"A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition": Correction to Fiske et al. (2002)

Reports an error in "A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition" by Susan T. Fiske, Amy J. C. Cuddy, Peter Glick and Jun Xu (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002[Jun], Vol 82[6], 878-902). In the fourth paragraph of the Status Predicts Competence, and Competition Predicts Warmth section, the results are worded in a confusing way, and some values are wrong. In the fourth paragraph's first sentence, all correlation coefficients mistakenly omitted the negative sign implied in the text ("negatively correlated") and shown in the correct values reported in Table 6. The text should appear instead as follows: Perceived competition negatively correlated with perceived warmth for the student sample, group-level r(21) .68, p < .001; individual-level r(71) .22, p < .1, and the nonstudent sample, group-level r(21) .53, p < .001; individual-level r(36) .11, ns. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2002-02942-002.) Stereotype research emphasizes systematic processes over seemingly arbitrary contents, but content also may prove systematic. On the basis of stereotypes' intergroup functions, the stereotype content model hypothesizes that (1) 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, (2) frequent mixed clusters combine high warmth with low competence (paternalistic) or high competence with low warmth (envious), and (3) distinct emotions (pity, envy, admiration, contempt) differentiate the 4 competence-warmth combinations. Stereotypically, (4) status predicts high competence, and competition predicts low warmth. Nine varied samples rated gender, ethnicity, race, class, age, and disability out-groups. Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors). Stereotypically, status predicted competence, and competition predicted low warmth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A systematic review of the ambivalent sexism literature: Hostile sexism protects men's power; benevolent sexism guards traditional gender roles

According to ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), the coexistence of gendered power differences and mutual interdependence creates two apparently opposing but complementary sexist ideologies: hostile sexism (HS; viewing women as manipulative competitors who seek to gain power over men) coincides with benevolent sexism (BS; a chivalrous view of women as pure and moral, yet weak and passive, deserving men's protection and admiration, as long as they conform). The research on these ideologies employs the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, used extensively in psychology and allied disciplines, often to understand the roles sexist attitudes play in reinforcing gender inequality. Following contemporary guidelines, this systematic review utilizes a principled approach to synthesize the multidisciplinary empirical literature on ambivalent sexism. After screening 1,870 potentially relevant articles and fully reviewing 654 eligible articles, five main domains emerge in ambivalent sexism research (social ideologies, violence, workplace, stereotypes, intimate relationships). The accumulating evidence across domains offers bottom-up empirical support for ambivalent sexism as a coordinated system to maintain control over women (and sometimes men). Hostile sexism acts through the direct and diverse paths of envious/resentful prejudices, being more sensitive to power and sexuality cues; Benevolent sexism acts through prejudices related to interdependence (primarily gender-based paternalism and gender-role differentiation), enforcing traditional gender relations and being more sensitive to role-related cues. Discussion points to common methodological limitations, suggests guidelines, and finds future avenues for ambivalent sexism research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Erratum: Humans perceive warmth and competence in artificial intelligence

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107256.].

Valence biases and emergence in the stereotype content of intersecting social categories

