Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
2017, Vol. 146, No. 5, 607– 614
© 2017 American Psychological Association
0096-3445/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000297
BRIEF REPORT
Investigating the Cognitive Structure of Stereotypes: Generic Beliefs About
Groups Predict Social Judgments Better Than Statistical Beliefs
Matthew D. Hammond
Andrei Cimpian
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Victoria University of Wellington
New York University
Stereotypes are typically defined as beliefs about groups, but this definition is underspecified. Beliefs
about groups can be generic or statistical. Generic beliefs attribute features to entire groups (e.g., men
are strong), whereas statistical beliefs encode the perceived prevalence of features (e.g., how common it
is for men to be strong). In the present research, we sought to determine which beliefs— generic or
statistical—are more central to the cognitive structure of stereotypes. Specifically, we tested whether
generic or statistical beliefs are more influential in people’s social judgments, on the assumption that
greater functional importance indicates greater centrality in stereotype structure. Relative to statistical
beliefs, generic beliefs about social groups were significantly stronger predictors of expectations (Studies
1–3) and explanations (Study 4) for unfamiliar individuals’ traits. In addition, consistent with prior
evidence that generic beliefs are cognitively simpler than statistical beliefs, generic beliefs were
particularly predictive of social judgments for participants with more intuitive (vs. analytic) cognitive
styles and for participants higher (vs. lower) in authoritarianism, who tend to view outgroups in
simplistic, all-or-none terms. The present studies suggest that generic beliefs about groups are more
central than statistical beliefs to the cognitive structure of stereotypes.
Keywords: stereotypes, generic beliefs, statistical beliefs, social judgment
Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000297.supp
or statistical beliefs? We investigated this question by using a functional criterion: The type of belief that is central to stereotype structure
should be the one that people use in their social judgments, such as
expecting an individual to have certain traits based on their group
membership.
Investigating whether generic beliefs or statistical beliefs are more
central to stereotype structure is important because these beliefs have
distinct cognitive properties. Most prominently, as we detail below,
generic beliefs are less contingent on evidence than statistical beliefs
are (Bian & Cimpian, in press; Cimpian, Gelman, & Brandone, 2010;
Leslie, 2008). Thus, a clearer understanding of the relative weight of
these beliefs in the structure of people’s stereotypes will likely inform
the current debate over whether these stereotypes are accurate representations of group characteristics (Jussim, 2012, 2015; Jussim et al.,
2015): Stereotype accuracy is possible if statistical beliefs are central
to stereotype structure, but in doubt otherwise.
What is the cognitive structure of stereotypes? Although social
psychologists largely agree that stereotypes are individuals’ “beliefs
or generalizations about groups”1 (e.g., Allport, 1954; Ashmore &
Del Boca, 1981; Brewer, 1988; Devine, 1989; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, &
Xu, 2002; Judd & Park, 1993; Jussim, Crawford, & Rubinstein,
2015), this definition is underspecified. Cognitive science distinguishes between two types of beliefs about groups: generic and
statistical (see Carlson & Pelletier, 1995; Cimpian, 2016; Gelman,
2004; Leslie, 2008; Prasada, 2000). Generic beliefs apply a feature to
a group as a whole (e.g., men are strong), whereas statistical beliefs
encode the perceived prevalence of a feature among the members of
the group (e.g., how common it is for men to be strong). Which are
more central to the cognitive structure of stereotypes, generic beliefs
Matthew D. Hammond, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington; Andrei Cimpian, Department of Psychology, New York University.
