Cultural dynamics of stereotyping: Interpersonal communication may inadvertently help maintaining auto-stereotypes too

Abstract

This paper illustrates an instance of cultural dynamics in which people contribute to the persistence of a shared culture by providing information that tends to confirm, rather than challenge, the existing culture. In a serial reproduction experiment, a chain of five people transmitted in writing a story containing positive and negative information consistent and inconsistent with their auto-stereotype, a stereotype of their own ingroup. In general, negative information quickly dropped out of transmitted stories. Although positive stereotype inconsistent (SI) information was more likely transmitted than positive stereotype consistent (SC) information initially, this tendency was reversed tow..