereotypes centrally involve (...) character-trait attributions, which play a systematic role in the action–prediction hierarchy. On this view, when we apply a stereotype to an individual, we rapidly attribute to her a cluster of generic character traits on the basis of her perceived social group membership. These traits are then used to make inferences about that individual’s likely beliefs and desires, which in turn inform inferences about her behavior. (shrink)

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Stereotypes shape inferences in philosophical thought, political discourse, and everyday life. These inferences are routinely made when thinkers engage in language comprehension or production: We make them whenever we hear, read, or formulate stories, reports, philosophical case-descriptions, or premises of arguments – on virtually any topic. These inferences are largely automatic: largely unconscious, non-intentional, and effortless. Accordingly, they shape our thought in ways we can properly understand only by complementing traditional forms of philosophical analysis with experimental methods from psycholinguistics. (...) This paper seeks, first, to bring out the wider philosophical relevance of stereotypical inference, well beyond familiar topics like gender and race. Second, we wish to provide philosophers with a toolkit to experimentally study these ubiquitous inferences and what intuitions they may generate. This paper explains whatstereotypes are, and why they matter to current and traditional concerns in philosophy – experimental, analytic, and applied. It then assembles a psycholinguistic toolkit and demonstrates through two studies how potentially questionnaire-based measures can be combined with process measures to garner evidence for specific stereotypical inferences and study when they ‘go through’ and influence our thinking. (shrink)

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Stereotypes sometimes lead us to make poor judgements of other people, but they also have the potential to facilitate quick, efficient, and accurate judgements. How can we discern whether any individual act of stereotyping will have the positive or negative effect? HowStereotypes Deceive Us addresses this question. It identifies various factors that determine whether or not the application of a stereotype to an individual in a specific context will facilitate or impede correct judgements and perceptions of the (...) individual. It challenges the thought that stereotyping only and always impedes correct judgement when thestereotypes that are applied are inaccurate, failing to reflect social realities. It argues instead thatstereotypes that reflect social realities can lead to misperceptions and misjudgements, and that inaccurate but egalitarian social attitudes can therefore facilitate correct judgements and accurate perceptions. The arguments presented in this book have important implications for those who might engage in stereotyping and those who are at risk of being stereotyped. They have implications for those who work in healthcare and those who have mental health conditions. HowStereotypes Deceive Us provides a new conceptual framework-evaluative dispositionalism-that captures the epistemic faults ofstereotypes and stereotyping, providing conceptual resources that can be used to improve our own thinking by avoiding the pitfalls of stereotyping, and to challenge other people's stereotyping where it is likely to lead to misperception and misjudgement. (shrink)

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We use generic sentences like ‘Blondes are stupid’ to expressstereotypes. But why is this? Does the fact that we use generic sentences to expressstereotypes mean thatstereotypes are themselves, in some sense, generic? I argue that they are. However,stereotypes are mental and generics linguistic, so how canstereotypes be generic? My answer is thatstereotypes are generic in virtue of the beliefs they contain.Stereotypes about blondes being stupid contain a (...) belief element, namely a belief that blondes are stupid. This belief is an attitude taken towards the same proposition expressed by the sentence ‘Blondes are stupid’, hence why we use the latter to articulate the former. -/- This generic account ofstereotypes can help us better understand their inner workings. I focus on one feature of generics, variability in the types of facts that can make them true, and argue that it can explain howstereotypes shape inferential patterns and thereby guide how we treat members of stereotyped groups. This feature, in turn, illuminates the harms caused by stereotyping and suggests some courses of action. (shrink)

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How do cognition and affect interact to produce action? Research in intergroup psychology illuminates this question by investigating the relationship betweenstereotypes and prejudices about social groups. Yet it is now clear that many social attitudes are implicit. This raises the question: how does the distinction between cognition and affect apply to implicit mental states? An influential view—roughly analogous to a Humean theory of action—is that “implicitstereotypes” and “implicit prejudices” constitute two separate constructs, reflecting different mental processes (...) and neural systems. On this basis, some have also argued that interventions to reduce discrimination should combat implicitstereotypes and prejudices separately. We propose an alternative framework. We argue that all putative implicitstereotypes are affect-laden and all putative implicit prejudices are “semantic,” that is, they stand in co-activating associations with concepts and beliefs. Implicit biases, therefore, consist in “clusters” of semantic-affective associations, which differ in degree, rather than kind. This framework captures the psychological structure of implicit bias, promises to improve the power of indirect measures to predict behavior, and points toward the design of more effective interventions to combat discrimination. (shrink)