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation for
supporting this work (grant BCS-1530669 awarded to Cimpian) and thank
Sapna Cheryan, Andrew Christy, Dov Cohen, Sarah-Jane Leslie, David Miller,
Danny Osborne, Becca Schlegel, Susanna Stone, and the University of Illinois
Cognitive Development Lab for their helpful feedback as we prepared this
manuscript. This research was presented as a poster at the 2017 Convention of
the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Matthew
D. Hammond, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington,
Kelburn Parade, P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6012, New Zealand. E-mail:
[email protected]
1
Although some theorists define stereotypes as “exaggerated beliefs”
about groups (Allport, 1954, p. 191), here we used a definition with no a
priori assumptions about accuracy (see Jussim, 2012). We also focused on
individual-level stereotypical beliefs rather than stereotypes that exist at the
societal level (Judd & Park, 1993), and on explicit rather than implicit
stereotypes (e.g., Devine, 1989; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995).
607
608
HAMMOND AND CIMPIAN
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Generic Versus Statistical Beliefs and Their Relation
to Stereotypes
The distinction between generic and statistical beliefs has been
investigated extensively in cognitive psychology (e.g., Gelman,
2004; Gelman et al., 1998; Hampton, 2012; Khemlani, Leslie, &
Glucksberg, 2012; Prasada, 2000), linguistics (e.g., Behrens, 2005;
Carlson & Pelletier, 1995), and philosophy (e.g., Leslie, 2008;
Sterken, 2015). Generic beliefs map features onto groups holistically, as if each group were an indivisible unit.2 These beliefs do
not encode information about the prevalence of features within
groups, like statistical beliefs do. Because the truth of generic
beliefs is unmoored from statistical facts, generic beliefs are sometimes endorsed on the basis of minimal evidence or, conversely,
rejected when there is substantial evidence. For example, people
tend to endorse the generic statement that “sharks attack swimmers,” despite the rarity of shark attacks (Leslie, Khemlani, &
Glucksberg, 2011; Prasada, Khemlani, Leslie, & Glucksberg,
2013). In contrast, people often disagree with the generic statement
that “sharks are female” (Prasada et al., 2013), despite the fact that
⬃50% of category members are female. This same discrepancy
between generic beliefs and reality is observed for social groups
(e.g., “African Americans are athletic” tends to be endorsed but not
“African Americans are right-handed”; Gelman, Taylor, &
Nguyen, 2004; Leslie, in press; Tasimi, Gelman, Cimpian, &
Knobe, 2016). High prevalence is neither necessary nor sufficient
for endorsement of generic beliefs, even though— other things
being equal—people are more likely to endorse generic beliefs
about prevalent features than rare features (Prasada et al., 2013).
Statistical beliefs encode only information about the perceived
prevalence of traits. Accordingly, their endorsement is more
closely tied to the relevant trait distributions. For example, whether
statements such as “over half of African Americans are athletic” or
“African Americans are typically athletic” are endorsed is entirely
dependent on how common athleticism is perceived to be in this
group. This information is both necessary and sufficient for endorsement of a statistical belief.
Here, we test the relative weight of generic and statistical beliefs
about groups in people’s stereotypes. Prior evidence suggests that
generic beliefs are better retained in memory (Cimpian, 2016;
Cimpian & Erickson, 2012; Leslie & Gelman, 2012) and easier to
reason with (Hampton, 2012; Leslie et al., 2011; Leslie & Gelman,
2012) than statistical beliefs. Accordingly, we predicted that people would rely on generic beliefs more than statistical beliefs in
their social judgments, which— given our functional criterion—
would signify that generic beliefs are more central to the structure
of stereotypes. Moreover, if generic beliefs are a relatively loweffort way of approaching the social world, then we predict that
generic beliefs should be relatively more privileged in stereotyped
judgments for individuals who rely on low-effort, “all-or-none”
reasoning.
Evidence for the primacy of generic over statistical beliefs in
stereotypes would bear on theories of stereotype content, including
the current debate concerning whether stereotypes accurately represent reality (see Jussim, 2012). Given that people’s estimates of
the prevalence of various group traits are close to objective benchmarks, some argue that stereotypes are accurate (e.g., Jussim,
2012, in press; Jussim et al., 2015). This argument, however,
assumes that people’s stereotypes are statistical, encoding preva-
lence. However, if statistical beliefs are less central to the cognitive structure of stereotypes than generic beliefs (whose relationship to the evidence is more tenuous), then uncertainty remains
about the accuracy of stereotypes.
