Divergence and Convergence across Presumed and Actual Stereotypes

Abstract

Stereotypes are foundational to social life, with warmth and competence key to views of social groups. Some theoretical and empirical work on stereotypes focuses on personal “first-order” beliefs about social groups. Other work focuses on perceptions of a culture’s stereotypes, or “generalized second-order” beliefs. Scholars differ in which they consider to have greater impact or whether they think they are unique or represent the same underlying belief. In this visualization, I present data from a large online survey experiment (N = 1,045) in which participants reported either first-order or generalized second-order stereotypes about 19 different social groups. For the majority of stereotypes measured, the results differ across the two methods, with perceptions of culture more pessimistic than people’s actual first-order beliefs would suggest. That is, people tend to assume that others hold more negative stereotypes than they actually do, and this is especially pronounced for negatively viewed social groups.

Stereotypes affect much of social interaction. Stereotypes help provide expectations about a new person on the basis of their observable or known group memberships. We also know that others will form expectations about us on the basis of our group memberships. Both sociologists and psychologists have long been interested in stereotypes and have well-developed theories of their origins and their impact on our lives (Fiske 2018; Heise 2010; Ridgeway 2019).

Theories and methodologies for studying stereotypes diverge on an important issue. Some focus on personal or first-order beliefs (i.e., “what I think”). Others focus on perceptions of a culture’s beliefs, or generalized second-order (G2O) beliefs (i.e., “what I assume most others think”); these are perceptions of what the “generalized other” thinks (Mead 1934). ¹ Some argue that asking about G2O beliefs will reveal true first-order beliefs if people project their own beliefs onto most people (Fisher 1993; Ostapczuk and Musch 2011). Increasingly, however, scholars recognize that first-order and G2O beliefs are distinct, but that both can independently influence behavior, and thus both are important topics of study (Correll et al. 2017; Mize and Manago 2022; Ridgeway 2019).

Methods and Results

To determine whether people hold unique first-order and G2O stereotypes, I conducted a large online survey experiment (see the Online Appendix for details). ² Half of participants were asked to provide first-order beliefs, and half were asked to provide G2O beliefs, or their assumptions of what “most people” think. In both cases, participants rated four randomly assigned social groups on scales of competence and warmth, the two fundamental dimensions of social stereotypes (Fiske 2018; Ridgeway 2019).

Figure 1 presents the results. First-order and G2O beliefs often diverge, with 24 of 38 stereotypes rated significantly different across the two methods. ³ Some of the differences are quite large in substantive size, with differences up to 0.86 standard deviations. There is a clear pattern to the divergences. Each panel has been sorted by the G2O rating to emphasize the trend: stereotypes differ most for negative stereotypes, with G2O beliefs consistently more negative in these cases than first-order beliefs. For example, people assume that others view welfare recipients as somewhat incompetent, while people’s actual first-order beliefs suggest that they view them neutrally. In contrast, there is more convergence across first-order and G2O beliefs for groups viewed positively. For example, people assume that most others view nurses as highly competent and warm, and indeed, people do hold these views of nurses.

Figure 1.

Competence (top) and warmth (bottom) stereotypes of various social groups. Red dots represent first-order (personal; “what I think”) beliefs; blue dots represent generalized second-order beliefs (perceptions of culture; “what I assume most others think”). Graphs are sorted by the generalized second-order rating; ratings are standardized, with zero representing a neutral opinion.

Conclusions

Stereotypes are multifaceted, and for most social groups, people hold distinct personal views and cultural perceptions. These distinctions are not random: when there are divergences, people consistently express pessimistic views about how others view social groups (Lewicki 1983). That is, people tend to think others hold more negative stereotypes than they actually do.

These findings underline the importance of specifying what types of stereotypes are of interest and not assuming concordance between first-order and G2O beliefs (Ostapczuk and Musch 2011). As symbolic interactionists have long argued, we are all influenced by culture and internalize its beliefs (Heise 2010; Mead 1934), even if we are sometimes wrong in our perceptions.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231241286873 – Supplemental material for Divergence and Convergence across Presumed and Actual Stereotypes

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231241286873 for Divergence and Convergence across Presumed and Actual Stereotypes by Trenton D. Mize in Socius