Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

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Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

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Cognitive Processes Involved
in Stereotyping
SUSAN T. FISKE and CYDNEY H. DUPREE

Abstract
Social psychologists have studied stereotypes since the start of the twentieth century.
Investigation proceeded at first descriptively, then in a process-oriented manner
that evolved with the broader field into increasingly cognitive explanations, and
now marrying those approaches to social neuroscience. The illustrative case is
stereotype content, first studied in the 1930s, then dormant as more process-oriented
topics dominated, and recently revisited in several models including the stereotype content model reviewed here. Fundamental dimensions of social cognition,
including stereotypes, depend on inferred intentions for good or ill (warmth) and
ability to enact them (competence). These dimensions follow, respectively, from
inferred cooperation/competition and from inferred societal status. In turn, the
warmth-by-competence space predict emotional prejudices and discriminatory
tendencies, as evidenced by laboratory experiments, social neuroscience, random
sample surveys, and cross-cultural comparison.

INTRODUCTION
Cabdrivers know all about stereotyping. Many are themselves minorities
dealing with the broader public, so they readily tell anecdotes about riders’
reactions to them. In dealing with the full range of the public, cabbies frequently volunteer opinions about specific groups of people they trust, or not.
Their livelihood and safety often depend on first impressions, which people
often base on stereotypes. Judging other people by their membership in a
broad ethnic, gender, age, or social-class category is a common shortcut that
everyone uses, for better or worse.
Stereotypers are not intrinsically bad people; we all do it because we
categorize people who seem to go together, and we make inferences about
culturally associated characteristics accordingly. This cold cognitive perspective describing one feature of intergroup prejudice provides a surprisingly
powerful way to understand how we manage our increasingly multicultural,
globalizing, cosmopolitan daily experiences.
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Social psychologists have studied stereotypes since the start of the
twentieth century. Investigation proceeded at first descriptively, then in a
process-oriented manner that evolved with the broader field into increasingly cognitive explanations, and now marrying those approaches to social
neuroscience, as this article reviews. The general topic of prejudice and intergroup relations preoccupies easily a quarter to a third of social psychologists,
but perhaps this follows from the continued currency of the issues.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
From the get-go, stereotyping research has documented the existence of
stereotypes and the processes by which they take shape (see Fiske, 1998, for a
review). Describing stereotypes commenced empirically with Katz and Braly
(1933), handing Princeton undergraduates the names of 10 ethnic, national,
and racial groups, then asking them to check which of 84 adjectives best
described them. Repeated twice during the twentieth century and recently
in the twenty-first, much of the stereotype content lingers (Bergsieker,
Leslie, Constantine, & Fiske, 2012, Studies 4–5): Italians are consistently
viewed as passionate, Chinese as intelligent, and Turks as neither. As an
encouraging sign of the times, students are increasingly reluctant to answer
the questionnaire at all.
Descriptions of gender stereotypes awaited the feminist movements of the
later twentieth century, documenting female stereotypes’ communality and
males’ agency. Other social categories’ images (e.g., homosexuals, elders) are
less well documented, until a recent revival of interest in stereotype content,
to which we return.
Beyond describing group stereotypes, research proceeded to lie dormant
for decades. Although racial prejudices were apparent and relevant scales
developed, their processes and mechanisms remained vague. Many theories focused on the aberrant, prejudiced individual with murky motives (see
Fiske, 1998, for a review).
The exception, a brilliant analysis by Allport (1954), proposed that people categorize people the way we categorize other entities in our environment; Allport coined the phrase “nouns that cut slices.” This cognitive analysis required no ill intent, just all-too-human efficient information processing. The normal process of categorizing exaggerates perceived differences
between groups and minimizes perceived within-group differences, a theme
later developed in European social psychology.
With the cognitive revolution in psychology generally, the categorization
approach to stereotyping processes proved rapidly fruitful (Macrae &
Bodenhausen, 2000). Consensus developed that prototypes represent social
category members by an average, ideal, or extreme case (although concrete

