title: Construal level mind-sets moderate self- and social stereotyping.
abstract: Construal level theory suggests that events and objects can be represented at either a higher, more abstract level involving consideration of superordinate goals, desirability, global processing, and broad categorizations or a lower, more concrete level involving consideration of subordinate goals, feasibility, local processing, and narrow categorizations. Analogously, social targets (including the self) can be represented more broadly, as members of a group, or more narrowly, as individuals. Because abstract construals induce a similarity focus, they were predicted to increase the perceived fit between social targets and a salient social category. Accordingly, placing individuals into a more abstract construal mind-set via an unrelated task increased the activation and use of stereotypes of salient social groups, stereotype-consistent trait ratings of the self, group identification, and stereotype-consistent performance relative to more concrete construal mind-sets. Thus, nonsocial contextual influences (construal level mind-sets) affect stereotyping of self and others.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA. smccrea@uwyo.edu
authors: Sean M
authors: SM
authors: McCrea
authors: Frank
authors: F
authors: Wieber
authors: Andrea L
authors: AL
authors: Myers
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012649:Self Concept; D012933:Social Identification; D012938:Social Perception; D013240:Stereotyping; D055815:Young Adult