The Present Studies
We conducted four studies to test our hypothesis that generic
beliefs about stereotypical group–trait pairings (e.g., men–strong)
are stronger predictors of participants’ social judgments than their
statistical beliefs are. We provided a broad test of this hypothesis.
First, we assessed two types of social judgments that have
critical down-stream consequences for social evaluations and
interactions: par-ticipants’ expectations (Studies 1—3) and
explanations (Study 4) for the traits of unfamiliar others (see
Brewer, 1988; Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011; Devine, 1989; Fiske
et al., 2002; Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, 2005;
Keller, 2005). Second, we compared social and nonsocial stimuli
to test whether the primacy of generic beliefs in people’s
judgments is a uniquely social phenomenon (Study 3). Finally,
we explored individual-difference moderators (Studies 2– 4). We
expected that social judgments would rely more on generic
beliefs, and less on statistical beliefs, for participants who
exhibited (a) intuitive rather than analytical thinking (Frederick,
2005; Kahneman, 2011) or (b) showed high authoritarianism,
and thus reasoned about outgroups in simplistic, all-or-none terms
(e.g., Altemeyer, 1996; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).
Study 1
Method
Data and analytic syntax are available on the Open Science
Framework (https://osf.io/s6zab/). Detailed information about
measures, results, and excluded participants is provided in the
online supplementary materials (OSM).
Participants. Ninety-seven individuals (55% women), aged
20 – 83 (M ⫽ 36.54, SD ⫽ 13.18), were recruited via
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk; see Buhrmester, Kwang,
& Gosling, 2011) for $0.90. Eligibility required living in the
United States and holding a ⬎65% successful completion rate on
MTurk. All studies included an attention check: estimating the
percentage of Cauca-sians who are humans. A total of 2,917
ratings comprised the data, exceeding power recommendations
for multilevel models (Hox, 1998; West, Ryu, Kwok, & Cham,
2011).
Materials and procedure. We identified 27 common stereotypes from prior research (see Table 1 and OSM for details) and
assessed generic and statistical beliefs following standard practice
(Cimpian, Brandone, & Gelman, 2010; Khemlani et al., 2012).
Participants rated each stereotype on each measure below. Orders
of measures and stereotypes were randomized, and participants
completed a 1-min distracter task between measures.
2
Note that believing all group members possess a feature is a statistical
belief. Generic generalizations are cognitively distinct from universally
quantified generalizations (e.g., all, every) or other broad-scope quantified
generalizations (e.g., most, typically; see Carlson & Pelletier, 1995;
Gelman, 2004; Leslie, 2008).
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COGNITIVE STRUCTURE OF STEREOTYPES
Table 1
The Items Used in Studies 1– 4 (in Generic Form)
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Study 1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
African Americans are athletic
African Americans are musical
African Americans are undisciplined
African Americans are violent
Asians are ethnocentric
Asians are hardworking
Asians are intelligent
Asians are introverted
Caucasians are racist
Doctors are hardworking
Doctors are intelligent
Jewish people are cheap
Jewish people are ethnocentric
Jewish people are intelligent
Lawyers are competitive
Lawyers are dishonest
Lawyers are greedy
Men are assertive
Men are intellectual
Men are logical
Men are self-reliant
Politicians are dishonest
Teachers are hardworking
Teachers are intelligent
Women are compassionate
Women are honest
Women are sensitive
Studies 2, 3, and 4
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
Asian people are bad drivers
Asian people are good at math
Asian people are smart
Black people are athletic
Black people are lazy
Black people are unintelligent
Black people are violent
Blondes are dumb
British people have bad teeth
Fat people are lazy
French people are snobs
Irish people are alcoholics
Jewish people are cheap
Jewish people are rich
Men are selfish
Men are strong
Mexicans are hard-working
Mexicans are lazy
Muslims are terrorists
Native Americans are alcoholics
Politicians are liars
Poor people are lazy
Redheads have a temper
Rock stars do drugs
Southerners are ignorant
Teenagers are irresponsible
White people are racist
White people are rich
Women are delicate
Women are unintelligent
Note. Stereotypes in Study 1 were selected from prior research on stereotype endorsement. Stereotypes in
Studies 2, 3, and 4 were generated by an independent sample of participants. See online supplemental materials
for item means and standard deviations.