People belong to multiple social groups simultaneously. However, much remains to be learned about the rich semantic perceptions of multiply-categorized targets. Two pretests and three main studies (n = 1,116) compare perceptions of single social categories to perceptions of two intersecting social categories. Unlike previous research focusing on specific social categories (e.g., race and age), our studies involve intersections from a large sample of salient societal groups. Study 1 provides evidence for biased information integration (vs. averaging), such that ratings of intersecting categories were more similar to the constituent with more negative and more extreme (either very positive or very negative) stereotypes. Study 2 indicates that negativity and extremity also bias spontaneous perceptions of intersectional targets, including dimensions beyond Warmth and Competence. Study 3 shows that the prevalence of emergent properties (i.e., traits attributed to intersecting categories but not the constituents) is greater for novel targets and targets with incongruent constituent stereotypes (e.g., one constituent is stereotyped as high Status and the other as low Status). Finally, Study 3 suggests that emergent (vs. present in constituents) perceptions are more negative and tend to be more about Morality and idiosyncratic content and less about Competence or Sociability. Our findings advance understanding about perceptions of multiply-categorized targets, information integration, and the connection between theories of process (e.g., individuation) and content. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Humans perceive warmth and competence in artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) increasingly suffuses everyday life. However, people are frequently reluctant to interact with A.I. systems. This challenges both the deployment of beneficial A.I. technology and the development of deep learning systems that depend on humans for oversight, direction, and regulation. Nine studies (N = 3,300) demonstrate that social-cognitive processes guide human interactions across a diverse range of real-world A.I. systems. Across studies, perceived warmth and competence emerge prominently in participants' impressions of A.I. systems. Judgments of warmth and competence systematically depend on human-A.I. interdependence and autonomy. In particular, participants perceive systems that optimize interests aligned with human interests as warmer and systems that operate independently from human direction as more competent. Finally, a prisoner's dilemma game shows that warmth and competence judgments predict participants' willingness to cooperate with a deep-learning system. These results underscore the generality of intent detection to perceptions of a broad array of algorithmic actors.

Stories in Action

Stories have played a central role in human social and political life for thousands of years. Despite their ubiquity in culture and custom, however, they feature only peripherally in formal government policymaking. Government policy has tended to rely on tools with more predictable responses-incentives, transfers, and prohibitions. We argue that stories can and should feature more centrally in government policymaking. We lay out how stories can make policy more effective, specifying how they complement established policy tools. We provide a working definition of stories' key characteristics, contrasting them with other forms of communication. We trace the evolution of stories from their ancient origins to their role in mediating the impact of modern technologies on society. We then provide an account of the mechanisms underlying stories' impacts on their audiences. We conclude by describing three functions of stories-learning, persuasion, and collective action.

A spontaneous stereotype content model: Taxonomy, properties, and prediction

The spontaneous stereotype content model (SSCM) describes a comprehensive taxonomy, with associated properties and predictive value, of social-group beliefs that perceivers report in open-ended responses. Four studies (N = 1,470) show the utility of spontaneous stereotypes, compared to traditional, prompted, scale-based stereotypes. Using natural language processing text analyses, Study 1 shows the most common spontaneous stereotype dimensions for salient social groups. Our results confirm existing stereotype models' dimensions, while uncovering a significant prevalence of dimensions that these models do not cover, such as Health, Appearance, and Deviance. The SSCM also characterizes the valence, direction, and accessibility of reported dimensions (e.g., Ability stereotypes are mostly positive, but Morality stereotypes are mostly negative; Sociability stereotypes are provided later than Ability stereotypes in a sequence of open-ended responses). Studies 2 and 3 check the robustness of these findings by: using a larger sample of social groups, varying time pressure, and diversifying analytical strategies. Study 3 also establishes the value of spontaneous stereotypes: compared to scales alone, open-ended measures improve predictions of attitudes toward social groups. Improvement in attitude prediction results partially from a more comprehensive taxonomy as well as a construct we refer to as stereotype representativeness: the prevalence of a stereotype dimension in perceivers' spontaneous beliefs about a social group. Finally, Study 4 examines how the taxonomy provides additional insight into stereotypes' influence on decision-making in socially relevant scenarios. Overall, spontaneous content broadens our understanding of stereotyping and intergroup relations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Globally Inaccurate Stereotypes Can Result From Locally Adaptive Exploration

Inaccurate stereotypes-perceived differences among groups that do not actually differ-are prevalent and consequential. Past research explains stereotypes as emerging from a range of factors, including motivational biases, cognitive limitations, and information deficits. Considering the minimal forces required to produce inaccurate assumptions about group differences, we found that locally adaptive exploration is sufficient: An initial arbitrary interaction, if rewarding enough, may discourage people from investigating alternatives that would be equal or better. Historical accidents can snowball into globally inaccurate generalizations, and inaccurate stereotypes can emerge in the absence of real group differences. Using multiarmed-bandit models, we found that the mere act of choosing among groups with the goal of maximizing the long-term benefit of interactions is enough to produce inaccurate assessments of different groups. This phenomenon was reproduced in two large online experiments with English-speaking adults (N = 2,404), which demonstrated a minimal process that suffices to produce biased impressions.