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This paper proposes and defends the multifactorial view of stereotyping. According to this view, multiple factors determine whether or not any act of stereotyping increases the chance of an accurate judgment being made about an individual to whom the stereotype is applied. To support this conclusion, various features of acts of stereotyping that can determine the accuracy of stereotyping judgments are identified. The argument challenges two existing views that suggest that it is relatively easy for an act of stereotyping to (...) increase the chance of an accurate judgment being made. In the process, it shows why stereotyping that associates black people more strongly than white people with criminality in the United States cannot be defended, and actions to reduce the stereotyping criticized, on the basis that engaging in this form of stereotyping increases the chance of accurate judgments. As each of these important conclusions is supported by results from empirical psychology, the discussion exemplifies and vindicates the naturalistic approach to epistemology, according to which psychological findings provide an important contribution to understanding the epistemic standing of beliefs. (shrink)

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Epistemic analyses of stereotyping describe how they lead to misperceptions and misunderstandings of social actors and events. The analyses have tended so far to focus on how people acquirestereotypes and/or how thestereotypes lead to distorted perceptions of the evidence that is available about individuals. In this chapter, I focus instead on how thestereotypes can generate misleading evidence by influencing the policy preferences of people who harbour the biases. My case study isstereotypes that (...) relate to people living in poverty. I show how thesestereotypes influence policy choices in ways that generate misleading evidence about people living in poverty. I argue that thestereotypes generate the misleading evidence by supporting policies that restrict the agency of the people in poverty. In generating this misleading evidence, thestereotypes place additional constraints on the epistemic agency of everyone, making it harder for anyone, including those who do and those who do not endorse thestereotypes, to gain true beliefs about people living in poverty. Going forward, I conclude, adequate epistemic analyses of stereotyping ought to be more expansive, acknowledging both the way thatstereotypes generate misleading evidence by constraining the agency of those stereotyped, and how we can all thereby be epistemically constrained by thestereotypes harboured by others. (shrink)

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For decades, intelligence and achievement tests have registered significant differences between people of different races, ethnicities, classes, and genders. We argue that most of these differences are explained not as reflections of differences in the distribution of intellectual virtues but as evidence for the metacognitive mediation of the intellectual virtues. For example, in the United States, blacks typically score worse than whites on tests of mathematics. This might lead one to think that fewer blacks possess the relevant intellectual virtues, or (...) that they possess them less fully. However, research on stereotype threat shows that when blacks are not reminded of their race, they do much better on these tests than when they are. Simply raising to salience the race of the student triggers the activation of the stereotype, which in turn leads to poorer performance. However, learning about stereotype threat to a large extent immunizes people against it. This suggests that the psycho-social dimension of intelligence that recognizes the possibility of effects like stereotype threat is a crucial mediating variable in the development and expression of the intellectual virtues. The Socratic, “Know thyself” needs to be expanded to, “Know thyself and thy society.” Self-knowledge and knowledge of relevantstereotypes are a necessary condition for optimal development and expression of the other intellectual virtues. (shrink)

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If asked whetherstereotypes about people have the potential to help overcome injustice, I suspect that many think there is a clear-cut answer to this question, and that answer is “no.” Manystereotypes do have harmful effects, from the blatantly dehumanizing to the more subtly disruptive. Reasonably then, a common attitude towardstereotypes is that they are at best shallow, superficial assumptions, and at worst degrading and hurtful vehicles of oppression. I argue that on a broad account (...) ofstereotypes, this is not is not an inherent feature of them nor a foregone conclusion about them. At least some positivestereotypes have the potential to help resist certain forms of epistemic injustice--though they likely can only play a limited or temporary role in this regard. The takeaway is that we should approach moral and epistemic analyses ofstereotypes by thinking about them as (crude) cognitive tools, and as such, focus on what these tools are being used for, and what their actual impact is. (shrink)

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How should we interpret the popular objection that stigmatised subjects are not treated as individuals? The Eidelson View claims that stigma, because of its connection tostereotypes, violates an instance of the general requirement to respect autonomy. The Self-Presentation View claims that stigma inhibits the functioning of certain morally important capacities, notably the capacity for self-presentation. I argue that even if we are right to think that stigma violates a requirement to respect autonomy, this is insufficient to account for (...) the full weight of the charge that stigmatised subjects are not treated as individuals. We need the Self-Presentation View to explain a special threat to agency. I then address the worry that focusing on a concern with being treated as individuals opens the door to the suggestion that treating as superior can be just as morally troubling as stigma. This objection is fatal for the Eidelson View. But the Self-Presentation View has a number of resources for deflating the worry. We should not exclude the possibility of a moral symmetry between some cases of stigma and some cases of treating as superior. Rather, we should provide a nuanced account of the circumstances in which either phenomenon is detrimental for self-presentation. (shrink)

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Many philosophical thought experiments and arguments involve unusual cases. We present empirical reasons to doubt the reliability of intuitive judgments and conclusions about such cases. Inferences and intuitions prompted by verbal case descriptions are influenced by routine comprehension processes which invokestereotypes. We build on psycholinguistic findings to determine conditions under which the stereotype associated with the most salient sense of a word predictably supports inappropriate inferences from descriptions of unusual (stereotype-divergent) cases. We conduct an experiment that combines plausibility (...) ratings with pupillometry to document this “salience bias.” We find that under certain conditions, competent speakers automatically make stereotypical inferences they know to be inappropriate. (shrink)

