When exceptions prove the rule: How extremity of deviance determines the impact of deviant examples on stereotypes.

Abstract

The authors examined how the extent to which counterstereotypic individuals deviate from perceivers' stereotypes affects their impact on these stereotypes and found that extremely deviant group members provoke less stereotype assimilation than do moderately deviant ones. Extremely deviant examples can even provoke boomerang effects, that is, enhance the very stereotype that they violate. When participants whose prior stereotype were moderate or extreme were exposed to moderately or extremely deviant examples, the deviant examples' impact on stereotypes depended both on their extremity and on the extremity of perceivers' prior stereotypes. Boomerang effects were obtained only for extreme-stereotype participants exposed to extremely deviant examples and were mediated by perceptions of the typicality of the deviant examples. Open-ended explanations revealed that the atypicality of extremely deviant examples was used as grounds for dismissing them.

Communicating the Consequences of Early Detection: The Role of Evidence and Framing

“…However, Petty and Cacioppo (1981, p. 225) go on to note that subjects' "antagonistic ... responses may be so much more persuasive than the arguments contained in the message that a position opposite to that advocated might be adopted." Such boomerang effects have been discovered in a variety of persuasive contexts, including exposure to messages that are highly discrepant from subjects' prior attitudes (Dignan et al 1985;Whittaker 1968), reactance against perceived strong persuasive intent (Snyder and Wicklund 1976), statements of facts already presumed to be true (Gruenfeld and Wyer 1992), and presentation of extremely counterstereotypical examples (Kunda and Oleson 1997). In addition, Sutton, Balch, and Lefebvre (1995) have speculated that efforts to educate consumers about cancer risk factors can sometimes decrease consumers' motivation to undergo cancer screening.…”

How subtyping shapes perception: Predictable exceptions to the rule reduce attention to stereotype-associated dimensions

“…Research has established a number of preconditions of subtyping (Richards & Hewstone, 2001). For instance, subtyping is more likely to occur when the disconfirming exemplars deviate from the stereotype in an extreme (e.g., Kunda & Oleson, 1997) or atypical (e.g., Weber & Crocker, 1983) manner.…”

Dealing with deviants: The effectiveness of rejection, denial, and apologies on protecting the public image of a group

“…By virtue of the fact that these groups were associated with a conservative belief system, a racist transgression by one member of the group could be construed as deviating in a negative direction, but not to the extent that it becomes exceptional and atypical. Moderately deviant examplars are most influential in altering stereotypes (Kunda & Oleson, 1997), putting the group at serious risk of being associated with the racist transgression and viewed as racist itself.…”

“…Examplars that deviate too much from the group stereotype are unlikely to cause stereotype change because they are viewed as atypical, as a result of which they are mentally excluded from the stereotype (Kunda & Oleson, 1997). Conversely, because social categorization implies a grouping of people on the basis of within-group similarities and between-group differences (Turner et al, 1987), mentally excluding a deviant from the group induces a perception of the deviant as different from other members of his or her group-as an atypical group member.…”