Changing stereotypes of the target group and the alternative group

When people encounter information that is incongruent with a stereotype the logical expectation is that the relevant stereotype should change. However, research on stereotype change suggests that stereotypes are remarkably resistant to change. A limitation of this research is that it often treats stereotypes as independently from other stereotypes. When all members of a population can be categorized into a limited number of groups, however, stereotypes may be interdependent. For instance, all humans are male or female. Attributing a characteristic to one gender therefore implies denying that characteristic to the other gender. One implication of the interdependence of stereotypes is that stereotype-incongruent information about one group (the target group) may evoke a change in the stereotype about another group (the alternative group). Using a paradigm in which participants learned stereotypes about two complementary groups and then encountered information that was incongruent with one of these stereotypes we tested this implication. The stereotype learning procedure successfully created the stereotypes. As compared to a control condition in which participants received additional stereotype-congruent information about a target group, additional stereotype-incongruent information changed their stereotype of that target group. Importantly, stereotype-incongruent information about a target group also affected the stereotype about the alternative group. To the best of our knowledge this is the first demonstration that a group stereotype may change following a confrontation with stereotype-incongruent information about another group.status: publishe