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In HowStereotypes Deceive Us, Katherine Puddifoot provides a convincing non-normative account of whatstereotypes are, and of the conditions under which we appropriately rely on them in achieving our epistemic and ethical goals. In this paper, I focus on Puddifoot’s discussion of what she takes to be the non-prejudicial use of accuratestereotypes and their role in causing or perpetuating harm. Such use can cause harm but does not, on the face of it, appear to be (...) wrongful in the way that ordinary cases of prejudicially motivated use ofstereotypes are. This raises a challenge for identifying when our use of suchstereotypes might be unjust or wrongful (and why). In response, I first suggest that prejudice might be located within the context in which one uses a stereotype, rather than within the content of the stereotype itself. In this way, we can indeed distinguish prejudicial (and therefore wrongful) use of accuratestereotypes from non-prejudicial (innocent) use of accuratestereotypes. And second, I suggest that we also ought to question whether thestereotypes being invoked in all cases really are accurate, given the context and scope of application. (shrink)

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Theoretical substantiations and practical recommendations on media educational contain against genderstereotypes in the Ukrainian mass media are given in the work. Attention is paid to the pathogenic factor of the use of gender-sensitive content. The work is based on propedeutic theoretic studies of cultural and psychosocial background of Ukraine. We also used a content analysis of news and advertising materials of heterogenic media; sociologic methods ; modelling of educational situations and forecasting of expected results. That was an end-to-end (...) method of generalization that covered theoretical and practical stages of the study. It is proved that despite the weakening of gender divisions in the socio-cultural sphere in the world, in developing countries genderstereotypes remain a powerful tool for affective approach of media and advertising to the consumer. Author's ways to increase the level of media literacy and critical thinking with the help of gender-sensitive experiments, mini-projects, filling the media space with "mirror" about sexist content and creating a personal media field are proposed. (shrink)

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Are racial slurs always offensive and are racialstereotypes always negative? How, if at all, are racial slurs andstereotypes different and unequal for members of different races? Questions like these and others about slurs andstereotypes have been the focus of much research and hot debate lately, and in a recent article Embrick and Henricks (2013) aimed to address some of the aforementioned questions by investigating the use of racial slurs andstereotypes in the workplace. (...) Embrick and Henricks (2013) drew upon the empirical data they collected at a baked goods company in the southwestern United States to argue that racial slurs andstereotypes function as symbolic resources that exclude minorities but not whites from opportunities or resources and that racial slurs andstereotypes are necessarily considered as negative or derogatory irrespective of their particular context of use (pp. 197–202). They thus proposed an account of slurs andstereotypes that supports the context-insensitive position of Fitten (1993) and Hedger (2013) yet challenges the context-sensitive position of Kennedy (2002) and Croom (2011). In this article I explicate the account of racial slurs andstereotypes provided by Embrick and Henricks (2013), outline 8 of their main claims, and then critically evaluate these claims by drawing upon recent empirical evidence on racial slurs (both in-group and out-group uses) andstereotypes (for both whites and blacks) to point out both strengths and weaknesses of their analysis. Implications of the present analysis for future work on slurs andstereotypes will also be discussed. (shrink)

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This paper trials new experimental methods for the analysis of natural language reasoning and the development of critical ordinary language philosophy in the wake of J.L. Austin. Philosophical arguments and thought experiments are strongly shaped by default pragmatic inferences, including stereotypical inferences. Austin suggested that contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences are at the root of some philosophical paradoxes and problems, and that these can be resolved by exposing those verbal fallacies. This paper builds on recent efforts to empirically document inappropriate stereotypical (...) inferences that may drive philosophical arguments. We demonstrate that previously employed questionnaire-based output measures do not suffice to exclude relevant confounds. We then report an experiment that combines reading time measurements with plausibility ratings. The study seeks to provide evidence of inappropriate stereotypical inferences from appearance verbs that have been suggested to lie at the root of the influential ‘argument from illusion’. Our findings support a diagnostic reconstruction of this argument. They provide the missing component for proof of concept for an experimental implementation of critical ordinary language philosophy that is in line with the ambitions of current ‘evidential’ experimental philosophy. (shrink)

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I examine some common trends in ‘conflict management skills’, particularly those focused on practical results, and argue that they involve some moral problems, like the reliance on offensivestereotypes, the censorship of moral language, the promotion of distorted relationships, and sometimes the suppression of basic rights and obligations that constitute non–consequentialist moral constraints on human interactions (including dispute resolution). Since these approaches now appear in educational institutions, they are sending dangerous messages to those least able to critically assess them, (...) messages that denigrate the language, reflection, and interactions on which the moral life depends, thus undermining the possibility of moral education in the most fundamental sense of the phrase. (shrink)

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(1996). Stereotype discourse in Israel. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 680-688.