Systemic racism: individuals and interactions, institutions and society

Systemic racism is a scientifically tractable phenomenon, urgent for cognitive scientists to address. This tutorial reviews the built-in systems that undermine life opportunities and outcomes by racial category, with a focus on challenges to Black Americans. From American colonial history, explicit practices and policies reinforced disadvantage across all domains of life, beginning with slavery, and continuing with vastly subordinated status. Racially segregated housing creates racial isolation, with disproportionate costs to Black Americans’ opportunities, networks, education, wealth, health, and legal treatment. These institutional and societal systems build-in individual bias and racialized interactions, resulting in systemic racism. Unconscious inferences, empirically established from perceptions onward, demonstrate non-Black Americans’ inbuilt associations: pairing Black Americans with negative valences, criminal stereotypes, and low status, including animal rather than human. Implicit racial biases (improving only slightly over time) imbed within non-Black individuals’ systems of racialized beliefs, judgments, and affect that predict racialized behavior. Interracial interactions likewise convey disrespect and distrust. These systematic individual and interpersonal patterns continue partly due to non-Black people’s inexperience with Black Americans and reliance on societal caricatures. Despite systemic challenges, Black Americans are more diverse now than ever, due to resilience (many succeeding against the odds), immigration (producing varied backgrounds), and intermarriage (increasing the multiracial proportion of the population). Intergroup contact can foreground Black diversity, resisting systemic racism, but White advantages persist in all economic, political, and social domains. Cognitive science has an opportunity: to include in its study of the mind the distortions of reality about individual humans and their social groups.

Relational versus structural goals prioritize different social information

People gather information about others along a few fundamental dimensions; their current goals determine which dimensions they most need to know. As proponents of competing social-evaluation models, we sought to study the dimensions that perceivers spontaneously prioritize when gathering information about unknown social groups. Because priorities depend on functions, having relational goals (e.g., deciding whether and how to interact with a group) versus structural goals (e.g., getting an overview of society) should moderate dimensional priorities. Various candidate dimensions could differentiate perceivers' impressions of social groups. For example, the Stereotype Content model argues that people evaluate others in terms of their Warmth (i.e., their Sociability and Morality) and Competence (i.e., their Ability and Assertiveness). Alternatively, the Agency-Beliefs-Communion (ABC) model proposes conservative-progressive Beliefs. Five studies (N = 2,268) found that participants consistently prioritized learning about targets' Warmth. However, goal moderated priority: When participants had a relational goal, such as an unknown group increasing in their neighborhood, they showed more interest in targets' Sociability, a facet of Warmth. When participants had a structural goal, such as an unknown group increasing in their nation, they showed more interest in the groups' Beliefs, as well as increased interest in Competence-related facets. Diverse methods reveal interest in all dimensions, reconciling discrepancies among social-evaluation models by identifying how relational versus structural goals differentiate priorities of the fundamental dimensions proposed by current models. Results have implications for fundamental dimensions of social cognition, more generally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: A call to action for psychological science

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has caused the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic represents the greatest international biopsychosocial emergency the world has faced for a century, and psychological science has an integral role to offer in helping societies recover. The aim of this paper is to set out the shorter- and longer-term priorities for research in psychological science that will (a) frame the breadth and scope of potential contributions from across the discipline; (b) enable researchers to focus their resources on gaps in knowledge; and (c) help funders and policymakers make informed decisions about future research priorities in order to best meet the needs of societies as they emerge from the acute phase of the pandemic. The research priorities were informed by an expert panel convened by the British Psychological Society that reflects the breadth of the discipline; a wider advisory panel with international input; and a survey of 539 psychological scientists conducted early in May 2020. The most pressing need is to research the negative biopsychosocial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate immediate and longer-term recovery, not only in relation to mental health, but also in relation to behaviour change and adherence, work, education, children and families, physical health and the brain, and social cohesion and connectedness. We call on psychological scientists to work collaboratively with other scientists and stakeholders, establish consortia, and develop innovative research methods while maintaining high-quality, open, and rigorous research standards.

