Role incongruity lowers evaluations without necessarily producing overt negativity toward high-status roles

Evidence

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

Categorization

• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 194