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Genericstereotypes are generically formulated generalizations that express a stereotype, like “Mexican immigrants are rapists” and “Muslims are terrorists.”Stereotypes like these are offensive and should not be asserted by anyone. Yet when someone does assert a sentence like this in a conversation, it is surprisingly difficult to successfully rebut it. The meaning of generic sentences is such that they can be true in several different ways. As a result, a speaker who is challenged after asserting a generic (...) stereotype can often simply dismiss the objection and maintain that the stereotype is true in a way that is compatible with the challenger’s objection. In this paper, a semantic theory for generics is presented that accounts for this type of defensive shifting in upholding genericstereotypes. This theory is then used to develop two strategies to object more efficiently. The first strategy is to immediately deny that either of the two possible ways in which a generic can be true obtains. The second strategy is to deny the satisfaction of an additional condition that is necessary for a generic sentence to be true. (shrink)

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Stereotypes are commonly alleged to be false or inaccurate views of groups. For shorthand, I call this the falsity hypothesis. The falsity hypothesis is widespread and is often one of the first reasons people cite when they explain why we shouldn’t use stereotypic views in cognition, reasoning, or speech. In this essay, I argue against the falsity hypothesis on both empirical and ameliorative grounds. In its place, I sketch a more promising view ofstereotypes—which avoids the falsity hypothesis—that (...) joins my earlier work onstereotypes in individual psychology with the work of Patricia Hill Collins on culturalstereotypes. According to this two-part hybrid theory,stereotypes are controlling images or ideas that enjoy both a psychological and cultural existence, which serve a regulative social function. (shrink)

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Stereotype threat is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when individuals become aware that their behavior could potentially confirm a negative stereotype. Though stereotype threat is a widely studied phenomenon in social psychology, there has been relatively little scholarship on it in philosophy, despite its relevance to issues such as implicit cognition, epistemic injustice, and diversity in philosophy. However, most psychological research on stereotype threat discusses the phenomenon by using an overly narrow picture of it, which focuses on one of its (...) effects: the ability to hinder performance. As a result, almost all philosophical work on stereotype threat is solely focused on issues of performance too. -/- Social psychologists know that stereotype threat has additional effects, such as negatively impacting individuals’ motivation, interests, long-term health, and even their sense of self, but these other effects are often downplayed, or even forgotten about. Therefore, the “standard picture” of stereotype threat needs to be expanded, in order to better understand the theoretical aspects of the phenomenon, and to develop broader, more effective interventions. This dissertation develops such an “expanded picture” of stereotype threat, which emphasizes how the phenomenon can negatively impact both self-identity and epistemic agency. In doing so, I explore the nature ofstereotypes more generally and argue that they undermine groups’ moral status and contribute to what is called “ontic injustice.” I also show how stereotype threat harms members of socially subordinated groups by way of coercing their self-identity and undermining their epistemic agency, which I argue is a form of epistemic injustice. Lastly, I analyze the expanded picture’s implications for addressing the low proportion of women in professional philosophy. I critically engage recent arguments that these low numbers simply reflect different interests women have, which if innate or benign, would require no intervention. My expanded picture shows the mistakes in this sort of reasoning, which is also present in discussions on the underrepresentation of women in science. The expanded picture of stereotype threat that this dissertation develops is not only practically important, but also advances key philosophical debates in social epistemology, applied ethics, and social metaphysics. (shrink)

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The paper is an analytic retrospective of the author?s work during the preceding research period, involving the study of role, meaning and place ofstereotypes in identity discourses. In order to explain the reasons for and ways of dealing withstereotypes, she reviews the evolution of her own research approach and the alternative approaches to the topic from the perspective of various scholarly disciplines. Seeking to avoid the trap of?interpretingstereotypes stereotypically?, the author chooses not to follow (...) the usual method whereby ethnicstereotypes are?deconstructed? as false and generalizing image of oneself and others, and exposed to social-psychological and political-anthropological critique. Instead, the author looks atstereotypes primarily in terms of their linguistic and social?semiotics? and their theoretical and practical usability. Stressing the necessity of relativizing the binary structure of discourse, the author argues thatstereotypes, though indispensable as elements of the?economy? of language and thought, should be socially conceptualized and historicized in analysis. U ovom tekstu autorka daje pregled svog rada tokom proteklog projektnog perioda u kome je istrazivala ulogu, znacenje i mesto stereotipa u identitetskim diskursima. Da bi objasnila razloge i nacine svog bavljenja stereotipima, ona se osvrce kako na evoluciju sopstvenog istrazivackog postupka, tako i na alternativne pristupe temi iz perspektiva razlicitih naucnih disciplina. U nastojanju da izbegne zamku?stereotipnog tumacenja stereotipa?, autorka ne sledi uobicajeni postupak?dekonstrukcije? etnickih stereotipa, kao lane i uopstavajuce predstave o sebi i?drugom?, te njihove socijalno-psiholoske i politicko-antropoloske kritike, vec se prevashodno bavi dimenzijama jezicke i socijalne?semiotike? stereotipa i njihovom teorijskom i prakticnom upotrebljivoscu. Polazeci od neophodnosti stereotipa u?misaonoj ekonomiji?, autorka se u svom postupku zalaze za relativizaciju binarne strukture diskursa, kao i za socijalnu kontekstualizaciju i istorizaciju stereotipa u teorijskoj analizi. (shrink)