Navigating the social world: Toward an integrated framework for evaluating self, individuals, and groups

Social evaluation occurs at personal, interpersonal, group, and intergroup levels, with competing theories and evidence. Five models engage in adversarial collaboration, to identify common conceptual ground, ongoing controversies, and continuing agendas: Dual Perspective Model (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007); Behavioral Regulation Model (Leach, Ellemers, & Barreto, 2007); Dimensional Compensation Model (Yzerbyt et al., 2005); Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002); and Agency-Beliefs-Communion Model (Koch, Imhoff, Dotsch, Unkelbach, & Alves, 2016). Each has distinctive focus, theoretical roots, premises, and evidence. Controversies dispute dimensions: number, organization, definition, and labeling; their relative priority; and their relationship. Our first integration suggests 2 fundamental dimensions: Vertical (agency, competence, "getting ahead") and Horizontal (communion, warmth, "getting along"), with respective facets of ability and assertiveness (Vertical) and friendliness and morality (Horizontal). Depending on context, a third dimension is conservative versus progressive Beliefs. Second, different criteria for priority favor different dimensions: processing speed and subjective weight (Horizontal); pragmatic diagnosticity (Vertical); moderators include number and type of target, target-perceiver relationship, context. Finally, the relation between dimensions has similar operational moderators. As an integrative framework, the dimensions' dynamics also depend on perceiver goals (comprehension, efficiency, harmony, compatibility), each balancing top-down and bottom-up processes, for epistemic or hedonic functions. One emerging insight is that the nature and number of targets each of these models typically examines alters perceivers' evaluative goal and how bottom-up information or top-down inferences interact. This framework benefits theoretical parsimony and new research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Social Cognition evolves: Illustrations from our work on Intergroup Bias and on Healthy Adaptation

When we first wrote Social Cognition (1984), social psychology's crisis critiqued methods, replicability, theory, and relevance. Social cognition research illustrates four phases of response to these challenges. First, the Cognitive Miser approach introduced methods less prone to experimenter or participant interference: looking time as attention, categorical memory for who said what. Next, the Motivated Tactician approach addressed replicability by identifying moderator variables, primarily goals and motivations. For example, interdependence (Fiske) and threat (Taylor) are prominent motivations in our respective research. The third wave, perceivers as Activated Actors, translated mental states to behavior, using theory-guided prediction. In intergroup bias, for example, Fiske's Stereotype Content Model predicts patterns of discriminatory behavior distinctive to each combination of stereotypic warmth and competence. Going beyond reported behavior, distinctive activations emerged in brain-imaging and muscle responses. In health psychology, Taylor's Positive Illusions theory predicts people cope with life-threatening illness by viewing the odds optimistically, the self positively, and possible control affirmatively. Again, the social cognitive processes interplay with psycho-physiology. Recently, social cognitive approaches have increasingly addressed inequality: health disparities, bias interventions, power dynamics, class effects, social morality, and intent inferences. Viewing perceivers as Inequality Enablers answers any remaining doubts about the field's continuing relevance.

As diversity increases, people paradoxically perceive social groups as more similar

