Meta-stereotype And Its Effects

The concept of meta-stereotype is firstly defined by Vorauer and her colleagues to refer to a person's beliefs regarding the stereotype those out-group members hold about his or her own group (Vorauer, Main, & O'Connell, 1998). In the past decades, social psychologists have focused on the stereotype mechanism and its effects on people's feeling, thought and behavior. In recent years, some researchers have paid attention to meta-stereotype. Although research on meta-stereotype is still limited, it has become a new trend in social cognitive psychology.Most researches on meta-stereotype have generally focused on different ethnic and national groups with some on different sexual groups. Different groups have high or low social status. In the past few years, more and more researches had demonstrated that meta-stereotype exerted stronger influence on intergroup relation than other-stereotype. Meta-stereotype has more profound and enduring implications for intergroup relations. The present study examined the other-stereotype, meta-stereotype, intergroup relation and their relationships.The present study used different social class members as participants, because basic structure of social class has been formed in our country, and social class differentiation has become one of important factors which influence social harmony and people's mind (Lu XueYi, 2002). Exploring other-stereotype, meta-stereotype, intergroup relations and their relationships will help to extend researches in this field, and improve understanding and relationship among different social class.In theoretical analysis, the dissertation explored the nature of meta-stereotype, the relationship of meta-stereotype and meta-cognition, research methods and the effects of meta-stereotype. Furthermore, three studies have been conducted to examine the nature of meta-stereotype and its effects. The first study was to reveal the content of meta-stereotype, self-stereotype, other-stereotype held by higher social class members and lower social class members, and to explore the relationships among meta-stereotype, self-stereotype and other-stereotype of out-group. The result showed: (1) For both higher and lower social class, self-stereotype were the most positive , followed by meta-stereotype, with other-stereotype being relatively negative; (2) High correspondence was found to exist between meta-stereotype and self-stereotype.The second study examined the other-stereotype, meta-stereotype, intergroup relation and their relationships. The result showed: (1) For both higher and lower social class, most aspects of meta-stereotype and self-stereotype were positive, while other-stereotype was relatively negative; (2) For both higher and lower social class, the desire for contact was passive, outgroup attitude and perceived intergroup relation were at middle level and outgroup attitude of higher social class was significantly higher than that of lower social class; (3) For higher social class, the relationship between intergroup relation and meta-stereotype was not significant, and intergroup relation was only positively related with some aspects of other-stereotype. For lower social class, the correlation between intergroup relation and meta-stereotype was significant; the correlation between intergroup relation and some dimensions of other-stereotype was also significant; (4) In the intergroup relation structure model of higher social class, other-stereotype had positive effect on outgroup attitude, and out-group attitude had positive effect on desire for contact. While in the structure model of lower social class, meta-stereotype had positive effect on outgroup attitude, and outgoup attitude had positive effect on desire for contact and perceived intergroup relation.The third study examined how the manipulation of meta-stereotype affected intergroup relations. The result showed: (1) For higher social class, different manipulation of meta-stereotype had no significant effect on intergroup relations; (2) For lower social class, manipulating the salience of positive meta-stereotype improved out-group attitude and perceived intergroup relation, and had no significant effect on desire for contact.In the general discussion, the dissertation discussed the relationship among meta-stereotype, self-stereotype and other-stereotype of out-group, and meta-stereotype's effects on intergroup relation. The present study was first research of meta-stereotype in our country, thus we could only compare the results with similar foreign researches. The author analyzed the cause of the inconsistency in the comparison of the results.At last, the author summarized the studies of meta-stereotype, and pointed out some future research subjects in this field.