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According to Stereotype Threat Hypothesis, fear of confirming genderedstereotypes causes women to experience anxiety in circumstances wherein their performance might potentially confirm thosestereotypes, such as high-stakes testing scenarios in science, technology, engineering, and math courses. This anxiety causes women to underperform, which in turn causes them to withdraw from math-intensive disciplines. STH is thought by many to account for the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields, and a growing body of evidence substantiates this hypothesis. In considering (...) the plausibility of STH as an explanation for women's disproportionate attrition from undergraduate philosophy programs, one is struck by dissimilarities between STEM and philosophy that appear to undermine the applicability of STH to the latter. In this paper, I argue that these dissimilarities are either merely apparent or merely apparently relevant to the plausibility of STH as an explanation for gender disparities in philosophy. I argue further that, if research from STEM uncovers promising strategies for confronting stereotype threat, we should think about how to apply those strategies in our introductory philosophy classrooms. (shrink)

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If someone says, “Asians are good at math” or “women are empathetic,” I might interject, “you're stereotyping” in order to convey my disapproval of their utterance. But why is stereotyping wrong? Before we can answer this question, we must better understand whatstereotypes are and what stereotyping is. In this essay, I develop what I call the descriptive view ofstereotypes and stereotyping. This view is assumed in much of the psychological and philosophical literature on implicit bias and (...) stereotyping, yet it has not been sufficiently defended. The main objection to the descriptive view is that it fails to include the common-sense idea that stereotyping is always objectionable. I argue that this is actually a benefit of the view. In the essay's final part, I put forward two hypotheses that would validate the claim that stereotyping is always morally or epistemically wrong. If these hypotheses are false—which is very likely—we have little reason to build moral or epistemic defect into the very idea of a stereotype. Moreover, we must abandon the seemingly attractive claim that judging individuals based on group membership is intrinsically wrong. (shrink)

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Stereotype threat—a situational context in which individuals are concerned about confirming a negative stereotype—is often shown to impact test performance, with one hypothesized mechanism being that cognitive resources are temporarily co-opted by intrusive thoughts and worries, leading individuals to underperform despite high content knowledge and ability. We test here whether stereotype threat may also impact initial student learning and knowledge formation when experienced prior to instruction. Predominantly African American fifth-grade students provided either their race or the date before a videotaped, (...) conceptually demanding mathematics lesson. Students who gave their race retained less learning over time, enjoyed the lesson less, reported a diminished desire to learn more, and were less likely to choose to engage in an optional math activity. The detrimental impact was greatest among students with high baseline cognitive resources. While stereotype threat has been well documented to harm test performance, the finding that effects extend to initial learning suggests that stereotype threat's contribution to achievement gaps may be greatly underestimated. (shrink)

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This article develops two figures of the social imagination: the stereotype and the emblem. To start with we explore the notion of social imagination, principally from Emile Durkheim, Gaston Bachelard and Maurine Godelier. Secondly, the article deepens the two notions ofstereotypes and emblems supported by the works of the historian Bronislaw Baczko and the anthropologist Michael Herzfeld’s. Throughout the paper, the theoretical aims are illustrated with reference to coal-mining memory and heritage in the north of France.  .

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We comment on Cesario's assertion that social psychological intergroup research focuses solely onstereotypes, neglecting actual differences between groups to explain group disparities. This reasoning, however, misses yet another explaining force: In addition tostereotypes, ample laboratory and field research documents relationships between group disparities, discrimination, and prejudice, which cannot be explained by people's accurate judgments of real-world group differences.