With globalization and immigration, societal contexts differ in sheer variety of resident social groups. Social diversity challenges individuals to think in new ways about new kinds of people and where their groups all stand, relative to each other. However, psychological science does not yet specify how human minds represent social diversity, in homogeneous or heterogenous contexts. Mental maps of the array of society's groups should differ when individuals inhabit more and less diverse ecologies. Nonetheless, predictions disagree on how they should differ. Confirmation bias suggests more diversity means more stereotype dispersion: With increased exposure, perceivers' mental maps might differentiate more among groups, so their stereotypes would spread out (disperse). In contrast, individuation suggests more diversity means less stereotype dispersion, as perceivers experience within-group variety and between-group overlap. Worldwide, nationwide, individual, and longitudinal datasets (n = 12,011) revealed a diversity paradox: More diversity consistently meant less stereotype dispersion. Both contextual and perceived ethnic diversity correlate with decreased stereotype dispersion. Countries and US states with higher levels of ethnic diversity (e.g., South Africa and Hawaii, versus South Korea and Vermont), online individuals who perceive more ethnic diversity, and students who moved to more ethnically diverse colleges mentally represent ethnic groups as more similar to each other, on warmth and competence stereotypes. Homogeneity shows more-differentiated stereotypes; ironically, those with the least exposure have the most-distinct stereotypes. Diversity means less-differentiated stereotypes, as in the melting pot metaphor. Diversity and reduced dispersion also correlate positively with subjective wellbeing.

Stereotypes as Historical Accidents: Images of Social Class in Postcommunist Versus Capitalist Societies

Stereotypes are ideological and justify the existing social structure. Although stereotypes persist, they can change when the context changes. Communism's rise in Eastern Europe and Asia in the 20th century provides a natural experiment examining social-structural effects on social class stereotypes. Nine samples from postcommunist countries (N = 2,241), compared with 38 capitalist countries (N = 4,344), support the historical, sociocultural rootedness of stereotypes. More positive stereotypes of the working class appear in postcommunist countries, both compared with other social groups in the country and compared with working-class stereotypes in capitalist countries; postcommunist countries also show more negative stereotypes of the upper class. We further explore whether communism's ideological legacy reflects how societies infer groups' stereotypic competence and warmth from structural status and competition. Postcommunist societies show weaker status-competence relations and stronger (negative) competition-warmth relations; respectively, the lower meritocratic beliefs and higher priority of embeddedness as ideological legacies may shape these relationships.

Vertical and horizontal inequality are status and power differences: applications to stereotyping by competence and warmth

Status (respect, prestige) and power (resource control) arguably form two kinds of inequality. Status differences appear culturally reasonable as vertical inequality-with a common rationale: meritocracy (deservingness). High-status individuals and groups are accorded competence. Status differences divide people by inequality, but so do differences in power (sharing resource control). Power-sharing (or not) can be cooperative, peer interdependence, tending toward equality, or competitive rivalry, negative interdependence, tending toward inequality. This kind of (in)equality-power-sharing (or not)-theoretically differs from vertical status differences. Orientation to power-sharing thus is horizontal (in)equality. One end creates competitive friction among the distrusted and dissimilar. At the other end, horizontal equality creates mutual cooperation of the warm, similar, and familiar. Distinguishing status and power differences broadens inequality's scope.

Stereotypes, emotions, and behaviors associated with animals: A causal test of the stereotype content model and BIAS map

Using the stereotype content model (SCM; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) and the behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes (BIAS) map (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007), two experiments tested the effect of animal stereotypes on emotions and behavioral tendencies toward animals. As a novel approach, Study 1 ( N = 165) manipulated warmth and competence traits of a fictitious animal species (“wallons”) and tested their effect on emotions and behaviors toward those animals. Stereotypical warm-competent and cold-incompetent “wallons” elicited fondness/delight and contempt/disgust, respectively. Cold-competent “wallons” primarily elicited threat but not awe. Warm-incompetent “wallons” were elusive targets, not eliciting specific emotions. The warmth dimension determined active behaviors, promoting facilitation (support/help) and reducing harm (kill/trap). The competence dimension determined passive behaviors, eliciting facilitation (conserve/monitor) and reducing harm (ignore/let them die off). Study 2 ( N = 112) tested the relation between animal stereotypes for 25 species and realistic scenarios concerning behavioral tendencies toward animals. Similar to Study 1, stereotypically warm (vs. cold) animals matched with active scenarios, eliciting more facilitation (i.e., national health campaign) but less harm (i.e., fighting animals). Stereotypically competent (vs. incompetent) animals matched with passive scenarios, eliciting more facilitation (i.e., restricted areas) but less harm (i.e., accidental mortality). Accordingly, stereotypes limited the suitability of scenarios toward animals. Although findings are consistent with the SCM/BIAS map framework, several unpredicted results emerged. The mixed support is discussed in detail, along with the implications of an intergroup approach to animals.

