By use of a dual-task paradigm, 3 studies investigated the contention that stereotypes function as resource-preserving devices in mental life. In Study 1, Ss formed impressions of targets while simultaneously monitoring a prose passage. The results demonstrated a significant enhancement in Ss' prose-monitoring performance when stereotype labels were present on the impression-formation task. To investigate the intentionality of this effect, in Study 2, the procedures used in Study 1 were repeated using a subliminal priming procedure to activate stereotypes. Subliminal activation of stereotypes produced the same resource-preserving effects as supraliminal activation did. This effect, moreover, was replicated in Study 3 when a probe reaction task was used to measure resource preservation. These findings, which generalized across a range of social stereotypes, are discussed in terms of their implications for contemporary models of stereotyping and social inference. Human adaptation to the challenging and complex environment has often taken the form of developing tools that facilitate the execution of mundane but necessary tasks, leaving more time and energy available for other, perhaps more interesting or rewarding activities. It is reasonable to suppose, as some contemporary psychologists have, that the development of physical tools, such as plows or printing presses, has been paralleled by the development of cognitive "tools," or routine strategies of inference and evaluation (cf. Tooby & Cosmides, 1990) that permit a sufficiently effective analysis of the social environment to be accomplished in an efficient fashion. The benefit of such mental tools presumably lies in the fact that they free up limited cognitive resources for the performance of other necessary or desirable mental activities. Social psychologists have frequently characterized stereotypes as energy-saving devices that serve the important cognitive function of simplifying information processing and response generation (e.g., Allport, 1954; Andersen, Klatzky, & Murray, 1990; Bodenhausen & Lichtenstein, 1987; Brewer, 1988; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Tajfel, 1969). Building on this tradition, Gilbert and Hixon (1991) aptly characterized stereotypes as "tools that jump out" of a metaphorical cognitive toolbox "when there is a job to be done" (p. 510). Anyone who has ever succumbed to the temptation to evaluate others in terms of their social group membership would doubtlessly recognize the power of this contention. Individuation, in its many guises, is a rather

Stereotypes as energy-saving devices: A peek inside the cognitive toolbox.

The authors propose a justification-suppression model (JSM), which characterizes the processes that lead to prejudice expression and the experience of one's own prejudice. They suggest that "genuine" prejudices are not directly expressed but are restrained by beliefs, values, and norms that suppress them. Prejudices are expressed when justifications (e.g., attributions, ideologies, stereotypes) release suppressed prejudices. The same process accounts for which prejudices are accepted into the self-concept The JSM is used to organize the prejudice literature, and many empirical findings are recharacterized as factors affecting suppression or justification, rather than directly affecting genuine prejudice. The authors discuss the implications of the JSM for several topics, including prejudice measurement, ambivalence, and the distinction between prejudice and its expression.

/pdf/a-justification-suppression-model-of-the-expression-and-c7ow5siqxy.pdf

A justification-suppression model of the expression and experience of prejudice.

Publisher Summary This chapter provides an overview of research on accuracy, error, bias, and self-fulfilling prophecies. It also reviews a research showing that teacher expectations predict student achievement—mainly because they are accurate, although they do lead to small self-fulfilling prophecies and biases. The conditions under which self-fulfilling prophecies might be considerably more powerful are embarked. The results of new research showing that teacher expectancy effects are more powerful among girls, students from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds or African–Americans are also addressed. Some evidence of bias show differences in teacher's perceptions of students from the differing groups corresponded well to actual differences among those same groups of students. The chapter also analyzes ways to distinguish among self fulfilling prophecies, perceptual biases, and accuracy, and examines processes underlying expectancy-related phenomena—discoveries have some relevance and applicability to many other relationships beyond teachers and students. Conceptual model of relationships between teacher perceptions and student achievement and some evidence regarding the role of stereotypes in naturally occurring person perception is also explained in the chapter.