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The first systematic and reasonably comprehensive study of negative cultural stereotyping in early American geography textbooks reveals that the authors did use many negative adjectives in describing peoples, as has been reported on the basis of sometimes flimsy evidence throughout the twentieth century. Turks, Russians, New Hollanders, Lapps, Malayans, North American Indians, Pacific Islanders, and Portuguese especially were apt to be viewed negatively. On the other hand, this systematic study reveals that not all early geographical writers were guilty of negative (...) cultural stereotyping, and that many others made an obvious effort to balance negative adjectives with positive ones. (shrink)

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Boys and men tend to underperform in language education, and they are also underrepresented in language-related fields. Research suggests thatstereotypes can affect students’ performance and sense of belonging in academic subjects and test settings via stereotype threat. For example, girls and women sometimes underperform on math tests following reminders that math is for boys. We sought to test whetherstereotypes that women have better language skills than men would affect men. In a series of four experiments (N (...) = 542), we tested the effect of explicit stereotype threats on men’s performance in language-related tasks, and their sense of belonging to language-related domains. We found little evidence for stereotype threat effects on men in language. Bayesian analysis suggested that the null hypothesis was consistently more likely than the alternative, and mini-meta analyses showed effect sizes near zero. Future research should explore other explanations for gender gaps in language. (shrink)

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It is a common belief that males have superior visuospatial abilities and that differences in this and other cognitive domains (e.g., math) contribute to the reduced interest and low representation of girls and women in STEM education and professions. However, previous studies show that gender-related implicit associations and explicit beliefs, as well as situational variables, might affect cognitive performance in those gender-stereotyped domains and produce between-gender spurious differences. Therefore, the present study aimed to provide information on when, how and who (...) might be affected by the situational reactivation of stereotypic gender-science beliefs/associations while performing a 3D mental rotation chronometric task (3DMRT). More specifically, we assessed the explicit beliefs and implicit associations (by the Implicit Association Test) held by female and male students of humanities and STEM majors and compared their performance in a 3DMRT after receiving stereotype- congruent, incongruent and nullifying experimental instructions. Our results show that implicit stereotypic gender-science associations correlate with 3DMRT performance in both females and males, but that inter-gender differences emerge only under stereotype-reactivating conditions. We also found that changes in self-confidence mediate these instructions’ effects and that academic specialization moderates them, hence promoting 3DMRT performance differences between male and female humanities, but not STEM, students. Taken together, these observations suggest that the common statement “males have superior mental rotation abilities” simplifies a much more complex reality and might promotestereotypes which, in turn, might induce artefactual performance differences between females and males in such tasks. (shrink)

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Stereotypes are often described as being generally inaccurate and irrational. However, for years, a minority of social psychologists has been proclaiming that stereotype accuracy is among the most robust findings in the field. This same minority also opposes the majority by questioning the power of self-fulfilling prophecies and thereby the construction of social reality. The present paper examines this long-standing debate from the perspective of predictive processing, an increasingly influential cognitive science theory. In this theory, stereotype accuracy and self-fulfilling (...) prophecies are two sides of the same coin, namely prediction error minimisation, pointing to a new middle course between the two existing views. On the one hand, predictive processing indicates that depictingstereotypes as generally inaccurate runs counter to their actual purpose of making the social world predictable, which supports the minority view. On the other hand, predictive processing supposes that expectations, includingstereotypes, permanently affect perception and behaviour and thereby co-construct social reality, which supports the majority view. Therefore, from a predictive processing perspective,stereotypes are largely rational and not per se inaccurate, and self-fulfilling prophecies are omnipresent and greatly affect social reality. This new middle course appears to fit the empirical data better than the two existing views. (shrink)

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Stereotypes and prejudice have an important role in conflict resolution. Theyrepresent an underexplored sociological and psychological dimension of ethnic conflictsin the Western Balkans, and particularly in North Macedonia. Most research haveshownthat these are the root causes of interethnic conflict. Moreover, they are consideredthefuelof interethnic and interreligious conflict. The goal of this paper is to (1) present thegeneralrole ofstereotypes and prejudices in intergroup conflict (be it ethnic or religious) conflictand (2) clarify and better understand their nature from socio-psychological (...) perspectiveand (3) explore them on a small sample of140 Macedonian and Albanian children in North Macedonia in the municipalitiesofTetovo and Jegunovce. The research was conducted in February 2020, and HumanFigureDrawing projective technique was used in order to measurestereotypes andprejudice.The results are descriptive an indicate the actual situation in these two municipalities.Further, the findings show that Macedonian group of children could easily imagineanAlbanian as the `other` (friend) whereas the Albanian group of children couldeasilyimagine the `other` (friend) as someone who is not living in the state, not even inthesamemunicipality. This research findings recommend that more strategic and researchbasedapproach should be implemented in relation to minimizing thestereotypes andprejudiceamong Macedonian and Albanian children and improving interethnic coexistenceatgrassroot level. (shrink)

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The paper aims to show how and to what extent social and cultural cues influence figurative language understanding. In the first part of the paper, we argue that social-contextual knowledge is organized in “schemas” orstereotypes, which act as strong bias in speaker’s meaning comprehension. Research in Experimental Pragmatics has shown that age, gender, race and occupationstereotypes are important contextual sources of information to interpret others’ speech and provide an explanation of their behavior. In the second part (...) of the paper, we focus on genderstereotypes and their influence on the comprehension of figurative language, to show how the social functions of figurative language are modulated by genderstereotypes. We provide then an explanation of gender stereotypical bias on figurative language in terms of possible outcomes in the social context. (shrink)