Mapping Ethnic Stereotypes and Their Antecedents in Russia: The Stereotype Content Model

The stereotype content model (SCM), originating in the United States and generalized across nearly 50 countries, has yet to address ethnic relations in one of the world's most influential nations. Russia and the United States are somewhat alike (large, powerful, immigrant-receiving), but differ in other ways relevant to intergroup images (culture, religions, ideology, and history). Russian ethnic stereotypes are understudied, but significant for theoretical breadth and practical politics. This research tested the SCM on ethnic stereotypes in a Russian sample (N = 1115). Study 1 (N = 438) produced an SCM map of the sixty most numerous domestic ethnic groups (both ethnic minorities and immigrants). Four clusters occupied the SCM warmth-by-competence space. Study 2 (N = 677) compared approaches to ethnic stereotypes in terms of status and competition, cultural distance, perceived region, and four intergroup threats. Using the same Study 1 groups, the Russian SCM map showed correlated warmth and competence, with few ambivalent stereotypes. As the SCM predicts, status predicted competence, and competition negatively predicted warmth. Beyond the SCM, status and property threat both were robust antecedents for both competence and warmth for all groups. Besides competition, cultural distance also negatively predicted warmth for all groups. The role of the other antecedents, as expected, varied from group to group. To examine relative impact, a network analysis demonstrated that status, competition, and property threat centrally influence many other variables in the networks. The SCM, along with antecedents from other models, describes Russian ethnic-group images. This research contributes: (1) a comparison of established approaches to ethnic stereotypes (from acculturation and intergroup relations) showing the stability of the main SCM predictions; (2) network structures of the multivariate dependencies of the considered variables; (3) systematically cataloged images of ethnic groups in Russia for further comparisons, illuminating the Russian historical, societal, and interethnic context.

Exploring Research-Methods Blogs in Psychology: Who Posts What About Whom, and With What Effect?

During the methods crisis in psychology and other sciences, much discussion developed online in forums such as blogs and other social media. Hence, this increasingly popular channel of scientific discussion itself needs to be explored to inform current controversies, record the historical moment, improve methods communication, and address equity issues. Who posts what about whom, and with what effect? Does a particular generation or gender contribute more than another? Do blogs focus narrowly on methods, or do they cover a range of issues? How do they discuss individual researchers, and how do readers respond? What are some impacts? Web-scraping and text-analysis techniques provide a snapshot characterizing 41 current research-methods blogs in psychology. Bloggers mostly represented psychology's traditional leaderships' demographic categories: primarily male, mid- to late career, associated with American institutions, White, and with established citation counts. As methods blogs, their posts mainly concern statistics, replication (particularly statistical power), and research findings. The few posts that mentioned individual researchers substantially focused on replication issues; they received more views, social-media impact, comments, and citations. Male individual researchers were mentioned much more often than female researchers. Further data can inform perspectives about these new channels of scientific communication, with the shared aim of improving scientific practices.

Not Minding the Gap: How Hostile Sexism Encourages Choice Explanations for the Gender Income Gap

Researchers have shown that prejudice encourages explanations for inequality that attribute stigmatized groups’ negative outcomes to internal-controllable causes. We extended this research by investigating how ambivalent sexism affects attributions for gender income inequality. Hostile sexism should facilitate acceptance of gender income inequality through attributions that emphasize individual choice. We tested this hypothesis in two web-based samples of predominately White American men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 82 years ( Mage = 33.8). In Study 1 ( N = 650), hostile sexism, but not benevolent sexism, positively predicted acceptance of gender income inequality. Attributions of choice and societal unfairness mediated this effect. In Study 2 ( N = 242), following exposure to hostile sexism, participants increased acceptance of gender income inequality; choice explanations mediated this relation, although these effects occurred for political conservatives only. Consistent with prior work on attributions, hostile sexism was linked to victim-blaming attributions for gender income inequality. Overall, hostile sexism creates an attitudinal barrier—especially for conservatives—to supporting equal pay for women. To overcome this barrier, organizations could implement strategies aimed at ensuring more objective performance evaluations and pay decisions. Further, policy makers and communicators should be careful in choosing how they frame the gender pay gap. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684318815468