Social Perception, Social Stereotypes, and Teacher Expectations: Accuracy and the Quest for the Powerful Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Preface Introduction General overview 1. The psychological basis of intergroup relations 1.1 Intergroup behaviour 1.2 Psychological intergroup repertoire 1.3 Formation of the psychological intergroup repertoire 1.4 Conclusions 2. Psychological intergroup repertoire in intractable conflicts 2.1 Intractable conflicts 2.2 Societal beliefs in intractable conflicts 2.3 Negative psychological intergroup repertoire 2.4 Conclusions 3. The context: The Arab-Israeli intractable conflict 3.1 Socio-cultural context 3.2 The intractable nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict 3.3 The Jewish narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict 3.4 Israeli Jewish ethos of conflict 3.5 Conclusions 4. Representation of Arabs in public discourse 4.1 The impact of mass media 4.2 Public discourse before the establishment of the State 4.3 Public discourse by leaders 4.4 Public discourse through the media in the State of Israel 4.5 Research on the presentation of Palestinians in the Israeli mass media 4.6 Research on the presentation of Arab citizens of the State of Israel in the media 4.7 Conclusions 5. Representation of Arabs in school textbooks 5.1 Presentation of Arabs in school textbooks of the pre-state period 5.2 Presentation of Arabs in school textbooks from 1948 up to the early 1970s 5.3 Presentation of Arabs in school textbooks between the mid 1970s and 1990s 5.4 Conclusions 6. Representation of Arabs in cultural products 6.1 Adult Hebrew literature 6.2 Children's literature 6.3 Hebrew drama 6.4 Israeli films 6.5 Conclusions 7. Representation of Arabs by Israeli Jews: review of empirical research 7.1 Psychological repertoire towards Arabs 7.2 Views about Arab-Israeli relations 7.3 Views about Arabs 7.4 Citizens of Israel 7.5 Conclusions 8. The development of shared psychological intergroup repertoire in a conflict: theory and methods 8.1 The cognitive foundations of social representations 8.2 Personality development, personality states, and social representations 8.3 The context of social representations 8.4 An integrative developmental-contextual approach for the acquisition and development of stereotypes and prejudice 8.5 Assessment of children's social representations - general considerations 8.6 Conclusions 9. Studies with preschoolers 9.1 Objectives and overview 9.2 Words, concepts, identities, stereotypes, and attitudes 9.3 Images, stereotypes, and attitudes in different social environments 9.4 General discussion 9.5 Conclusions 10. Studies with school children, adolescents, and young adults 10.1 Objectives and overview 10.2 Image acquisition 10.3 Influences of specific environments 10.4 Differentiation and generalisation 10.5 Sense of knowledge, perceived similarity, and perceived quality of relations as predictors of stereotypes and attitudes 10.6 General discussion 10.7 Conclusions 11. The reflection of social images in human figure drawing 11.1 The development and meaning of drawings 11.2 Obtaining and scoring the drawings 11.3 Scoring the beliefs and intentions questionnaire 11.4 Research overview and objectives 11.5 General discussion 11.6 Conclusions 12. General conclusions and implications 12.1 Conclusions 12.2 Changing the shared psychological intergroup repertoire of people involved in intractable conflict: general observations 12.3 Changing the psychological intergroup repertoire in the context of intractable conflict: thoughts about intervention 12.4 Final words 12.5 References.

Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: Representations of Arabs in Israeli-Jewish Society

Prospect theory scholars have identified important human decision-making biases, but they have been conspicuously silent on the question of the origin of these biases. Here we create a model that shows preferences consistent with prospect theory may have an origin in evolutionary psychology. Specifically, we derive a model from risk-sensitive optimal foraging theory to generate an explanation for the origin and function of context-dependent risk aversion and risk seeking behavior. Although this model suggests that human cognitive architecture evolved to solve particular adaptive problems related to finding sufficient food resources to survive, we argue that this same architecture persists and is utilized in other survival-related decisions that are critical to understanding political outcomes. In particular, we identify important departures from standard results when we incorporate prospect theory into theories of spatial voting and legislator behavior, international bargaining and conflict, and economic development and reform.

On the Evolutionary Origin of Prospect Theory Preferences

Three approaches to the nature of human rationality are considered: Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on decision making, David Hume on causation, and Peter Strawson on morality. All are seen as deploring the state of rational thought and despairing of the human capacity for logic. Their implicit model of the perfectly rational human is explored with the help of Mr. Spock and found to be of doubtful value considered in terms of evolutionary survival, where "prejudgment" is essential to decision making under stress. The glimmerings of this insight are found in Hume's "therapeutic" solution to his existential dilemma, and a general argument is made-with the help of side glances at prototype theory, linguistics, categorical thinking, and archetypes-that rationality cannot be equated with "logic" as generally understood but rather consists of a series of pragmatic prejudgments of reality that have stood the test of natural selection. This leads to a reconstruction of the idea of "prejudice" from a negative to a mildly positive attribute, with examples drawn from Charles Lamb and Paul Robeson, and hence to the conclusion that prejudice is not a warpedform of thought but that thought is a particular form of prejudice.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1449204