Generic beliefs. Participants rated their agreement with the generic form of each stereotype (e.g., “Doctors are intelligent:” ⫺3 ⫽
Strongly Disagree to 3 ⫽ Strongly Agree).
Statistical beliefs. Participants estimated a percentage for each
stereotype (e.g., “What percentage of doctors are intelligent?”
0 –100 sliding scale).3
Social judgments— expectations. Participants rated the likelihood that an unfamiliar group member had each stereotypical
trait (e.g., “Suppose that Person Y is a doctor. Is Person Y intelligent?” ⫺3 ⫽ Very Unlikely to 3 ⫽ Very Likely).
Results
Analytic strategy. In all studies, we tested the relative contribution of statistical beliefs and generic beliefs to social judgments by entering them simultaneously in multilevel models. Models accounted for the interdependence of each participant’s ratings
across items and each item’s ratings across participants. We used
Bayesian estimation with diffuse priors in Mplus 7.2 (Muthén &
Muthén, 1998-2012), cross-classifying participants with items.
(Results were also replicated using maximum-likelihood analyses;
see OSM.) The 95% credibility intervals reported below are distributions that contain the most likely parameter value with 95%
probability. Bayesian p values are the smaller proportion of the
posterior parameter’s distribution relative to zero. Accordingly,
these p values have a maximum of .5 and signal significant
evidence for the presence of an effect under a threshold of .025 (for
reviews, see Gelman, Carlin, Stern, & Rubin, 2003; Kruschke,
Aguinis, & Joo, 2012; Muthén, 2010). Across studies, variables
were standardized to account for scale differences. Table 2 presents descriptive statistics and correlations.
What predicts social judgments? Both statistical beliefs
(␤ ⫽ .315, CI [.277, .354], p ⬍ .001) and generic beliefs (␤ ⫽
.514, CI [.476, .552], p ⬍ .001) predicted unique variance in
participants’ expectations about unfamiliar individuals’ traits.4
Supporting our hypothesis, participants’ generic beliefs were more
strongly predictive of their expectation judgments than their statistical beliefs were (b ⫽ ⫺.199, CI [–.269, ⫺.129], p ⬍ .001).
In supplementary analyses, the results reported above held when
we looked separately at stereotypes about race/ethnicity (12 items),
gender (seven items), and profession (eight items; see Table 1),
and were not moderated by participants’ tendency to provide
3
A pilot study (see OSM) investigated a different type of statistical
belief—the prevalence of a trait relative to other groups (i.e., distinctiveness). However, the distinctiveness of traits did not predict social judgments beyond generic and statistical beliefs about absolute prevalence.
4
Measuring expectations as likelihoods (i.e., statistical judgments) provides a conservative test of our hypothesis that generic beliefs are more
predictive of social judgments than statistical beliefs.
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HAMMOND AND CIMPIAN
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Across Measures in Studies 1– 4
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Studies
Study 1
1. Statistical Beliefs
2. Generic Beliefs
3. Social Judgment (Expectation)
4. Social Desirability
Study 2
1. Statistical Beliefs
2. Generic Beliefs
3. Social Judgment (Expectation)
4. Authoritarianism
5. Cognitive Style
Study 3 (Social items)
