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🪵 The Threshold

Role incongruity drives prejudiced evaluation downturns without requiring hostility

Properties1
tagsja-picks, definitional_content, singleton, xref, category/definitional-content

3 min read

Role incongruity drives prejudiced evaluation downturns without requiring hostility

Evidence

Our expanded treatment of prejudice rests upon the simple idea of role incongruity – that prejudice often results from the mismatch between beliefs about the attributes typically possessed by members of a social group (that is, their stereotype) and beliefs about the attributes that facilitate success in valued social roles. In this analysis, a member of a group whose stereotypical attributes are thought to facilitate performance in a role is ordinarily preferred over a member of a group whose stereotypical attributes are thought to impede performance, even in the absence of objective differences between the two individuals. Such incongruity between stereotypical characteristics and social roles does not necessarily lead to a generalized hostile attitude toward the mismatched individual but to a decline in evaluation relative to a matched individual in the context of the particular role. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 174 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The unfavorable attitudinal shift that follows from role incongruity will not necessarily produce a negative attitude-in-context. If a role has high status, the attitude toward the group members as role occupants probably would not be negative but merely less positive than the corresponding attitude toward members of the groups who have historically occupied the role. For example, consider the role incongruity that an African American physician or dentist might encounter, perhaps being thought to have less technical competence than his or her European American counterpart. Attitudes toward such a medical practitioner are unlikely to be negative because such roles have considerable prestige. Rather, African American physicians and dentists might be evaluated favorably, but less favorably than their European American counterparts. Discriminatory behavior (e.g., reluctance to become a patient of an African American) is a likely outcome. It is this lowering of the evaluation of members of the target group because of their group membership that constitutes role-incongruity prejudice. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 194 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Trait valence is reversed by role context, not intrinsic to the trait.; Role-incongruity prejudice has a rational core; its unfairness lies in generalization; Role incongruity explains prejudice without requiring hostility — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 174 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

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