Changing material intergroup relations is the most effective way to change stereotypes

Evidence

A second implication of the system-justification approach which follows from the first is that a most expedient way of changing stereotypes is to change material reality (see Banaji & Greenwald, 1994; Eagly & Steffen, 1984; Hoffman & Hurst, 1990; MacKinnon, 1989), an assumption that is even more basic to our view than to social identity theory. … We take evidence presented by social identity theorists (e.g. Haslam, Turner, Oakes, McGarty, & Hayes, 1992) that stereotypes change in accordance with alterations in the social structure of relations between groups to be supportive of the position defended here, which is that stereotypes rationalize systems of social, economic, and sexual relations. In many ways, our thesis is similar to one advanced by Campbell and LeVine (1968, p. 561) whose merging of cognitive dissonance theory and anthropological data resulted in the proposition that changes in the system of relations between groups are met by corresponding changes in “group labels and stereotypes.” — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2947

Categorization

• SEED: Counterintuitive policy angle: stereotype reduction is a structural/material intervention problem, not a persuasion/education problem — could be an essay on why anti-bias training fails.