Chapter 16. What Constitutes Evidence of Stereotype Accuracy?<\/p>\n
Abstract<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 This chapter lays the groundwork for understanding Chapter 17, which reviews every high quality scientific investigation of the (in)accuracy of stereotypes that I could find.\u00a0 Chapter 16 facilitates understanding Chapter 17 by: 1) Discussing how understanding accuracy requires first understanding three different levels of analysis (population, small group, person perception), that (in)accuracy at one level rarely provides any information about (in)accuracy at any of the other levels, and that researchers committed to a view of stereotypes as inaccurate frequently do indeed confound these levels; 2) reviewing the earliest research suggesting that stereotypes are not necessarily inaccurate, including the \u201ckernel of truth\u201d hypothesis, and the fact that this empirical evidence apparently had no effect on the dominant view in the social sciences that stereotypes were inaccurate; 3) discussing the quality standards that studies had to meet in order to be included in the Chapter 17 review; 4) discussing the main two types of stereotype (in)accuracy, discrepancies from perfection and correspondence with real differences; and 5) discussing how these two types of (in)accuracy can occur at either the level of consensual stereotypes (what most people generally believe) or personal stereotypes (what a particular individual believes). Understanding these issues are necessary for understanding the review of empirical research on stereotype accuracy in the next chapter.
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\n<\/i><\/b>EXCERPTS:<\/i><\/b>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A common reaction to research demonstrating stereotype accuracy is \u201cyes but…\u201d\u00a0 A \u201cyes but\u201d occurs whenever incontrovertible evidence of stereotype accuracy is presented, and a person steeped in traditions viewing stereotypes as unmitigated evils responds with \u201cYes, but what about ______?\u201d\u00a0 (You can fill in the blank with your preferred objection to stereotype accuracy research, if you have one; if not, suffice it to say that some common \u201cyes buts\u201d include: \u201cYes, but what about self-fulfilling prophecies?\u201d \u201cYes, but what about biased evaluations,\u201d \u201cYes, but what about information-seeking biases?\u201d \u201cYes, but what about stereotype threat?\u201d etc.).\u00a0 Of course, each \u201cyes but\u201d can be addressed on its own merits.\u00a0 Chapter 1\u2019s discussion of stereotype threat was essentially a refutation of a \u201cyes but\u201d; and Chapters 6-9 should refute most of the \u201cyes buts\u201d arising out of all the expectancy-confirmation literature addressed in Chapters 4 and 5.
\nIn general, people engage in the \u201cYes, but\u2026\u201d tactic in response to evidence of stereotype accuracy when they: 1) are committed to a position emphasizing stereotype inaccuracy, bias, or irrationality; 2) are unwilling or unable to refute the evidence demonstrating rationality, reasonableness, or accuracy; so that 3) they (perhaps somewhat defensively) attempt to \u201climit the damage\u201d by acknowledging the existence of some degree of stereotype accuracy (this is the \u201cyes\u201d in \u201cYes, but\u2026\u201d), and then returning as quickly as possible to the evidence of bias with which they are generally much more familiar or comfortable (this is the \u201cbut\u2026\u201d in \u201cYes, but\u2026\u201d).
\nSome \u201cyes buts,\u201d however, seem so reasonable, and are so widely believed to negate any possibility of stereotype accuracy that it is worth spending some time on them.\u00a0 One such common \u201cyes but\u201d is the following: \u201cYes, but even a stereotype that is, in some sense, \u201caccurate\u201d as a description of a group mean, will not apply to most members of the stereotyped group, because hardly anyone falls on the mean. Therefore, even such stereotypes are inaccurate most of the time.\u201d Let\u2019s examine this more closely.\u00a0 Variations on this \u201cyes but\u201d summarizes a class of criticisms of notion of stereotype accuracy that has periodically appeared in the social psychological literature (e.g., Allport, 1954; APA, 1990; Fiske, 1998; Hamilton, et al, 1990; Nelson, 2002; Stangor, 1995):
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\nClaims suggesting that stereotypes are inaccurate because they do not apply to all individual members of a group (Allport, 1954\/1979; APA, 1990; Fiske, 1998; Hamilton, et al, 1990; Nelson, 2002; Stangor, 1995) are both true and false.\u00a0 The claim that stereotypes cannot possibly apply to all individual members of a group is completely true.\u00a0 The suggestion that this renders stereotypes inaccurate is, however, unjustified because it confounds levels of analysis (population and either small group, individual, or both).\u00a0 A claim about a population cannot be evaluated against the characteristics of an individual, or even small groups of individuals.\u00a0 Consistency between the level of the perception and the level of the criterion must be maintained when assessing accuracy by comparing: beliefs about populations (stereotypes) to characteristics of those population groups; beliefs about differences between small groups of individuals to the actual differences between those small groups of individuals. <\/i>
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\nThe Fate of the Early Hints and Whispers That Stereotypes Are Not Always Inaccurate
\nNearly all of this early scholarship pointed in the same direction \u2013 that, frequently, many stereotypes had at least some degree of accuracy.\u00a0 Nonetheless, this research had no effect whatsoever on the conception of stereotypes as irrational reflections of bigotry in popular culture.\u00a0 Even more startling is that, until the 1990s, it had a nearly equally nonexistent effect on most social scientific views of stereotypes (see, e.g., the discussion of stereotypes that appear in almost any graduate or undergraduate psychology text from the 1980s and early 1990s and in prestigious and influential Handbook chapters, Annual Review chapters, and the like)…
\nThis is not just my opinion.\u00a0 Prominent psychological articles and texts from the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s are peppered with claims emphasizing the unjustified or inaccurate nature of stereotypes (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1984, 1990; Jones, 1986; Pinderhughes, 1989; Snyder, 1984; Snyder, et al., 1977).\u00a0\u00a0 As Chapters 5 and 15 documented, they are also quite common today.\u00a0 These claims were typically made without citation of articles demonstrating inaccuracy, which reflects the widespread agreement that one could take for granted as fact that stereotypes were inaccurate.\u00a0 Just as one need not cite evidence to support the claim that \u201cthe sky is blue\u201d one needed no research citation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"