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J. S. Mill’s case against censorship rests on a conception of relevant communications as truth apt. If the communication is true, everyone benefits from the opportunity to exchange error for truth. If it is false, we benefit from the livelier impression truth makes when it collides with error. This classical liberal model is not however adequate for today’s world. In particular, it is inadequate for dealing with the problem of stereotyping. Much contemporary communication is not truth apt. Advertising and journalism, (...) film and fashion portray images that can be neither verified nor refuted. Moreover, where these images do bear some relation to reality, any truth they may possess is not necessarily beneficial. Culturalstereotypes, for example, can be harmful even when true, to the extent that they reflect a distorted reality (the realities of life under conditions of injustice and exploitation). Exposure to suchstereotypes affects a community’s self-conception. The resulting harms may be direct or indirect. Indirect harm is done when a stereotype affects a community’s capacity for self-determination, perpetuating existing inequalities by restricting the options its members understand to be available to them. Direct harm is done when a stereotype induces a distorted self-conception. Pace Kant, human dignity is not purely a function of our capacity to be authors of a universal moral law. It also resides in our capacity to achieve an undistorted self-conception. Thus true communications that reflect a distorted historical reality may threaten our dignity, through their effects on our self-conception, independent of any consequences they may have for self-determining action. (shrink)

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This paper is meant to discuss two diverse but mutually entailed goals, underpinning the analysis of media business discourse. On the one hand, it promotes a critical understanding of how gender marks discourse and encodes power in business discursive communities, thus playing a key role in “shaping the expectations about people’s behaviours”. On the other, it promotes an interdisciplinary approach so as to disambiguate the discursive and argumentative strategies in the construction of media content by focusing on the symbolic organization (...) and interaction between citizens and the discursive communities, in terms of male/female representations, given the way they throw global challenges and/or replicatestereotypes and particular ways of perceiving the business discourse in terms of enunciation. The contrastive analysis of a corpus of magazine texts, covering news in April and May 2011, with a large readership in the global scenario, in Portuguese and in English, uncovers the power imbalance created when media texts pass on stereotypical patterns of behaviour in business and everyday discursive communities. (shrink)

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Discussions in social psychology overlook an important way in which biases can be encoded in conceptual representations. Most accounts of implicit bias focus on ‘mere associations’ between features and representations of social groups. While some have argued that some implicit biases must have a richer conceptual structure, they have said little about what this richer structure might be. To address this lacuna, we build on research in philosophy and cognitive science demonstrating that concepts represent dependency relations between features. These relations, (...) in turn, determine the centrality of a feature f for a concept C: roughly, the more features of C depend on f, the more central f is for C. In this paper, we argue that the dependency networks that link features can encode significant biases. To support this claim, we present a series of studies that show how a particular brilliance-gender bias is encoded in the dependency networks which are part of the concepts of female and male academics. We also argue that biases which are encoded in dependency networks have unique implications for social cognition. (shrink)

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This paper is about paradigmatic slurs, i.e. expressions that are prima facie associated with the expression of a contemptuous attitude concerning a group of people identified in terms of its origin or descent, race, sexual orientation, ethnia or religion, gender, etc. Our purpose is twofold: explaining their expressive meaning dimension in terms of a version of stereotype semantics and analysing their original and most typical uses as insults, which will be called with a neologism ‘insultive’, in terms of a speech (...) act theory. (shrink)

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The relevance of this study consists in the entire society’s strong awareness of the need for gender equality, not only in a practical sense but also at the level of communicative culture. This culture strongly influences people’s self-awareness and often determines their role in everyday life, depending on the attitude inherent in the lexical units that are applied to an individual. The purpose of the study is the most complete consideration of the specific features of gender stereotype functioning and development (...) in the Kazakh language in different aspects, the identification of types of gender vocabulary, and consideration of the historical and cultural context of the development and functioning of a gender stereotype in the Kazakh language. Both linguistic and historical methods were used, which allowed for considering the communicative culture of the Kazakh language not only in modern realities but also in a historical context. As a result of the study, the phraseologisms of the Kazakh language, including genderstereotypes, were considered, and the features of gender stereotype development in the historical context were considered. As a result of the study, a conclusion was made about the specific features of the development and functioning of the gender stereotype in the Kazakh language, its spread in the communicative culture of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the influence on the perception of individuals due to the use of gender-coloured lexical units in their address, and the definition of genderstereotypes of “masculinity” and “femininity” was made, which allowed for a more accurate classification of the gender-coloured group of lexical units in the Kazakh language. (shrink)

