1 Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
2 University of Chicago, IL, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2017 Sep;43(9):1323-1336. doi: 10.1177/0146167217713190. Epub 2017 Jun 15.
Stereotypes are often presumed to exaggerate group differences, but empirical evidence is mixed. We suggest exaggeration is moderated by the accessibility of specific stereotype content. In particular, because the most accessible stereotype contents are attributes perceived to differ between groups, those attributes are most likely to exaggerate actual group differences due to regression to the mean. We tested this hypothesis using a highly accessible gender stereotype: that women are more socially sensitive than men. We confirmed that the most accessible stereotype content involves attributes perceived to differ between groups (pretest), and that these stereotypes contain some accuracy but significantly exaggerate actual gender differences (Experiment 1). We observe less exaggeration when judging less accessible stereotype content (Experiment 2), or when judging individual men and women (Experiment 3). Considering the accessibility of specific stereotype content may explain when stereotypes exaggerate actual group differences and when they do not.
刻板印象通常被认为夸大了群体差异，但经验证据喜忧参半。我们认为，刻板印象的夸张程度受到特定刻板印象内容可及性的调节。具体来说，由于最易接近的刻板印象内容是被认为在群体之间存在差异的属性，由于向平均值回归，这些属性最有可能夸大实际的群体差异。我们使用一个高度可及的性别刻板印象来检验这个假设：即女性比男性更具有社会敏感性。我们证实，最易接近的刻板印象内容涉及到被认为在群体之间存在差异的属性（前测），并且这些刻板印象包含一些准确性，但显著夸大了实际的性别差异（实验 1）。当判断不太容易接近的刻板印象内容时（实验 2），或者当判断个别男性和女性时（实验 3），我们观察到的夸张程度较小。考虑特定刻板印象内容的可及性可能解释了为什么刻板印象会夸大实际的群体差异，以及为什么不会。
