Strategies for Social Inference: A Similarity Contingency Model of Projection and Stereotyping in Attribute Prevalence Estimates.

Abstract

Most models of how perceivers infer the widespread attitudes and qualities of social groups revolve around either the self (social projection, false consensus) or stereotypes (stereotyping). The author suggests people rely on both of these inferential strategies, with perceived general similarity moderating their use, leading to increased levels of projection and decreased levels of stereotyping. Three studies featuring existing individual differences in perceived similarity as well as manipulated perceptions supported the predictions, with similarity yielding increased projection to, and decreased stereotyping of, various in-groups and out-groups. Evidence that projection and stereotyping may serve as inferential alternatives also emerged. The model and accompanying results have implications for research on social comparison and projection, stereotyping and prejudice, and social inference. Do the majority of rural Americans oppose gay marriage? What portion of your neighbors regularly volunteers for community service? Do most adolescent girls prefer movies with heartwrenching redemption to ones with action and violence? The ability of perceivers to gauge the prevalence of such qualities plays an important role in everyday social life. Our choices of public policy, for instance, rely on judgments of the frequency of behavior and attitudes. Our sense of what is normative, or even fashionable, hangs on intuitions about widespread values and preferences. The jokes we tell and the arguments we make are loaded with assumptions about the knowledge and beliefs of those around us. In short, communicating and coordinating with others requires that perceivers make inferences (whether right or wrong) about the prevalent attitudes and attributes of the people and groups around them.

Children reason about shared preferences.

“…Predictions can be made either by projection, whereby information about oneself is used to make an inference about another person, or by stereotyping, whereby information about a group that that individual belongs to is used in making inferences. Judgments of similarity likely play a role here, since people are more likely to use projection with individuals who are similar to themselves and stereotyping with individuals who are dissimilar (Ames, 2004). Exploring children's reasoning about similarity to others should thus provide insight into how they form expectations about individuals and also increase our knowledge of the early roots of person perception.…”

Perceiving others’ personalities: Examining the dimensionality, assumed similarity to the self, and stability of perceiver effects.

“…Different activities might produce different results. For example, Ames (2004) found that individuals are more likely to use social projection with others that they believe are generally similar to the self and more likely to use stereotypes with others that are believed to be generally dissimilar. It is possible that in a social context in which subjects did not feel particularly connected to others, they may have relied more heavily on preexisting stereotypes-perhaps producing clearer generalized-other effects as a result.…”

“…General assumed similarity would be evidenced by a positive correlation between selfperceptions and perceiver effects. (A belief that the self is similar to some and dissimilar to others, as in Ames, 2004, would affect correlations with relationship effects.) Several studies in which the SRM has been used have found evidence of general assumed similarity-that is, correlations between self-perceptions and perceiver effects-in personality trait perceptions.…”

Thou Shalt Not Steal: Effects of Normative Cues on Attitudes towards Theft

“…Therefore, we measured attitudes towards theft was by assessing the acceptability dimension of attitudes towards theft, measured on a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from "very unacceptable" to "very acceptable". In addition to acceptability judgments, research has also found that an individual uses projections of their own attitudes when making inferences about the attitudes of someone else (e.g., Ames, 2004;Goel, Mason, & Watts, 2010). That is, an individual's inference about another person's attitude towards theft may be an indirect measure of their own attitude towards theft without linking the behavior directly to themselves.…”