The communicative etiology of consensual stereotypes: Integrating common information bias and positive ingroup bias

Open Access
- Author:
- Zhu, Xun
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 30, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Rachel A. Smith, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Rachel A. Smith, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Lijiang Shen, Committee Member
Jon F. NussBaum, Committee Member
D. Wayne Osgood, Outside Member
Dennis S. Gouran, Committee Member - Keywords:
- consensual stereotypes
social identity
social comparisons
small group communication
intergroup communication
linguistic abstraction
social influence
heuristics
multilevel modeling
multilevel mediation
experiment - Abstract:
- How do stereotypes against an outgroup become consensual through ingroup communication? To advance the theoretical understanding of this question, this dissertation presents a two-phase model of consensual stereotype formation. In the first phase, ingroup members build a common core of consensual stereotypes by selectively sharing some stereotypic attributes and strategically expressing them with abstract language. In the second phase, exposure to the specific stereotypic attributes, expressed more or less abstractly, leads the ingroup to achieve a collective endorsement of the outgroup stereotypes. The two-phase model was tested by means of a laboratory-based experiment in which participants in small groups discussed and evaluated the stereotypic attributes about an outgroup. The results supported the predictions in the common core phase, as well as provided partial support in the collective endorsement phase. When the participants’ ingroup identity was salient, stereotypic attributes that devalued (vs. praised) the outgroup were mentioned more frequently and abstractly. When participants’ personal identity was salient, stereotypic attributes known to the entire ingroup (vs. one member only) were mentioned more frequently and abstractly. The more frequently an ingroup as a whole mentioned stereotypic attributes about the outgroup, the more strongly the ingroup members endorsed the outgroup stereotypes because the attributes were perceived as valid. No evidence indicated that linguistic abstraction affected perceived representativeness of the stereotypic attributes, even though ingroup members endorsed the stereotypes that they considered as representative of the outgroup. The theoretical implications of the findings were discussed in the broader context of social influence and norm formation.