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exemplars have an important role as well). Consensus also developed that
categories activate spontaneously and rapidly but not necessarily automatically, as the accessible category depends on the goal and the stimulus
configuration. Goals and expertise also guide the level of category used,
from the most global to the more specific. Social categories in particular do
not form a tidy taxonomic hierarchy with necessary and sufficient features;
rather, they are fuzzy sets connected by a tangled web of relationships.
Nevertheless, people do often think categorically about others, and nowhere
so much as demographic categories that carry associated stereotypes.
As an example, social category primes cause stereotype-relevant words
to be accessed more rapidly (for a review, see Fazio & Olson, 2003). People
have less control over the more immediate association, but more control
over judging relevance and reporting beliefs. Categories not only make
stereotypes accessible but also guide stereotypic interpretations where information is ambiguous, and they can cue stereotype-consistent memory under
many circumstances (see Fiske & Taylor, 2013, Chapter 11, for a review).
Stereotype-relevant evaluations, emotions, and behavior also emerge.
The best-known example of cognitive stereotype measurement is the
Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Often
focused on category names associated with good-bad evaluations—perhaps
an indicator of prejudiced associations—it also measures stereotypes. For
example, when asked to associate women with humanities and men with
math, people are faster than with the reverse pairing. Such associations
predict decision making for self (e.g., career choices) and others (e.g., hiring).
Category-based stereotypes predict emotional prejudices, which in turn
predict behavior (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007), so the proximate cause of
intergroup behavior is emotions, not cognition (Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson,
& Gaertner, 1996; Tropp & Pettigrew, 2005; Talaska, Fiske, & Chaiken, 2008).
Thus, the cognitive beliefs have a catalyzing role in this process, and such
stereotypes are more automatic than ordinary people think.
Nevertheless, cognitive stereotypes are less automatic than stereotyping
researchers originally thought, stereotypes often being overridden by
motivation and information. A variety of goals override relatively automatic
stereotypes: explicitly intending to respond nonstereotypically, training
to “just say no,” perspective taking, being reminded of a better self, and
accuracy goals (see Fiske & Taylor, 2013, Chapter 6, for a review). But this
is not a simple proposition. For example, active suppression fails because
it creates a rebound. What is more, people must have both motivation and
capacity, as well as information, to override relatively automatic stereotypes.
The twentieth century taught social cognitive psychologists much about the
processes of stereotyping.

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CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Into this mix have come two emerging trends, both involving adjacent
disciplines—other social sciences, on the one hand, and neuroscience, on the
other. As an illustrative case, we review the stereotype content model (SCM)
as well as its predictions for intergroup affect and behavior, which draws
heavily on social science perspectives. We then close with an examination of
how neuroscience can provide promising insight into this area of research.
RENEWED INTEREST IN STEREOTYPE CONTENT
As noted, early social stereotyping research described racial and ethnic
stereotypes. Gradually this research focused on the cognitive process of
stereotyping, developing under the presumption that stereotyping processes
generalize across groups, and in many respects, they apparently do. But the
accumulated focus on process has ignored the nuances of stereotype content
that target various outgroups. Content matters, not only process, because
the content of stereotypes produces unique combinations of prejudiced
emotions and discriminatory behavior. As group categories become more
volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous in the twenty-first century
(Bodenhausen & Peery, 2009), models must describe the systematic patterns
that cut across groups’ particular histories, positions, combinations, and
patterns. Here, we briefly offer the SCM as one unifying framework that
addresses stereotype nuances, their social adaptive functions, and possible
neural signatures.
Starting in the late 1990s, researchers began to suggest that stereotypical
views may not be as uniformly unfavorable toward outgroups and flattering toward ingroups as generally assumed. For example, systematically
different negative attitudes toward outgroups merged from experimentally
manipulating intergroup contexts (see Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007, for references). Intergroup image theory suggests that responses toward outgroup
members differ on the basis of power, status, and competition. Outgroup
images depend on how those outgroups can influence the ingroup’s social
standing.
Recently, not only a socially functional perspective but also an evolutionarily functional one suggests intergroup differentiation. Prejudices toward
outgroups may have evolved to defend against threats to social coordination
(Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). Continuing to dissect negative outgroup stereotypes, various types of threat posed by different outgroups (contamination,
deviance) elicit qualitatively different and functionally relevant emotions.
The traditional notion of stereotyping as a uniformly negative view of others has masked the diversity of people’s reactions toward outgroups with
differing threat profiles.