1. Statistical Beliefs
2. Generic Beliefs
3. Social Judgment (Expectation)
4. Authoritarianism
5. Cognitive Style
Study 4
1. Statistical Beliefs
2. Generic Beliefs
3. Social Judgment (Biological expl.)
4. Authoritarianism
5. Cognitive Style
Mean (SD)
1
2
3
4
60.79 (22.96)a
.73 (1.35)b
.71 (1.25)b
6.95 (3.10)c
—
.73ⴱ
.70ⴱ
.03
—
.76ⴱ
.01
—
⫺.01
—
37.89 (26.52)a
39.91 (29.25)a
⫺.21 (1.48)b
⫺1.36 (1.36)b
1.65 (1.13)d
—
.72ⴱ
.66ⴱ
.13ⴱ
⫺.03ⴱ
—
.70ⴱ
.20ⴱ
⫺.01
—
.10ⴱ
⫺.02
—
⫺.19ⴱ
39.61 (26.37)a
42.60 (29.34)a
⫺.24 (1.47)b
⫺1.33 (1.07)b
1.74 (1.07)d
—
.72ⴱ
.67ⴱ
.28ⴱ
⫺.17ⴱ
—
.71ⴱ
.17ⴱ
⫺.08ⴱ
—
.15ⴱ
⫺.06ⴱ
—
⫺.18ⴱ
34.60 (25.25)a
35.41 (29.63)a
⫺2.12 (1.46)b
⫺1.52 (1.10)b
1.72 (1.13)d
—
.73ⴱ
.26ⴱ
.17ⴱ
⫺.05ⴱ
—
.29ⴱ
.17ⴱ
⫺.01
—
.15ⴱ
⫺.01
—
⫺.21ⴱ
Note. Superscripts represent scale of measurement.
a
100-point sliding scales. b ⫺3 to 3 Likert-type scales. c 0 to 13 scale. d 0 to 3 scale. See Tables 4 and 5
in the online supplemental materials for descriptive statistics for the nonsocial items in Study 3.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05.
socially desirable responses, assessed at the end of the study (see
OSM).
Study 2
In Study 2, we (a) assessed the generalizability of effects by
using new stereotypes elicited from an independent sample of
participants, (b) measured generic and statistical beliefs using
identical response formats, and (c) explored cognitive style and
authoritarianism as moderators. Because generic beliefs require
lower effort and are more absolute than statistical beliefs, we
expected them to be more closely related to social judgments for
people with intuitive (vs. analytic) cognitive styles (Frederick,
2005) and for people higher in authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996;
Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).
Method
Participants. The sample size, 185 individuals (68% women;
ages 18 –78, M ⫽ 37.13, SD ⫽ 13.11), was increased to provide
sufficient power for the moderation tests, and provided 5,499
ratings.
Procedure and materials. Study 2 matched Study 1 except
that (a) participants rated stereotypes generated by an independent
MTurk sample (n ⫽ 33; see Table 1 and OSM for full details); (b)
we assessed generic beliefs with the same sliding-scale format as
we used for statistical beliefs (Strongly Disagree to Strongly
Agree); and (3) we assessed two moderators.
Moderator— cognitive style. An adapted version of the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005; see OSM) was administered. High scores indicated deliberative, analytical thinking.
Moderator—authoritarianism. We averaged responses (␣ ⫽
.88) to short-form scales (six items each) of right-wing authoritarianism (e.g., “It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper
authorities in government . . .”; Altemeyer, 1996) and social
dominance orientation (e.g., “Inferior groups should stay in their
place”; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). These measures were combined
to assess a simplistic, authoritarian orientation toward social
groups. (Similar patterns of moderation emerged using separate
scales.)
Results
Analytic strategy. In Studies 2 and 3, we capitalized on a
strength of Bayesian analysis by setting informative priors
based on estimates from Study 1 (with variances multiplied by
four; see Muthén, 2010). This approach accumulates evidence
rather than repeatedly assuming a null hypothesis. Nonetheless,
across studies, the expected results also emerged with diffuse
priors (see OSM).
