Start of Main Content
Author(s)

Galen Bodenhausen

We report two studies investigating the impact of how a stereotype-inconsistent exemplar is categorized. In both studies, participants were presented with a description about a specific target and worked on different categorization tasks. Categorization tasks eliciting an inclusion of the target into the group category resulted in less stereotypic judgments about the group and in more stereotypic judgments about the target compared to categorization tasks eliciting exclusion of the target from the category. The results suggest that under exclusion conditions, a stereotype-inconsistent exemplar can increase stereotypic judgments about the group (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 shows that these categorization effects are attenuated if participants' processing motivation is increased at the encoding stage. The importance of a range of psychological variables that can influence the categorization, and thus the impact, of atypical exemplars is discussed.
Date Published: 2001
Citations: Bodenhausen, Galen. 2001. Personalized Versus Generalized Benefits of Stereotype Disconfirmation: Tradeoffs in the evaluation of atypical exemplars and their social groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. (5)386-397.