Mind perception and stereotype attribution of corporations and charities

Abstract

People generally attribute less mind to groups than to individuals. Previous research has also shown differences of mind perception between different types of groups, such that not-for-profit organizations were viewed as having more minds than for-profit organizations. In this paper, we ascertained this mind perception differences and further examined its underlying mechanisms and concomitant consequences. Across three studies, we replicated that people attributed more mind to not-for-profit organizations than to for-profit organizations. More critically, the current research linked mind perception to stereotype content model and added that this effect was mainly explained by perceived warmth of the groups rather than perceived competence. We found that although not-for-profit organizations were perceived as warmer but less competent than for-profit ones, the former was perceived both as having more experiential and agentic mental capacities than the latter. In addition, for-profit organizations received less compassionate responding than not-for-profit ones when they suffer, which was attributable to mind perception. This paper highlights the distinction between experience and warmth, and between agency and competence, thus extending our theoretical understanding of the fundamental dimensions of mind perception and those of the stereotype content of groups. A group, which is a collection of people, is seldom viewed simply as the sums of the constituent individuals. When it comes to the perceptions of the minds of groups, groups are generally viewed as less capable of various mental activities than individuals, feelings, and emotions in particular (

Do Companies Think and Feel? Mind Perception of Organizations

“…While past research has theorized their similarities and differences, only one empirical paper to date (Au & Ng, 2021) has explicitly examined them. To that end, we measured warmth and competence (Fiske et al, 2007) to test whether even emotions low in warmth (i.e., anger) can imbue an organization's mind with perceived experience.…”

Evidence of the unidimensional structure of mind perception

“…As such, this is inclusive of anthropomorphism (the granting of humanlike qualities to nonhuman entities 3,4 ), dehumanization (the denial of humanlike capacities to human entities 5 ), and emotion ascription (the granting of emotion experience capability to an entity [6][7][8][9] ). The fundamental properties used to make mind perception judgements has important real-world implications for decision-making processes across a multitude of domains including health and lifestyle decisions 10,11 , technology 12,13 , and social attitudes [14][15][16][17] .…”

“…However, how people perceive the minds of others has substantive real-world consequences. For example, attributing mind impacts decision-making and judgments in the context of: withdrawal of life support from terminally ill patients 10 , decisions to eat meat 11 , ascription of responsibility to autonomous machines 12 , endorsement of aid 15 , customer satisfaction with service robots 13 , willingness to help organizations when they suffer 14 , and perceptions of immortality after death 16 . Relatedly, denial of mind underpins support for genocide 46,47 and mediates the effect of personal moral values on prejudice towards sexual outgroups 17 .…”

Your voice pitch speaks volumes about you: How voice pitch affects mind perception of the speakers

“…A comprehensive review comparing Gray and colleagues' mind perception model (Gray et al, 2007) to alternative ‘Big Two’ models of social perception (e.g., stereotype content model, Fiske et al, 2002; dual model of dehumanization, Haslam, 2006) is beyond the scope of current work; however, it is necessary to outline how human minds were defined differently in mind perception model compared to those alternative theoretical perspectives (Haslam et al, 2013). Gray et al' (2007) model pays greater attention to ascribing mental capacities than traits (stereotype content model, Fiske et al, 2002) or humanness (dual model of dehumanization, Haslam, 2006) as in other theories (for similarities and distinctions between these theories, see Au & Ng, 2021; Formanowicz et al, 2018; Haslam et al, 2013), and thus mind perception model is more relevant to the purpose of the current study than other perspectives. Furthermore, because mental capacities (i.e., agency, experience) are known to be significant predictors of moral judgements in contexts where people suffer harm (Gray & Wegner, 2009, 2011, 2012b), which is similar to the context of the current study, we focused on this model to explore how voice pitch influences mental capacities and what kind of downstream outcomes can be explained by such relationships.…”