What predicts social judgments? Participants’ expectations
about individuals’ traits were predicted by both their statistical
beliefs (␤ ⫽ .329, CI [.304, .354], p ⬍ .001) and their generic
beliefs (␤ ⫽ .458, CI [.433, .484], p ⬍ .001). Again supporting our
hypothesis, generic beliefs were significantly more predictive of
social judgments (b ⫽ ⫺.129, CI [–.175, ⫺.084], p ⬍ .001).
Moderators. Cognitive style moderated the relationship of
statistical beliefs (p ⫽ .008), but not generic beliefs (p ⫽ .358),
with social judgments (see OSM for more detail and additional
analyses). As expected, analytical thinkers’ social judgments (⫹1
SD; b ⫽ .366, CI [.324, .408], p ⬍ .001) were more closely related
611
COGNITIVE STRUCTURE OF STEREOTYPES
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to their statistical beliefs than were intuitive thinkers’ judgments
(⫺1 SD; b ⫽ .296, CI [.257, .335], p ⬍ .001).
Authoritarianism moderated the relationship of both generic and
statistical beliefs with social judgments (ps ⫽ .001). As expected,
high-authoritarian participants’ judgments (⫹1 SD; b ⫽ .521, CI
[.478, .565], p ⬍ .001) were more strongly related to their generic
beliefs than were low-authoritarian participants’ judgments (⫺1
SD; b ⫽ .428, CI [.389, .467], p ⬍ .001). Moreover, highauthoritarian participants (b ⫽ .283, CI [.242, .324], p ⬍ .001)
relied on statistical beliefs less than low-authoritarian participants
(b ⫽ .379, CI [.339, .419], p ⬍ .001).
Study 3
In Study 3, we (a) assessed statistical beliefs with a simpler
question, and (b) compared social and nonsocial stimuli. Research
on generic beliefs has seldom compared these domains systematically (although, see Tasimi et al., 2016), so we did not have strong
a priori predictions about whether the primacy of generic beliefs
would extend to judgments about nonsocial stimuli.
Method
Participants. Two hundred fourteen individuals (54% women; ages 18 –71; M ⫽ 35.13, SD ⫽ 11.10) provided 5,800 ratings.
Procedure and materials. Procedures matched Study 2, except that (a) we simplified the wording for statistical beliefs: “Out
of all of the [category members], how many [have this
feature]?” (sliding scale ranging from None to All); and (b) we
randomly assigned participants to rate social (n ⫽ 98) or nonsocial
(n ⫽ 96) stimuli. The nonsocial stimuli (e.g., “barns are red,”
“ducks lay eggs”) were adapted from Khemlani et al. (2012; see
OSM).
Results
What predicts social and nonsocial judgments?
Social judgments. Both statistical beliefs (␤ ⫽ .330, CI [.299,
.362], p ⬍ .001) and generic beliefs (␤ ⫽ .451, CI [.420, .483], p ⬍
.001) predicted participants’ expectations about the traits of individual people. As in Studies 1 and 2, generic beliefs were a
significantly stronger predictor of social judgments (b ⫽ ⫺.121,
CI [–.176, ⫺.065], p ⬍ .001).
Nonsocial judgments. Both statistical beliefs (␤ ⫽ .605, CI
[.574, .636], p ⬍ .001) and generic beliefs (␤ ⫽ .322, CI [.292,
.353], p ⬍ .001) predicted expectations about the features of
individual artifacts and animals. In contrast to social expectations,
statistical beliefs were a significantly stronger predictor of participants’ nonsocial expectations (b ⫽ .283, CI [.227, .338], p ⬍
.001). Thus, it seems that generic beliefs are particularly influential
when people make predictions about social (vs. nonsocial) targets,
at least given the items tested here.
Moderators.