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Exploring the locality stereotype with respect to CEO’s trustworthiness, we find that firms whose CEOs are from more reputable hometowns have a higher likelihood of stock price crashes, indicating the presence of a CEO “Trust Exploitation” effect, i.e. a high-trust identity does not guarantee managerial ethics; to the contrary, it could tempt CEOs to abuse outsiders’ trust, camouflage their misconducts and conceal adverse information more severely. The effect of CEO’s perceived trustworthiness on tail risk of stock price remains robust when (...) controlling for the region-level trust of firm’s headquarters, and in 2SLS regression with an instrumental variable. Further, CEO’s “Trust Exploitation” effect is more prominent among firms with lower disclosure quality, higher capital market pressure and higher CEO incentives. Our findings highlight an unexplored imperfection of individual-level trustworthiness as a reliable substitute for formal monitoring devices in terms of improving stock market stability. (shrink)

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It seems interesting to find out how the situation of the Polish ART practice is reflected in the medical students’ opinions. To answer this question we carried out a two-stage research adopting a data-driven methodology based upon the grounded theory, in which we collected a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data. Our study has revealed students’ high acceptance of IVF and most of the additional procedures, except for IVF in the case of women over 40 and postmenopausal ones. The students’ (...) main concerns were to be compatible with what is presented in medical literature and commonly accepted in medical practice, so the core categories they focused on in their argumentation were medical evidence and medical standards. Whereas the students were consistently trying to ground their reasoning on medical knowledge, their opinions reflected not only statements based on hard data, but also some genderstereotypes hidden in medical literature. (shrink)

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The stereotype content model defines warmth and competence as basic dimensions of social judgment, with warmth often dominating perceptions; it also states that many group-relatedstereotypes are ambivalent, featuring high levels on one dimension and low levels on the other. Persuasion theories feature both direct and indirect source effects. Combining both the approaches, we studied the persuasiveness of ambivalently stereotyped sources. Participants read persuasive arguments attributed to groups stereotyped as either low in competence but high in warmth or vice (...) versa. In Study 1, high competence/low warmth sources were more persuasive than low competence/high warmth sources. In Study 2, this pattern replicated when an accuracy motive had been induced, whereas it reversed when a connectedness motive had been induced. These source effects were direct, that is, independent of message processing. We discuss our findings in terms of the persuasiveness of warmth vs. competence of the source as being dependent on recipient motivation; we also consider theoretical implications and perspectives for future research. (shrink)

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Some people succeed in adopting feminist ideals in spite of the prevalence of asymmetric power relations. However, those who adopt such ideals face a number of psychological difficulties in inhibiting stereotype-based judgments. I argue that a Spinozan theory of belief fixation offers a more complete understanding of the mechanisms that underwrite our intuitive stereotype-based judgments. I also argue that a Spinozan theory of belief fixation offers resources for avoiding stereotype-based judgments where they are antecedently recognized to be pernicious and insidious. (...) Key Words: Spinozan theory of mind •stereotypes • feminism • dual-process theory. (shrink)

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Throughout history, society has been marked by a patriarchal system that has subordinated women. Although the fight for equality has advanced, it wasn't until the 20th century that women began to gain significant recognition. The purpose of the study is to identify how students from two higher education institutions perceive machismo. A specific instrument was designed to collect general data (school, gender, personality, sex life, religion, LGBT+ community) and 100 variables related to machismo, measured on a scale of 0 to (...) 100. The sample included 100 students (50 from the Public University and 50 from the Tecnológico de Saltillo). Statistical methods were used for the analysis of frequency, percentages, characterization, correlation and comparison using Student's t-test. According to the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 5, which promotes gender equality, the results indicate that students at the Technological Institute perceive more genderstereotypes, but consider their teachers to be better qualified. In both contexts, violent and sexist behaviors are identified, such as rejection and aggression, which perpetuate genderstereotypes. Women report greater inequality and digital violence. It is recommended to implement public policies to punish violent behavior and improve empowerment and gender equality in the educational field. (shrink)

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Wisdom and wickedness as a 'Woman' have always attracted much discussion, especially in the ways images of the female are employed in wisdom literature. This article focuses on two Qumran texts that fall into the category of wisdom literature, namely 4Q184 and 4Q185, and the metaphorical appropriation of the woman as a figure of wisdom or a figure of wickedness. By combining a number of traditions in certain forms, sages tried to establish an education for their learners on how to (...) obtain wisdom with the ultimate purpose of creating harmony. The ultimate purpose of the wisdom teachings of the sages was to confirm the harmony in the universe, and these teachings were also conveyed to their learners. In their instructions, they often employed binary opposites such as 'wise' and 'fool' according to which someone was characterised, or rather stereotyped. The result of such binary stereotyping was that the 'whore' and the 'holy one' represented opposite poles, and became fixed images in Judaism. According to feminist exegetes, these images typify the concept of cultural stereotyping. This article aims to illustrate that two Qumran texts, 4Q184 and 4Q185, regarded as wisdom texts, employ the femalestereotypes that were known in the wisdom literature of Judaism. (shrink)

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