A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows how hard it is to break stereotypes when you're new to the area.
Stereotypes are self-perpetuating in our minds and grow stronger with use.
William Cox is a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Making assumptions about other people is part of mental practice. Even when we don't have evidence to back them up, the assumptions get stronger over time.
Cox and his co-authors, including a former Cox Lab manager and a psychology professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, put more than 1,000 people to work on a stereotyping task.
The experiment's participants were told that half of the men were gay, but the researchers had created their own profiles. One group of made-up profiles had gay interests, another had straight interests, and a third had neutral information.
After the first 20 answers, the profile readers got feedback that told them they were correct or incorrect, or they didn't get feedback at all. The researchers tracked the participants' responses to see how the previous feedback affected their answers after they read 10 more profiles.
According to Cox, participants answered in accordance with stereotypes about two-thirds of the time, which is in line with previous research. We wanted to know how these people learned from the feedback we gave them and how we stereotyped them.
People learn from feedback that confirms stereotypes over time. People who received feedback that ran counter to stereotypes didn't learn from it and continued to stereotype at the same rate despite the feedback saying that the stereotypes were inaccurate.
The people who didn't get feedback showed the same learning patterns as the people who had their stereotypes confirmed. They used their stereotypes more often when making gay or straight decisions.
Cox says that they didn't get any evidence beyond their own assumptions. Over time, they used those stereotypes more. They are learning from those assumptions.
In a follow-up experiment, the researchers asked a group of nearly 300 people to tackle a profile task but gave them a random mix of feedback. The participants were told to repeat the process but remember what the feedback was for each man. They were more likely to say the feedback matched stereotypes when there was no feedback at all.
When they didn't have any evidence to back up their assumptions, would they forget to confirm their responses? Cox said something. It's what happened. When we didn't tell them anything at all, they were more likely to forget that we had told them their assumptions were true.
The neuroscience of learning and the stubbornness of stereotypes were supported by the results.
Confirmation stimulates reward processes in our brains when an uncertain prediction is confirmed, like successfully guessing which number will come up on the next roll of dice. A chemical release is a reward that reinforces the value of the prediction. When feedback said that stereotypes were inaccurate, participants continued to rely on stereotypes.
Our brain wants our expectations to be supported. Cox's work is supported by the National Institute of Health. The lack of evidence that tells us we're wrong perpetuates stereotypes, in addition to the reward signal we get when a stereotype is confirmed.
Cox and Devine's bias habit-breaking training has been proven to help people reduce the influence of their biases and make the changes stick over time. Participants are taught to recognize stereotypes and biases during the training. They will be able to improve the training.
Cox warns that this is something to watch out for. You are going to make assumptions. They are going to reinforce stereotypes if you don't catch them. It's important to understand that this happens so that you can check your assumptions and not let them affect your judgement.
More information: William T.L. Cox et al, Untested assumptions perpetuate stereotyping: Learning in the absence of evidence, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104380 Journal information: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
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