Social judgments. Cognitive style moderated the relationship
of generic beliefs (p ⬍ .001), but not statistical beliefs (p ⫽ .163),
with participants’ judgments of social others. Analytic thinkers’
expectations (b ⫽ .401, CI [.359, .444], p ⬍ .001) were less reliant
on generic beliefs than intuitive thinkers’ expectations (b ⫽ .516,
CI [.473, .559], p ⬍ .001). Similarly, authoritarianism was a
significant moderator for generic (p ⬍ .001), but not statistical
(p ⫽ .043), beliefs: The relationship between generic beliefs and
expectations of social others was stronger for individuals high in
authoritarianism (b ⫽ .569, CI [.501, .627], p ⬍ .001) than for
people low in authoritarianism (b ⫽ .383, CI [.326, .462], p ⬍
.001).
Nonsocial judgments. Cognitive style moderated the relationship of both generic and statistical beliefs with participants’ nonsocial judgments (ps ⬍ .013). Consistent with earlier patterns,
analytic thinkers’ expectations about nonsocial stimuli (b ⫽ .251,
CI [.205, .297], p ⬍ .001) showed a weaker relationship with
generic beliefs than did intuitive thinkers’ expectations (b ⫽ .324,
CI [.280, .366], p ⬍ .001). Moreover, analytic thinkers’ expectations about nonsocial stimuli (b ⫽ .685, CI [.642, .729], p ⬍ .001)
were more strongly related to their statistical beliefs than were
intuitive thinkers’ expectations (b ⫽ .547, CI [.504, .590], p ⬍
.001). Authoritarianism was not a significant moderator (ps ⬎ .06),
which was unsurprising given the nonsocial context.
Study 4
In Study 4, we extended our predictions to another consequential social judgment: participants’ biological explanations for the
stereotypical traits of social others. These explanations often foster
ingroup favoritism and outgroup antipathy (Dar-Nimrod & Heine,
2011).
Method
Participants. One hundred seventy-seven individuals (67%
women; ages 18 –75; M ⫽ 37.32, SD ⫽ 12.80) provided 5,258
ratings.
Procedure and materials. Study 4 was identical to Study 2,
except that the social judgments were participants’ biological
explanations for stereotypical traits, e.g., “Person Y is Asian and is
smart. To what extent is Person Y’s being smart due to their
biology?” (⫺3 ⫽ Not at All to 3 ⫽ A Great Deal).
Results
What predicts social judgments? Both statistical beliefs
(␤ ⫽ .086, CI [.044, .127], p ⬍ .001) and generic beliefs (␤ ⫽
.174, CI [.133, .215], p ⬍ .001) predicted greater endorsement of
biological explanations. Again, generic beliefs were a significantly
stronger predictor than were statistical beliefs (b ⫽ ⫺.088, CI
[–.164, ⫺.013], p ⫽ .011).
Moderators. Cognitive style moderated the relationship of
generic beliefs (p ⫽ .003), but not statistical beliefs (p ⫽ .232),
with social judgments. As expected, intuitive thinkers’ endorsement of biological explanations for stereotypical traits (b ⫽ .235,
CI [.180, .290], p ⬍ .001) was more strongly predicted by their
generic beliefs than was analytic thinkers’ endorsement (b ⫽ .127,
CI [.071, .183], p ⬍ .001).
Authoritarianism moderated the relationship of generic beliefs
(p ⬍ .001), but not statistical beliefs (p ⫽ .269), with social
judgments. As expected, high-authoritarians’ biological explanations (b ⫽ .255, CI [.201, .309], p ⬍ .001) were more closely
related to their generic beliefs than were low-authoritarians’ explanations (b ⫽ .108, CI [.053, .161], p ⬍ .001).
612
HAMMOND AND CIMPIAN
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General Discussion
We examined the cognitive structure of stereotypes by testing
whether their generic or statistical aspects were more predictive of
social judgments. Across four studies, generic beliefs were consistently the stronger predictor of people’s expectations and explanations for the traits of social others. Thus, although in principle
stereotypes consist of both generic and statistical beliefs about
groups, our evidence suggests that generic beliefs are more central
to stereotype structure—the more powerful and active component
of stereotypes.
