PSYC12H3 Chapter 3: PSYC12 Ch. 3 Feeling vs. Thinking in the Activation and Application of Stereotypes
Document Summary
Thinking in the activation and application of stereotypes. Since the early 1970s, research on stereotyping has been dominated by a social-cognitive perspective, which focuses on how people think about others and about themselves. A major benefit of the cognitive approach to stereotyping has been the demonstration of the important influence of expectations about social groups on social judgments and attitudes and behaviour toward outgroups. During this period of cognitive dominance in the social-psychological investigation of stereotyping, the investigation of the influence of affect on stereotyping. Toward the end of the 1980s, researchers began to take a closer look at the influence of affect on cognitive processes. Traditionally, emotions were thought to contribute to the development and endurance of stereotypes. The history of intergroup relation is filled with evidence that intense emotions guide the thoughts and actions of people intergroup contexts. Affect plays a major role in the way that information about social groups and group members is processed.
