Meta-Stereotype Activation

Evidence From Indirect Measures for Specific Evaluative Concerns Experienced by Members of Dominant Groups in Intergroup Interaction

Vorauer, Jacquie D.
Hunter, A. J.
Main, Kelley J.
Roy, Scott A.

¹Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

²Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jacquie D. Vorauer, Department of Psychology, Duff Roblin Building, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3T 2N2. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

This research was facilitated by grants from the University of Manitoba/Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grants program. Portions of this article were completed while Jacquie D. Vorauer was on research leave at the University of Waterloo. We thank Dan Bailis, Ziva Kunda, Mike Ross, and Steve Spencer for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article; Nicki Smith for conducting Study 4; Ashley Fleming and Valerie Krysanski for coding the open-ended responses; and Mark Baldwin for assisting with computer programming for Study 2. Study 6 was the basis of an honors thesis submitted by Scott A. Roy to the University of Manitoba.

Received Date: August 10, 1999; Revised Date: November 10, 1999; Accepted Date: November 15, 1999

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78(4):p 690-707, April 2000.

Six experiments demonstrated that dominant group members readily frame intergroup interaction in terms of how they themselves are evaluated. The authors used indirect measures of meta-stereotype activation to assess dominant group members' inclination to spontaneously consider an out-group member's (ostensible) stereotypic expectations about them. The necessary conditions for meta-stereotype activation were rather minimal, but the potential for evaluation by an out-group member—as opposed to mere exposure to the person—was required. Individual differences involving the importance accorded to social evaluation (public self-consciousness and personal importance of racial attitudes) were associated with meta-stereotype activation, whereas racial attitudes were not. Two studies in which evaluative orientation was manipulated directly demonstrated a link between thinking in terms of how one is viewed and the activation and application of meta-stereotypes.