Role change alters stereotypes rather than stereotypes fixing roles immutably.

Evidence

The role-incongruity perspective suggests that even apparently inflexible stereotypes eventually change to the extent that change occurs in the roles that group members typically occupy. As new roles become common, the qualities associated with them will be perceived as characteristic of group members. Work on dynamic stereotypes (Diekman & Eagly, 2000) has documented that people perceive women as increasing in masculine characteristics from the past to the present; these new beliefs correspond to women’s shift into traditionally male-dominated roles. In addition, perceivers project women as continuing to assume masculine characteristics in the future. Moreover, perceivers anticipate that the evaluation of women’s male-stereotypical attributes will become more positive over time (Diekman & Goodfriend, 2004). To the extent that newly occupied roles require different characteristics, those characteristics are expected to be valued in the new role occupants. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 222

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the vault’s contact-theory thread: role-based stereotype change is an alternative mechanism to direct intergroup contact for reducing prejudice.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 222