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Cognitive models
If personality approaches emphasize the who of stereotyping, and motivational approaches address the why, then cognitive models identify the how. One way to think about stereotypes is to see them as a special kind of schema. Recall that schemas are beliefs or theories that people carry around in their heads about how the world works. They allow us to categorize the objects in the world (e.g., Laz-e-boys™ are chairs, Sherri is an introvert, and macaques are monkeys) and then make inferences about those objects based on our knowledge of the categories (e.g, Laz-e-boys™ are for sitting, Sherri is likely to be quiet, and macaques live in trees). Similarly, stereotypes are beliefs or theories about what members of particular groups are like. They are expectations that are widely shared within a culture. Engineers are meticulous. Lawyers are argumentative. Professors are absent-minded. Stereotypes and perceptions
Like schemas, more generally, stereotypes have the power to shape
our perceptions of, and interactions with, others <REF>(Hilton
& von Hippel , 1996). Consider a study by John Darley and
Paget Gross <REF>(1983) that examined the impact that people's
stereotypes of the rich and poor What the Darley and Gross study demonstrates is that stereotypes have the power to shape our perceptions of others. Just as Hastorf and Cantril found that university students' perceptions are shaped by the schemas they have for their classmates and their opponents, Darley and Gross found that people's perceptions are shaped by stereotypes.
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had
on their perceptions of a little girl named Hannah. In the study,
all of the subjects were told that Hannah was in the fourth grade.
Half of them were also told that she was from a very wealthy family,
while the other half were told that she was from a very poor family.
All of the subjects then saw a videotape in which Hannah took
an oral test. Hannah's performance on the test was ambiguous.
She got some easy questions right, but she missed some as well.
Similarly, she got some hard questions right, but she missed others.
After watching her performance, the subjects were asked to estimate
the grade level of her performance. The subjects who thought she
was from a poor background rated her performance at or below the
fourth grade. But those who thought she was from a wealthy background
rated her performance significantly above the fourth gradeódespite
the fact that they saw exactly the same performance.
