Do Stereotype Change

DO STEREOTYPES EVER CHANGE?

Many theorists have suggested that stereotyping will be stable as long as the nature of relationship that exists between our group and the stereotyped group is stable (Eagly 1987, Oakes et al., 1994; Tajfel,1981). That is because we construct stereotypes that reflect how we see members of different groups actually behaving, stereotype change should only occur when the relations between the groups change. In addition we generally hold stereotypes that are favorable to our own group in comparison to another group. Unless social conditions shift so that we no longer see in-group favoritism as acceptable, unfavorable stereotypes of groups we are not members of, can be expected to persist. (Spears, Jetten , & Doosje,

The study has two phases which was done to examine the effect of gender stereotypes on student's recollection of their school marks in stereotypically feminine and masculine domains (example arts and mathematics respectively). The results showed that , more students believed in gender stereotypes prior to recall, they biased their reported marks, compared to their actual marks, in a stereotype-consistent way i.e female students underestimated their marks in mathematics and male students underestimated their marks in arts. In study 2,the salience of gender stereotypes was manipulated prior to recall, yielded similar findings. The recall of school marks was more stereotype-consistent in a condition of high salience than in a condition of low salience of gender stereotypes. The theoretical implications of these results are

Duehr & Joyce E. Bono did a research to study whether the stereotypes are changing regarding men , women and managers. When the number of women in management roles increases and organizations place a greater emphasis on diversity, a subsequent change in perceptions of women as leader-like is expected. To study this, the research examined gender and management stereotypes of male and female manager students. The results show that considerable change in manager's views of women over the past 30 years, as evidenced by greater congruence between their perceptions of women and successful managers and stronger endorsement of agentic and task oriented leadership characteristics for women. Stereotypes held by male students changed less, remaining strikingly similar to stereotypes held by male managers 15 years ago. Across samples, there was general agreement in the characteristics of managers but less agreement about the characteristics of women. They also found men are less likely than women to attribute successful manager characteristics to women. Respondents with positive past experiences with female managers tended to rate women higher on management characteristics. ( Personnel Psychology, Volume 59,