Prejudice and the Unfinished Mind: A New Look at an Old Failing

If only we could all meet over dinner! The problem with peer commentary-excellent and sobering as it is-is the lack of immediate feedback, the inability to put to rest at once the misgivings or the misreadings, the long delay between comment and response. Perhaps computer networking will someday substitute for commensal conversation: It will be almost as fast, but not nearly as much fun. But let me start by observing that as a relative outsider to the world of social psychology (although I did study it in the old Social Relations Department at Harvard in the late 1950s), I was delighted to meet all these (mostly new) colleagues and to acknowledge my delight in their incisive but fair criticism, tolerance of eccenticity, and general good humor. I think the content of my stereotype of social psychologists has been changed for the better by this encounter. (I won't elaborate on what that content was; I think they can probably guess.) One problem is, however, raised by the very fact that the respondents are-all but one-social psychologists. Naturally they tend to deal with what they know best; but this leaves three quarters of the paper uncommented on, except obliquely or briefly. Thus, practically everyone has a go at the Kahneman and Tversky "base-rate versus individuation" issue, but no one tackles the equally important part on Strawson's moral philosophy, and only Masters, himself a political philosopher, treats at all with Hume-with what I consider the central part of the argument. And even though I thought it was quite an important part of my demonstration, no one tackled my one empirical example of Charles Lamb-except again very obliquely. Thus, we have a somewhat lopsided set of comments here that do not, I think, come to grips with the totality of the paper. I gather philosophers were invited but did not respond (except for Masters). Given the way the academic game is played (no payoff for them in contributing to a psychology journal), this is understandable, if a little depressing; but it is also a pity because I could have ditched the whole Kahneman and Tversky example (or substituted another) without any great loss to the argument. But Hume, Strawson, and Lamb I feel I need. I don't need Star Trek either. Obviously this was popped in there because the article began as a lecture to a general university audience and I wanted some point of contact with people-particularly students-who might not be in the behavioral sciences or philosophy at all. But equally obviously, this example touched a nerve, both at the lecture and with some of the commentators. This is in itself very interesting as a phenomenon, and confirms this Trekker's (not Trekkie's, please) belief in the power of the Star Trek paradigm (or whatever). So for the present I just have to deal with the truncated commentary and do my best with it, while perhaps reminding the contributors, from time to time, that I am not so much concerned with the social psychology of stereotyping as with the more general philosophical/psychological issue: "What happens when we think, and why does it happen the way it does?" (I like this formulation better than "How does the mind work?" which perhaps begs too many questions.) This in turn leads to the question: "What does this tell us about the nature of human reasoning?" This question intrigues me because reason (usually equated with logical reasoning) is so often cited as the crucial feature distinguishing us from the beasts; We are, after all, Homo sapiens sapiens. Here once again, Hume's skepticism sets the agenda for the modern way into that question. The issues of stereotyping/ categorizing are themselves ways into Hume's question, and Kahneman and Tversky offered a way into these issues. I chose Kahneman and Tversky deliberately because of their bemoaning of the parlous state of human reasoning, and therefore their implicit acceptance of an ideal of reasoning that equated it with the perfectly logical-the "finished"mind: the "Spock syndrome," if you like. This was really a way to draw psychologists into the fundamental problem as stated by Hume, and elaborated on by Strawson, and ultimately into my notion that Hume had in fact proposed the correct solution to his problem without realizing it. In that solution lay the answer to those basic questions about thought and reason: the Darwinian answer, the adaptational answer, or however you want to phrase it (except as the "sociobiological" answer: more on this later). Since the idea of stereotyping is inextricably linked to that of prejudice, I felt obliged to try to make the link as I saw it. The first version of the essay in fact did not do this and stuck to the philosophical issues as such. Its title was "Reason and the Unfinished Mind" or something such; it is long since erased. But when it came to be rewritten as a public lecture, Felix Browder suggested that I expand it to cover the prejudice issue, and so I dug up Charles Lamb, Paul Robeson, Berrnhard Goetz, Rudyard Kipling, and a few other things to try to help make the link. I obviously disturbed a hornet's nest in the process. I fear that, like the unhappy Queen Gertrude, the author doth protest too much. But I thought this little explanation might help to clear the decks concerning my intentions in the

Robin Fox

Papers

Prejudice and the Unfinished Mind: A New Look at an Old Failing

Prejudice and the Unfinished Task