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Developed independently and simultaneously, another model identified
status and competition as the predominating factors that people use quickly
when forming impressions of outgroups. The SCM (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, &
Xu, 2002) hypothesizes that when encountering outgroups, people ask:
Do they intend to help or harm me? (Are we competing in any way? Am
I in any danger of being exploited or cheated of resources? Or is this other
harmless? Might we even cooperate?)
To what extent are they able to enact their intentions toward me? (Do they
have the necessary skills and resources to harm me (if we are in competition)
or to help me (if we are in cooperation)?)
Several kinds of outgroups differ depending on where they fall along
these two dimension of warmth (i.e., likeability, trustworthiness, communality, friendliness, other-orientation) and competence (i.e., status,
agency, self-orientation) (Fiske et al., 2002). The SCM’s warmth-competence
framework identifies four cognitive stereotypes: two unambivalent combinations (high warmth/high competence, low warmth/low competence)
and two ambivalent combinations (high warmth/low competence, low
warmth/high competence).
Variations of this warmth-competence framework have emerged in social
perception around the world (see Fiske et al., 2007, for review). Bogdan
Wojciszke’s impression formation research suggests that more than 80%
of the variance in impressions is based on appraisals of competence and
morality (the latter a close cousin of warmth; see Fiske et al., 2007, for references). Other related frameworks have applied the warmth-competence
dimensions to national groups. The warmth/morality/communality
appears as self-profitable and competence/agency as other-profitable.
These are not modern inventions; the SCM successfully applies to early
social psychologists’ descriptions of racial group stereotype content (Katz
& Braly, 1933; Bergsieker et al., 2012). These and other studies validate the
multidimensional nature of stereotype content.
STEREOTYPE AMBIVALENCE
Many standard models of prejudice would predict the SCM’s findings regarding groups that fall into the unambivalent quadrants of
high-warmth/high-competence and low-warmth/low-competence. People
tend to see the ingroup and societal reference groups as high-warmth/highcompetence, viewing the ingroup and its allies as friendly and trustworthy,
as well as capable and resourceful. Currently, in the United States, those who
identify as middle class, heterosexual, and Christian are widely regarded
as high warmth and high competence. In contrast, the most extreme of
social outcasts seem neither warm nor competent: drug addicts and the

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homeless (Harris & Fiske, 2006), welfare recipients, and undocumented
immigrants (Lee & Fiske, 2006). These groups tend to be on the receiving
end of traditional, unambivalent prejudice.
The most useful contribution of the SCM is found in identifying ambivalent
warmth-competence combinations, those groups seen as high on one dimension and low on another. Indeed, stereotypes more often than not trade-off
warmth and competence. The evaluation of outgroups along these two
dimensions tends to operate in a compensatory manner. Groups stereotyped
as high on one dimension are usually seen as low on the other (Kervyn,
Yzerbyt, & Judd, 2010). For example, outgroups viewed as high in warmth
are assumed to be below in competence. Groups that fall into this ambivalent
quadrant include handicapped people, such as the physically or mentally
disabled, and the elderly. Such groups seem harmless and well-meaning, but
they are also seen as low-status and incapable. Outgroups that fall into the
high-warmth/low-competence quadrant may be liked as nonthreatening,
but they are not respected.
In contrast, groups that fall into the opposite ambivalent quadrant,
low-warmth/high-competence, seem competitive. In the United States,
groups such as Jews, Asians, the rich, and professionals are often evaluated
as cold and untrustworthy, but competent and high-status (Fiske et al.,
2002). Such groups do not qualify as allies or friends, but they do have the
competence and resources to act on their goals.
At a societal level, social structure predicts group placement along the
warmth and competence dimensions. High-status groups appear competent. In contrast, low-status groups appear incompetent. People generally
believe in meritocracy. The other dimension, warmth, is predicted by
perceived group cooperation or competition. As such, social structure
plays a significant role in the stereotyping of social groups, influencing the
images of certain groups. Therefore, the SCM’s predictions, based on those
fundamental dimensions of warmth and competence, can help explain
structural inequalities that perpetuate social injustice.
Once formulated, these ambivalent and unambivalent attributions of
warmth and competence predict emotions and behaviors toward outgroup
members. For example, groups viewed as high on both dimensions (i.e., the
societal ingroup, its allies) tend to elicit pride. Groups that are seen as high
in warmth but low in competence are pitied, and cold but competent groups
are envied. Lastly, outgroups that fall into the low-low quadrant are scorned,
eliciting emotions of contempt and even disgust (Harris & Fiske, 2006).
Each outgroup most elicits one of these four emotions, depending on
whether the group is liked/disliked as warm/cold or respected/disrespected
as competent/incompetent. These combinations predict certain forms of
discrimination that follow from harboring the specific emotions toward

