Exposure to atypical exemplars : implications for stereotypic judgments of the group and the individual
Date
2004
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Haverford College. Department of Psychology
Type
Thesis
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
eng
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Open Access
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
Social judgment research indicates that the direction of social judgments is dependent upon how a judge categorizes both the contextual stimuli and the target. Specifically, when a target is included in the representation of the contextual information, the target judgment will be assimilated towards the implications of the context, and vice versa. If the target is excluded from the representation of the context, the implications of the context will be contrasted away from the target, and vice versa. Exposure to a member of a stereotyped group thus affects subsequent judgments of both the group and the individual, but in opposite ways, and the direction is dependent upon whether the judge includes the individual in the stereotyped group or excludes the individual from the group. The present research builds upon these findings in three significant ways. First, unlike most previous studies, the exemplar we are examining is atypical in that it does not manifest all the expected traits associated with its group. Further, we examine not only the effect on the stereotyped group, but also the effect on the exemplar to which participants were originally exposed. Third, the contextual information is more complex than it has been in previous studies, with the intent of making such a presentation more naturalistic. The results revealed that including a well-integrated but atypical individual in, or excluding this individual from, a stereotyped group did not influence subsequent judgments of the stereotypicality of the group or of the individual. However, the order in which participants answered questions about the target (either group followed by individual, or individual followed by group), did influence judgments of stereotypicality. The factors that influence judges' categorization decisions are discussed in relation to these findings.