Political cognition helps explain social class divides: Two dimensions of candidate impressions, group stereotypes, and meritocracy beliefs

Political cognitions-particularly impressions and stereotypes along two fundamental dimensions of social evaluations-play some role in explaining social class divides and accompanying resentments. First, the Big Two dimensions (warmth/communion and competence/agency) describe candidate perception, person perception, and group stereotypes. In particular, the stereotype content model and related perspectives show social-class stereotypes depicting elites as competent but cold and lower-income groups as incompetent but warm. This trade-off justifies the system as meritocractic, because elites' stereotypic competence supports their status based on deservingness. Nevertheless, varied evidence (from social psychology, political science, and sociology) indicates common beliefs that support cross-class resentments: In particular, many citizens express political resentment both downward (toward cheats) and upward (toward elites). In this context, backlash against the system results. Anticipated by systematic theories, these political cognitions (impressions, stereotypes, beliefs) help explain the populist and nativist resentments in current political discourse; all support polarized, dysfunctional politics.

Interview with Shelley E. Taylor

Shelley Taylor's autobiographical interview (conducted by Annual Review of Psychology Editor and long-time collaborator Susan Fiske) touches on some of her favorite ideas. For example, positive illusions: "The traditional textbook definition of mental health included the stipulation that people see the world accurately, and what we were suggesting is that actually, a lot of times, people don't see the world accurately. They see it with a positive spin on it." She also discusses how to found fields (social cognition, health psychology, and social neuroscience) and the challenges of boundary crossing (from social to biological). Her practical comments describe the joy of teaching methods, running a lab, and being a solo female. The interview ends with her advice to follow your instincts about the next big idea: "Trusting your own ideas is a very important way of coming up with a research program that is novel and exciting, and that ultimately wins people over."

Objectifying Women's Bodies Is Acceptable from an Intimate Perpetrator, at Least for Female Sexists

Objectification of the female body is generating much research. Nevertheless, this has revealed little about whether women's evaluations depend on the level of psychological intimacy with the perpetrator of that objectification. Intimacy theory predicts that objectifying comments would seem more acceptable coming from a close partner, especially for sexist women. The present study begins to fill these gaps by analyzing responses from 301 heterosexual/bisexual adult women in the United States (M age = 37.02, range = 18-72) to appearance and sexual body comments made by four different male perpetrators: strangers, colleagues, friends, or partners. Measures assessed women's perceptions of objectification, as well as reported enjoyment of these comments. As long as they were not negative, comments from heterosexual partners were perceived as the least objectifying and enjoyed the most; comments from colleagues, strangers, and friends were linked with greater objectification and less enjoyment. Additionally, sexist attitudes toward men and women-but more clearly toward men-linked with objectification and enjoyment. Future research directions and practical implications are discussed.

Prejudices in Cultural Contexts: Shared Stereotypes (Gender, Age) Versus Variable Stereotypes (Race, Ethnicity, Religion)

Some prejudices share cross-cultural patterns, but others are more variable and culture specific. Those sharing cross-cultural patterns (sexism, ageism) each combine societal status differences and intimate interdependence. For example, in stereotypes of sex and age, lower status groups-women and elders-gain stereotypic warmth (from their cooperative interdependence) but lose stereotypic competence (from their lower status); men and middle-aged adults show the opposite trade-off, stereotypically more competent than warm. Meta-analyses support these widespread ambivalent (mixed) stereotypes for gender and age across cultures. Social class stereotypes often share some similarities (cold but competent rich vs. warm but incompetent poor). These compensatory warmth versus competence stereotypes may function to manage common human dilemmas of interacting across societal and personal positions. However, other stereotypes are more variable and culture specific (ethnicity, race, religion). Case studies of specific race/ethnicities and religions reveal much more cultural variation in their stereotype content, supporting their being responses to particular cultural contexts, apparent accidents of history. To change stereotypes requires understanding their commonalities and differences, their origins and patterns across cultures.

