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Power Can Bias Impression Processes: Stereotyping Subordinates by Default and by Design

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Power Can Bias Impression Processes: Stereotyping Subordinates by Default and by Design Group Processes & G Intergroup Relations P 2000 Vol 3(3) 227–256 I R Power Can Bias Impression Processes: Stereotyping Subordinates by Default and by Design Stephanie A. Goodwin Yale University Alexandra Gubin University of Massachusetts at Amherst Susan T. Fiske Princeton University Vincent Y. Yzerbyt Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve Powerholders may engage in two stereotyping processes: (a) by default, inattention to stereotype-inconsistent information, due to lack of dependency, and (b) by design, effortful attention to stereotype-consistent information, due to explicit control. Study 1 manipulated control (not dependency) over internship applicants; powerful decision-makers increased attention to stereotypic attributes, consistent with stereotyping by design. Study 2 measured differences in trait dominance as an analog to situational control, replicating Study 1. Study 3 separately manipulated perceiver control and dependency; powerful perceivers increased attention to powerless targets’ stereotypic attributes (by design) and also decreased attention to counter-stereotypic attributes (by default). Study 4 compared powerful perceivers’ ratings of potential subordinates to their own prior ratings of target categories and target traits. Relative to the powerless, powerful perceivers’ impressions were based significantly less on target traits, supporting the attention results. keywords impression formation, intergroup relations, power, stereotyping Powerful people are socially sanctioned to Author’s note judge others, as part of their positions. Jurors, Address correspondence to either Stephanie teachers, and managers, for example, must eval- A. Goodwin, Department of Psychology, Yale uate others to determine guilt, assign grades, or University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA, or promote employees. Powerful people – people Susan T. Fiske, Department of Psychology, who control other’s outcomes – could, like Green Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, anyone else, rely on stereotypes when they are NJ 08544–1010, USA. Copyright © 2000 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) [1368-4302(200007)3:3; 227–256; 011129] Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 3(3) not especially motivated to be accurate (Fiske, information (Brewer, 1988; Fiske & Neuberg, 1998; Hilton & von Hippel, 1996; Neuberg, 1990). People can counteract the apparently 1996). However, feeling entitled to judge, automatic activation of stereotypes, but doing powerful people might also make an effort to so requires considerable motivation and cogni- maintain stereotypes of their subordinates. tive effort (Fiske, 1998). Assuming the activa- Stereotyping subordinates could fulfill motiva- tion of a given group stereotype, the current tional pressures that accompany powerholders’ studies assess whether power alters perceiver positions of control and unique authority to attentional processes during impression forma- judge. At issue here, then, is the relationship tion (Studies 1–3) and consequences for these between power and motivated stereotyping. By interpretations on judgment (Study 4). The investigating stereotype-based attention, the Continuum Model of impression formation is present research addresses how powerful indi- particularly relevant to this question because it viduals think about their subordinates. In specifically addresses interpretation and motiv- addition, by investigating impression ratings, we ations not to stereotype (Fiske & Neuberg, address what the powerful think about subordi- 1990). nates. The Continuum Model: Motives to stereotype Social power, impression formation, or not to stereotype People engage in a var- iety of impression formation strategies that and stereotyping range from effortless to effortful cognitive pro- Power as control cesses (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Fiske, Lin, & Power can be defined in terms of its inherent Neuberg, 1999). The amount of effort people social nature (Dépret & Fiske, 1993). More pre- expend when thinking about others depends cisely, power reflects the nature of outcome on two factors: motivation and cognitive ability control and outcome dependencies in a social (i.e. mental resources). relationship. People who control others’ out- When uninterested or unable to attend, comes are relatively powerful, and people whose people engage in effortless category-based outcomes depend on others are relatively pow- impression processes, stereotyping by default; this erless. This definition unconfounds common involves relative inattention to potentially correlates of power (i.e. status, influence, pace, disconfirming, stereotype-inconsistent infor- Bierstedt, 1950; Cartwright, 