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different outgroups. The behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes
(BIAS) framework (Cuddy et al., 2007) predicts intergroup behaviors along
two different dimensions: active/passive and facilitative/harmful.
Pitied, low-status outgroups receive active facilitation (helping), but they
also elicit passive harm (neglecting). Examples include institutionalization of
the mentally disabled or of the elderly in nursing homes. On the other hand,
envied, high-status outgroups elicit a far different reaction. These groups are
respected and receive a certain amount of passive facilitation (associating)
due to their perceived status, resources, and stereotypic competence. However they are also viewed with hostility due to their stereotypic coldness and
competition. This makes for a volatile combination, one that can result in
active harm (harassing) and Schadenfreude (malicious joy) when the envied
group is vulnerable (Cikara & Fiske, 2012; Fiske, 2010).
The evaluation of social groups using ambivalent and unambivalent combinations of warmth and competence has been shown in representative samples both within the United States and internationally (Cuddy et al., 2009;
Durante et al., 2013). The SCM’s warmth-competence dimensions of stereotyping also apply to several subgroups of larger societal categories (see Fiske
et al., 2007, for references). For example, generic images of black people tend
to hover near the center of the warmth and competence dimensions, unless
they are differentiated by social class, in which case they polarize. When
African-Americans volunteer their own subtypes of black people, the subgroups of African–American professionals and poor African–Americans, the
images spread out across the entire space. Similar warmth-by-competence
stereotypes describe other subgroups: men and women, gay men, and mentally ill people. Certain animal species and brands have even been found to
be categorized along warmth and competence dimensions (Kervyn, Fiske, &
Malone, 2012; Sevillano & Fiske, under review), simply because animals and
brands can be perceived as having intent and agency.
ILLUSTRATIVE NEXT STEPS
SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE OF STEREOTYPING PROCESSES AND CONTENT
Recent social neuroscience has revealed potential neural signatures of stereotypical warmth and competence, specifically, the four quadrants described
by the SCM.
Here, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the neural powerhouse of
social cognition, plays a crucial role in stereotype content. Social neuroscientists agree on the importance of the mPFC in person perception and
interaction. In one of the most reliable findings in social neuroscience, the
mPFC comes online when we encounter other people, especially when

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

considering others’ thoughts and feelings (for reviews, see Amodio & Frith,
2006; Mitchell, 2009). However, the mPFC uniquely fails to activate when
people consider the most scorned of outgroups, that is, drug addicts and the
homeless. In contrast, some level of mPFC activation appears for ingroups
and outgroups in all other quadrants of the SCM (Harris & Fiske, 2006). The
disgust-scorn-contempt reaction, documented also by questionnaire data,
shows the difficulty of connecting with these extreme outgroup members
on a human level. Unfortunately, the evolutionarily based research of
Neuberg and Cottrell suggests that such a reaction is only natural, for an
extreme aversion to disgusting things is evolutionarily adaptive (Cottrell
& Neuberg, 2005). However, merely asking participants to consider an
allegedly disgusting outgroup member’s individual preferences (e.g., his or
her favorite vegetable) reactivates the mPFC (Harris & Fiske, 2007).
Two other important neural structures come online in response to allegedly
disgusting outgroups: the ventral striatum (VS) and the insula (for a relevant
review, see Fiske, 2010, Ch. 2). The insula is a reliable indicator of emotional
experiences, especially feelings of disgust and other bodily states. Scorned
outgroups are seen as disgusting and to be avoided. Scorned outgroups are
also seen as inferior, which is where the VS comes into play. The VS is an
integral part of the brain’s reward system, responding to reminders of our
own reputation and the reward of having high status. The activation of the
VS when scorning outgroup members may simply implicate the rewarding
response of putting oneself above another, inferior group.
Another line of SCM research has shown that envy also has distinct neural
signatures. As mentioned, when enviable outgroups seem vulnerable, other
people tend to experience Schadenfreude or malicious glee. Schadenfreude
appears through affective and physiological means (i.e., reliable hints of a
smile when seeing a default investment banker step in gum or get splashed
on the street) (Cikara, Botvinick, & Fiske, 2011). Moreover, neural signs
of reward processing occur when envied groups are diminished, if only
momentarily. Neural areas implicated in reward processing, including the
VS, come online when witnessing envied rivals’ misfortune (Cikara et al.,
2011; Cikara & Fiske, 2011).
These ongoing lines of research hint at several distinct neural signatures
that signal disgust, envy, and Schadenfreude when encountering outgroups
that fall into the SCM’s different quadrants of warmth and competence.
Further research is examining the neural responses that reflect pride in the
ingroup and pity for high-warmth, low-competence groups. The reviewed
research indicates a start to using neural measures in social psychological
theory for predicting affective and behavioral responses.