Generic beliefs may be primary in stereotyping in part because
they are cognitively easy (e.g., Cimpian, 2016; Leslie, 2008),
consistent with the idea that stereotypes serve to simplify the social
world (e.g., Bodenhausen, 1990). Although the patterns of moderation differed across studies, people with more intuitive (vs.
analytic) cognitive styles generally relied more on generic beliefs
and less on statistical beliefs in their judgments. Exploratoryanalysis results described in the OSM suggest that generic beliefs
were also more influential in older versus younger participants,
arguably because information-processing resources decrease with
age (e.g., Salthouse, 2015). The simplistic, one-dimensional quality of generic beliefs is also likely to be a reason they were more
prominent in the judgments of people with authoritarian tendencies, who tend to be hostile toward outgroups (e.g., Altemeyer,
1996).
The heightened prominence of generic beliefs for participants
with less-than-rational and authoritarian dispositions has implications for stereotype accuracy. If the core components of stereotyping were the product of cognitive processes that veridically tracked
reality (e.g., Jussim, 2012), then generic beliefs should be overweighted by participants with more rational thinking dispositions.
The fact that they were instead relatively overweighted in the
judgments of participants with low-effort, rigid thinking styles is
further evidence against a close match between stereotypes and
reality.
This work also contributes to theories on stereotype content,
which have so far identified the dimensions of Warmth and Competence as fundamental (Fiske et al., 2002; Judd et al., 2005).
Incorporating the generic–statistical distinction into this theorizing
could present several advantages. For example, the generic content
of stereotypes may explain why evidence fails to falsify them (e.g.,
Chambers, Graham, & Turner, 2008; Cimpian et al., 2010) and
why stereotypes are often accompanied by essentialist overtones
(e.g., Cimpian & Markman, 2011; Cimpian & Salomon, 2014;
Rhodes, Leslie, Saunders, Dunham, & Cimpian, in press), which in
turn foster prejudice and discrimination (Dar-Nimrod & Heine,
2011). More broadly, generic and statistical ways of reasoning
about categories differ in terms of how resource-intensive they are,
how early they develop, and how robust the resulting memory
traces are (for a summary, see Cimpian, 2016), which have as-yet
unexplored consequences for stereotype content and processes.
The generic–statistical distinction is relevant to applied issues as
well, such as reducing intergroup prejudice. If generic beliefs are
more central to stereotyping, then interventions to reduce prejudice
that target the generic component of stereotyping (e.g., considering
multiple group memberships; Prati, Crisp, Meleady, & Rubini,
2016) should be more effective than interventions that target the
statistical component (e.g., presenting stereotype-disconfirming
evidence; Weber & Crocker, 1983). Future work could test this
prediction by comparing the effectiveness of prejudice-reduction
interventions aimed at the generic versus the statistical elements of
stereotypes.
Finally, Study 3 suggested that the privileged role of generic
beliefs in people’s judgments might be a uniquely social phenomenon. One potential explanation for this domain difference is the
difference in the attributes typically represented about social and
non-social categories. Social stereotypes are often about
psychological traits such as being intelligent, hot-tempered, or shy
(e.g., Fiske et al., 2002), which are inherently more ambiguous
than many of the attributes represented about nonsocial
categories (e.g., whether a barn is red; see supplemental Table
5). As a result, encoding and using statistical information may
be more feasible for nonsocial categories, and— conversely—
generic beliefs may be uniquely privileged for social
stereotypes because the complexities encoun-tered in this domain
force greater reliance on cognitive shortcuts.
In sum, this work introduced the key distinction between generic
and statistical beliefs and illustrated the primacy of generic beliefs
in the cognitive structure of stereotypes. This distinction adds to
theory on stereotype content, suggesting new ways of thinking
about stereotype accuracy.
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Received July 29, 2016
Revision received January 15, 2017
Accepted February 7, 2017 䡲