Admired Rich or Resented Rich? How Two Cultures Vary in Envy

Rich people inhabit a distinct social category that may elicit universal images or perhaps different perceptions in different cultures. Whereas inequality research has mostly focused on lower socioeconomic classes, the current research investigates cultural variations of prejudices about rich groups, toward understanding societal dynamics. Three studies investigate stereotype content and evaluations of rich people in China and the United States, cultures that might be expected to differ. Consistent with U.S. data from the stereotype content model, Study 1 demonstrates mainland Chinese likewise view the rich in general ambivalently as competent but cold. Examining a more specific level, Study 2 identifies both distinctive and overlapping rich subgroups across the two cultures, but both reporting mixed stereotype content. Study 3 tests whether clearer cultural contrasts might occur in implicit (vs. explicit) stereotypes toward rich people: Both U.S. and Chinese respondents, however, expressed positive implicit stereotypes toward the rich compared with middle class, in contrast with their self-reported explicitly ambivalent (or, rarely, negative) wealth stereotypes. This research is the first to examine stereotype content about rich people on the subgroup level, and both implicit and explicit levels, offering theory-based social structure predictors of this culturally shared but somewhat variable stereotype content.

Stereotype Content: Warmth and Competence Endure

Two dimensions persist in social cognition, whether people are making sense of individuals or groups. The Stereotype Content Model terms the basic dimensions perceived warmth (trustworthiness, friendliness) and competence (capability, assertiveness). Measured reliably and validly, these Big Two dimensions converge across methods: survey, cultural, laboratory, and biobehavioral approaches. Generality across place, levels, and time further support the framework. Parallel pairs have emerged repeatedly over the history of psychology and in current theories. The SCM proposes and tests a comprehensive causal theory: perceived social structure (cooperation, status) → stereotypes (warmth, competence) → emotional prejudices (pride, pity, contempt, envy) → discrimination (active and passive help and harm). The SCM uncovers systematic content and dynamics of stereotypes, with practical implications.

How social-class stereotypes maintain inequality

Social class stereotypes support inequality through various routes: ambivalent content, early appearance in children, achievement consequences, institutionalization in education, appearance in cross-class social encounters, and prevalence in the most unequal societies. Class-stereotype content is ambivalent, describing lower-SES people both negatively (less competent, less human, more objectified), and sometimes positively, perhaps warmer than upper-SES people. Children acquire the wealth aspects of class stereotypes early, which become more nuanced with development. In school, class stereotypes advantage higher-SES students, and educational contexts institutionalize social-class distinctions. Beyond school, well-intentioned face-to-face encounters ironically draw on stereotypes to reinforce the alleged competence of higher-status people and sometimes the alleged warmth of lower-status people. Countries with more inequality show more of these ambivalent stereotypes of both lower-SES and higher-SES people. At a variety of levels and life stages, social-class stereotypes reinforce inequality, but constructive contact can undermine them; future efforts need to address high-status privilege and to query more heterogeneous samples.

Going in Many Right Directions, All at Once

When asked whether the field is going in the right direction, my answer is "yes, mostly." Policymakers' respect and the public's interest put us in the spotlight for our intrinsic strengths-but they also draw attention to our weaknesses as reflected by the replication crisis, about which reasonable opinions differ. Among other concerns, civility and mutual tolerance have sometimes been an issue in these debates. As an example of a constructive debate, our lab's recent experience with mutually respectful engagement has advanced solving one scientific puzzle. Principles facilitating this adversarial collaboration include using our respective tribes as secure bases for exploration, sharing agreed-upon rigorous standards, and establishing mutual trust. Finally, my own career path has perhaps oriented me to rely on perseverance, flexibility, tolerance, and optimism for the field.