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SUSAN T. FISKE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor, Psychology and Public Affairs,
Princeton University (PhD, Harvard University; honorary doctorates,
Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; Universiteit Leiden,
Netherlands; Universität Basel, Switzerland). She investigates social cognition, especially cognitive stereotypes and emotional prejudices, at cultural,
interpersonal, and neuroscientific levels. Author of over 300 publications

Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

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and winner of numerous scientific awards, she has edited most recently,
Beyond Common Sense: Psychological Science in the Courtroom (2008), the
Handbook of Social Psychology (2010, 5/e), the Sage Handbook of Social
Cognition (2012), and Facing Social Class: How Societal Rank Influences
Interaction (2012). Currently an editor of Annual Review of Psychology,
PNAS, and Policy Insights from Behavioral and Brain Sciences, she wrote
two texts: Social Cognition (2013, 4/e) and Social Beings: Core Motives
in Social Psychology (in press, 3/e). Sponsored by a Guggenheim, her
2011 Russell-Sage-Foundation book is Envy Up, Scorn Down: How Status
Divides Us. Most recently, she wrote with Chris Malone, The Human Brand:
How We Relate to People, Products, and Companies. Her graduate students
arranged for her winning the University’s Mentoring Award.
Her laboratory webpage is http://www.fiskelab.org

CYDNEY H. DUPREE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Cydney H. Dupree is currently a social psychology graduate student at
Princeton University, working with advisor Dr. Susan Fiske. Cydney earned
her bachelor’s degree from Brown University, where she completed an
honors thesis under the direction of Dr. Bertram Malle. Before joining
Princeton’s social psychology program, she worked as laboratory manager
at Dr. Malle’s Social Cognitive Science Research Center and as a research
assistant at Brown University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies.
Cydney’s current research interests broadly examine intragroup factors that
influence behavior, cognition, and identity. Cydney was recently awarded
an NSF Graduate Student Fellowship to pursue her current project with Dr.
Fiske, which investigates self-presentation in same-group and other-group
contexts. She is also enrolled in Princeton’s interdisciplinary Joint Degree
Program in the Study of Inequality.
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Cognitive Processes Involved
in Stereotyping
SUSAN T. FISKE and CYDNEY H. DUPREE

Abstract
Social psychologists have studied stereotypes since the start of the twentieth century.
Investigation proceeded at first descriptively, then in a process-oriented manner
that evolved with the broader field into increasingly cognitive explanations, and
now marrying those approaches to social neuroscience. The illustrative case is
stereotype content, first studied in the 1930s, then dormant as more process-oriented
topics dominated, and recently revisited in several models including the stereotype content model reviewed here. Fundamental dimensions of social cognition,
including stereotypes, depend on inferred intentions for good or ill (warmth) and
ability to enact them (competence). These dimensions follow, respectively, from
inferred cooperation/competition and from inferred societal status. In turn, the
warmth-by-competence space predict emotional prejudices and discriminatory
tendencies, as evidenced by laboratory experiments, social neuroscience, random
sample surveys, and cross-cultural comparison.

