Sorority See, Sorority Do

The present study sought to examine how social identity and engagement with media that includes stereotypical depictions of an individual’s in-group may play a role in the extent to which individuals assign those stereotypes to their group and themselves, using sorority women as the population and social group of interest. Results revealed that the more sorority women identified with their group membership, the more likely they were to engage with media that often includes stereotypical depictions of sorority women. Greater engagement with such media was then related to a greater likelihood of self-stereotyping, mediated in part by a greater likelihood to also attribute those stereotypes to their group. These findings provide support for the reinforcing spirals model and differential susceptibility of media effects model, such that individual dispositional factors can play a role in one’s media use, particularly when those factors are related to personal or social identity and then relate to how individuals incorporate relevant beliefs (e.g., stereotyping) endorsed in respective media.