1959; French & mation (Fiske, Neuberg, Beattie, & Milberg, Raven, 1959) and recognizes gradations in the 1987). In contrast, when motivated to form asymmetry of power relations (Fiske, 1993; accurate impressions, people engage more Fiske & Dépret, 1996). Asymmetry, one person effortful impression processes – individuation – disproportionately controlling another’s out- that can overcome stereotype activation. Infor- comes, distinguishes power relations from sym- mation that does not fit stereotypes is relatively metrical interdependence (Thibaut & Kelley, more useful than information that does fit 1959). In addressing how and what powerful (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990); stereotype-consistent people think about their subordinates, we information is redundant with what is already define power as unilateral outcome control ‘known’. Consequently, people with accuracy (Thibaut & Kelley’s 1959 ‘fate control’); power- motives attend to stereotype-inconsistent infor- ful participants in these studies have dispropor- mation. Of course, individuating impression tionate control over, but are not contingent on processes are necessary but not sufficient for powerless subordinates. reducing stereotypic impressions; people who attend to stereotype-inconsistent information Impression formation may instead refute it. In current models of impression formation, Several factors promote accuracy motives and perceiver motives predict whether and how potential individuation: explicit instruction (i.e. stereotypes influence interpretation of available telling people to be accurate; Neuberg, 1989; 228 Goodwin et al. power and stereotyping Neuberg & Fiske, 1987), accountability (i.e. bias their impressions (Goodwin & Fiske, 1996), expecting to justify impressions to a third party; particularly when they hold an exchange- Tetlock, 1992), and dependency on another’s oriented view of relationships (Chen, Lee-Chai, performance (Dépret & Fiske, 1999; Erber & & Bargh, 2000). Whether or not the powerful Fiske, 1984; Neuberg & Fiske, 1987; Ruscher & stereotype effortfully, in addition to effortlessly, Fiske, 1990: Ruscher, Fiske, Miki, & Van Manen, is likely a function of whether they feel entitled 1991). Outcome-dependent people adopt accu- to judge, which may be a function either of situ- racy motives presumably as a means of predic- ation or of person (Goodwin & Fiske, 1996; tion and control over their own outcomes. Leyens, Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994). Participants who believe their own chances for Simply stated, the fundamental principle of winning a prize are contingent on another SJT is that people refrain from judging others person’s performance, for example, pay signifi- unless they feel able to do so (Leyens, Yzerbyt, cantly more attention to inconsistent infor- & Schadron, 1992, 1994; Yzerbyt, Dardenne, & mation that challenges their stereotypes, as Leyens, 1998; Yzerbyt, Schadron, Leyens, & compared to people who are not outcome- Rocher, 1994). People feel entitled to judge dependent. when their judgments: (1) fit the available infor- mation (e.g. Kunda, 1990), (2) fit perceivers’ theo- Power as control in impression formation ries about how the social world works (Leyens, The definition of power as control applies to Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994), (3) meet cultural impression formation and mutual outcome- expectations about who can judge and how they dependency, as argued in a tripartite model ought to do so (Yzerbyt, Leyens, & Schadron, proposed by Fiske (1993): Powerholders may 1997; Yzerbyt et al., 1994), and (4) maintain the stereotype subordinates by default – ignoring integrity of important personal beliefs, including stereotype-inconsistent information – because values, self-concepts, and group identities (1) they do not need, and are therefore unmoti- (Leyens & Yzerbyt, 1992). When faced with vio- vated to attend to subordinates, (2) they may lating any of these four criteria for judging, not want to attend to subordinates, to the extent people feel unable to judge and may hesitate, that they have dominant personalities, or (3) hedge, or refuse. Applying these judgment cri- they perhaps cannot attend to subordinates teria to power relations, two factors may moti- because cognitive demands are high (with vate powerful people’s effort to maintain many subordinates). This research focuses on stereotypes about subordinates: powerholders’ the first and (to a lesser extent) second pre- potential entitlement to judge and possible dictions. Powerful people are, by definition, desire to maintain power roles (Goodwin & relatively non-contingent on the powerless; out- Fiske, 1996). come-controlling powerful people (and per- haps dominant personalities) are predicted to Power entails entitlement Feeling entitled to ignore information that challenges stereotypes, judge may increase powerholders’ confidence stereotyping subordinates by default. In con- in their own beliefs,
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