PSYC12H3 Chapter 3: PSYC12 Textbook chapter 3
Document Summary
Feeling versus thinking in the activation and application of stereotypes. 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 out groups. Traditionally, emotions were thought to contribute importantly to the development and endurance of stereotypes. The history of intergroup relations is replete with evidence that intense emotions guide the thoughts and actions of people in intergroup contexts. Affect plays a major role in the way that information about social groups and group members is processed. Affect influences the accessibility of constructs in memory and thus may determine which of many social representations are primed, and which characteristics in a given representation become activated. Affect may also influence the extent to which the individual exerts information processing efforts. Affect also becomes associated with social group labels through learning processes.
