Discriminated Groups Strategize to Avoid Prejudice

Scientific American:

When they think they’ll be discriminated against, people do their best to put on a good face for their group, new research finds.

An obese person, for example, might focus on dressing nicely to combat stereotypes of slovenliness. A black man, used to assumptions that he’s violent, might smile more.

The new study reveals both that people are well aware of stereotypes and that they try to combat them.

“People often think of prejudice as a simple, single phenomenon — general dislike for members of other groups — but recent research suggests that there are actually multiple, distinct types of prejudice,” study researcher Rebecca Neel, a graduate student at Arizona State University, said in a statement. In other words, people don’t just dislike overweight people, they stereotype them as sloppy and lacking in self-control.

Read the whole story: Scientific American