Label simplicity predicts exclusion more than label hostility does
Evidence
The evidence to date indicates that ethnophaulism complexity tends to be a stronger predictor of the negative consequences of ethnophaulisms than ethnophaulism valence. In both Mullen and Rice (2003) and Mullen (2004), across 150 years of archival data, ethnophaulism complexity was a better predictor of the exclusion of ethnic immigrant outgroups than ethnophaulism valence. This pattern of results was recently replicated in the controlled experimental examination of the use of ethnophaulisms. Mullen, Leader, and Rice (2004) had participants use ethnophaulisms for an ethnic immigrant outgroup. Increasing the negativity of the ethnophaulisms had no apparent effect, but decreasing the complexity of the ethnophaulisms led to greater subsequent exclusion of the group. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1286
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- QUESTION: Why would complexity beat valence? Intuitively the opposite should hold. Is it that low-complexity labels flatten the target into a single stereotype, enabling category-wide exclusion, while negativity alone doesn’t deny individuation?
Related
- Ethnophaulisms predict the social exclusion of immigrant groups (similarity 0.88)
- Slur complexity, not negativity, predicts group exclusion (similarity 0.85)
- Derogatory labels toward immigrants predict their social and economic exclusion (similarity 0.84)
- Pejorative slurs toward immigrant groups predict real social exclusion (similarity 0.81)