Bastards and Stereotype Accuracy
I’m a firm believer in stereotype accuracy. I just finished re-reading my favorite chapters from Lee, Jussim, and McCauley’s excellent Stereotype Accuracy: Toward Appreciating Group Differences. The book was published in 1995; Jussim’s recent summary brings us up to date. When scientists measure the correspondence between stereotypes and actual probabilities, they’ve found that…
…stereotype accuracy — the correspondence of stereotype beliefs with criteria — is one of the largest relationships in all of social psychology. The correlations of stereotypes with criteria range from .4 to over .9, and average almost .8 for cultural stereotypes (the correlation of beliefs that are widely shared with criteria) and .5 for personal stereotypes (the correlation of one individual’s stereotypes with criteria, averaged over lots of individuals). The average effect in social psychology is about .20. Stereotypes are more valid than most social psychological hypotheses.
Given my knowledge of this research, I felt a slight pang of guilt when I dismissed negative Westerosi stereotypes about bastards as thinly-veiled misanthropy. If the people of Westeros consider bastards “wanton” and “treacherous,” doesn’t the best social science tell us to presume they’re right?
Not really. Here’s a key caveat from Clark McCauley’s chapter “Are Stereotypes Exaggerated?” in Stereotype Accuracy:
[T]he strongest conclusion from the present review is that purely cognitive mechanisms of stereotype exaggeration are inadequate to explain the pattern of results…
It is still too soon to throw out the exaggeration hypothesis, however. Exaggeration of stereotype characteristics may be a powerful tendency in perceptions of a group seen as an enemy. U.S. perceptions of the Japanese in World War II, for example, certainly suggest the possibility of caricature and stereotypic exaggeration in perceptions of an enemy group. Thus, motivational mechanisms for stereotype exaggeration may be more powerful than the purely cognitive mechanisms featured in current literature. This possibility is not easily evaluated on the basis of available research, none of which contain any indication that the stereotyping group felt real hostility toward the stereotyped group.
Wise words. My only quarrel is that lots of “available research” does indeed confirm that popular stereotypes rooted in hostility toward markets and foreigners are not just exaggerated, but false.
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The real issue with stereotypes isn't that they are false but that people tend to apply them in situations where they are inaccurate because of conditionization on other information.
Whether or not it's true that on average blacks tend to be less conscientious workers or asians more conscientious [1] isn't really that important when making a hiring deciscion. What you'd want to know is whether -- conditional on the information you have -- that variable still has the supposed relationship. People aren't good with conditionalization so they tend to make that assumption but it's quite plausible that the relationship is actually reversed once you know information like what college someone went to.
And it's such a tempting mistake to make even mathematics grad students can't help but feel the pull [2]. That's what makes stereotypes dangerous regardless of whether they are true in some context.
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1: I'd be quite surprised if conscientiousness wasn't usually less for people raised in low income situations generally so it's plausible if -- controlling for nothing else -- this shouldn't be expected merely from average income statistics.
2: Even math graduate students who intellectually know better can't help but emotionally feel that if women are on average worse at math it calls into question the abilities of the women in a graduate math program. Yet, of course, what's true on average for women tells you nothing about what's true for women conditional on scoring well in math classes/tests/getting accepted into a given program.
I don't bring this up to claim it's true or false merely to note how difficult it is to emotionally grapple with conditionalization.
The book link is page not found