Stereotypes and Dispositional Judgment

Abstract

From a cognitive perspective, stereotypes are inevitable consequences of the limitations of human information processing capabilities and the complexity of social reality. As abstract representational structures, stereotypes help us simplify and organize the rich information we have about socially defined categories (Allport, 1954; Hamilton, 1979; Pettigrew, 1979). Moreover, they enable us to make diverse judgments on the basis of readily available and easily processed cues such as gender, age, race, and nationality. The price of these information processing advantages is bias in judgment of individual category members. The mere fact that the actor is a male rather than a female will lead people who hold sex stereotypes to infer more ambition, assertiveness, independence, and the like.