title: Is it advisable to include negative attributes to assess the stereotype content? Yes, but only in the morality dimension.
abstract: Competence, morality and sociability dimensions have shown to be essential to measure stereotypes. Theoretically, the attributes associated with the negative pole of morality are more reliable and have shown to have higher evaluative weight. However, the current research usually employs only positive attributes to measure each dimension. Since the advantages of the inclusion of negative morality are clear it would be interesting to know about the effects of the inclusion of such type of attributes (i.e., it is good or bad for the measurement). The purpose of this study is to examine if the addition of negative items makes possible to improve the stereotype content measures. This study compares the differences between scales with various compositions of positive and negative items of stereotypes to predict three related variables: anger, fear and a semantic differential of evaluation. The study was carried out with a sample of 550 Spaniards. The data found highlights the importance of using attributes of the negative pole of morality in studying stereotypes. Their use was able to explain the intergroup emotional responses and the semantic differential more efficiently.
authors.affiliation: University of Almería, Spain.
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sayans-Jiménez
authors.affiliation: University of Almería, Spain.|Centre for the Study of Migrations and Intercultural Relations (CEMyRI), University of Almería, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio José
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Rojas Tejada
authors.affiliation: University of Almería, Spain.|Centre for the Study of Migrations and Intercultural Relations (CEMyRI), University of Almería, Spain.
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Cuadrado Guirado
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009014:Morals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012938:Social Perception; D013240:Stereotyping; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Stereotypes; competence; morality; negative attributes; sociability