INTRODUCTION
Cabdrivers know all about stereotyping. Many are themselves minorities
dealing with the broader public, so they readily tell anecdotes about riders’
reactions to them. In dealing with the full range of the public, cabbies frequently volunteer opinions about specific groups of people they trust, or not.
Their livelihood and safety often depend on first impressions, which people
often base on stereotypes. Judging other people by their membership in a
broad ethnic, gender, age, or social-class category is a common shortcut that
everyone uses, for better or worse.
Stereotypers are not intrinsically bad people; we all do it because we
categorize people who seem to go together, and we make inferences about
culturally associated characteristics accordingly. This cold cognitive perspective describing one feature of intergroup prejudice provides a surprisingly
powerful way to understand how we manage our increasingly multicultural,
globalizing, cosmopolitan daily experiences.
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Social psychologists have studied stereotypes since the start of the
twentieth century. Investigation proceeded at first descriptively, then in a
process-oriented manner that evolved with the broader field into increasingly cognitive explanations, and now marrying those approaches to social
neuroscience, as this article reviews. The general topic of prejudice and intergroup relations preoccupies easily a quarter to a third of social psychologists,
but perhaps this follows from the continued currency of the issues.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
From the get-go, stereotyping research has documented the existence of
stereotypes and the processes by which they take shape (see Fiske, 1998, for a
review). Describing stereotypes commenced empirically with Katz and Braly
(1933), handing Princeton undergraduates the names of 10 ethnic, national,
and racial groups, then asking them to check which of 84 adjectives best
described them. Repeated twice during the twentieth century and recently
in the twenty-first, much of the stereotype content lingers (Bergsieker,
Leslie, Constantine, & Fiske, 2012, Studies 4–5): Italians are consistently
viewed as passionate, Chinese as intelligent, and Turks as neither. As an
encouraging sign of the times, students are increasingly reluctant to answer
the questionnaire at all.
Descriptions of gender stereotypes awaited the feminist movements of the
later twentieth century, documenting female stereotypes’ communality and
males’ agency. Other social categories’ images (e.g., homosexuals, elders) are
less well documented, until a recent revival of interest in stereotype content,
to which we return.
Beyond describing group stereotypes, research proceeded to lie dormant
for decades. Although racial prejudices were apparent and relevant scales
developed, their processes and mechanisms remained vague. Many theories focused on the aberrant, prejudiced individual with murky motives (see
Fiske, 1998, for a review).
The exception, a brilliant analysis by Allport (1954), proposed that people categorize people the way we categorize other entities in our environment; Allport coined the phrase “nouns that cut slices.” This cognitive analysis required no ill intent, just all-too-human efficient information processing. The normal process of categorizing exaggerates perceived differences
between groups and minimizes perceived within-group differences, a theme
later developed in European social psychology.
With the cognitive revolution in psychology generally, the categorization
approach to stereotyping processes proved rapidly fruitful (Macrae &
Bodenhausen, 2000). Consensus developed that prototypes represent social
category members by an average, ideal, or extreme case (although concrete

Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

3

exemplars have an important role as well). Consensus also developed that
categories activate spontaneously and rapidly but not necessarily automatically, as the accessible category depends on the goal and the stimulus
configuration. Goals and expertise also guide the level of category used,
from the most global to the more specific. Social categories in particular do
not form a tidy taxonomic hierarchy with necessary and sufficient features;
rather, they are fuzzy sets connected by a tangled web of relationships.
Nevertheless, people do often think categorically about others, and nowhere
so much as demographic categories that carry associated stereotypes.
As an example, social category primes cause stereotype-relevant words
to be accessed more rapidly (for a review, see Fazio & Olson, 2003). People
have less control over the more immediate association, but more control
over judging relevance and reporting beliefs. Categories not only make
stereotypes accessible but also guide stereotypic interpretations where information is ambiguous, and they can cue stereotype-consistent memory under
many circumstances (see Fiske & Taylor, 2013, Chapter 11, for a review).
Stereotype-relevant evaluations, emotions, and behavior also emerge.
The best-known example of cognitive stereotype measurement is the
Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Often
focused on category names associated with good-bad evaluations—perhaps
an indicator of prejudiced associations—it also measures stereotypes. For
example, when asked to associate women with humanities and men with
math, people are faster than with the reverse pairing. Such associations
predict decision making for self (e.g., career choices) and others (e.g., hiring).
Category-based stereotypes predict emotional prejudices, which in turn
predict behavior (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007), so the proximate cause of
intergroup behavior is emotions, not cognition (Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson,
& Gaertner, 1996; Tropp & Pettigrew, 2005; Talaska, Fiske, & Chaiken, 2008).
Thus, the cognitive beliefs have a catalyzing role in this process, and such
stereotypes are more automatic than ordinary people think.
Nevertheless, cognitive stereotypes are less automatic than stereotyping
researchers originally thought, stereotypes often being overridden by
motivation and information. A variety of goals override relatively automatic
stereotypes: explicitly intending to respond nonstereotypically, training
to “just say no,” perspective taking, being reminded of a better self, and
accuracy goals (see Fiske & Taylor, 2013, Chapter 6, for a review). But this
is not a simple proposition. For example, active suppression fails because
it creates a rebound. What is more, people must have both motivation and
capacity, as well as information, to override relatively automatic stereotypes.
The twentieth century taught social cognitive psychologists much about the
processes of stereotyping.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Into this mix have come two emerging trends, both involving adjacent
disciplines—other social sciences, on the one hand, and neuroscience, on the
other. As an illustrative case, we review the stereotype content model (SCM)
as well as its predictions for intergroup affect and behavior, which draws
heavily on social science perspectives. We then close with an examination of
how neuroscience can provide promising insight into this area of research.
RENEWED INTEREST IN STEREOTYPE CONTENT
As noted, early social stereotyping research described racial and ethnic
stereotypes. Gradually this research focused on the cognitive process of
stereotyping, developing under the presumption that stereotyping processes
generalize across groups, and in many respects, they apparently do. But the
accumulated focus on process has ignored the nuances of stereotype content
that target various outgroups. Content matters, not only process, because
the content of stereotypes produces unique combinations of prejudiced
emotions and discriminatory behavior. As group categories become more
volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous in the twenty-first century
(Bodenhausen & Peery, 2009), models must describe the systematic patterns
that cut across groups’ particular histories, positions, combinations, and
patterns. Here, we briefly offer the SCM as one unifying framework that
addresses stereotype nuances, their social adaptive functions, and possible
neural signatures.
Starting in the late 1990s, researchers began to suggest that stereotypical
views may not be as uniformly unfavorable toward outgroups and flattering toward ingroups as generally assumed. For example, systematically
different negative attitudes toward outgroups merged from experimentally
manipulating intergroup contexts (see Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007, for references). Intergroup image theory suggests that responses toward outgroup
members differ on the basis of power, status, and competition. Outgroup
images depend on how those outgroups can influence the ingroup’s social
standing.
Recently, not only a socially functional perspective but also an evolutionarily functional one suggests intergroup differentiation. Prejudices toward
outgroups may have evolved to defend against threats to social coordination
(Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). Continuing to dissect negative outgroup stereotypes, various types of threat posed by different outgroups (contamination,
deviance) elicit qualitatively different and functionally relevant emotions.
The traditional notion of stereotyping as a uniformly negative view of others has masked the diversity of people’s reactions toward outgroups with
differing threat profiles.

Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

5

Developed independently and simultaneously, another model identified
status and competition as the predominating factors that people use quickly
when forming impressions of outgroups. The SCM (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, &
Xu, 2002) hypothesizes that when encountering outgroups, people ask:
Do they intend to help or harm me? (Are we competing in any way? Am
I in any danger of being exploited or cheated of resources? Or is this other
harmless? Might we even cooperate?)
To what extent are they able to enact their intentions toward me? (Do they
have the necessary skills and resources to harm me (if we are in competition)
or to help me (if we are in cooperation)?)
Several kinds of outgroups differ depending on where they fall along
these two dimension of warmth (i.e., likeability, trustworthiness, communality, friendliness, other-orientation) and competence (i.e., status,
agency, self-orientation) (Fiske et al., 2002). The SCM’s warmth-competence
framework identifies four cognitive stereotypes: two unambivalent combinations (high warmth/high competence, low warmth/low competence)
and two ambivalent combinations (high warmth/low competence, low
warmth/high competence).
Variations of this warmth-competence framework have emerged in social
perception around the world (see Fiske et al., 2007, for review). Bogdan
Wojciszke’s impression formation research suggests that more than 80%
of the variance in impressions is based on appraisals of competence and
morality (the latter a close cousin of warmth; see Fiske et al., 2007, for references). Other related frameworks have applied the warmth-competence
dimensions to national groups. The warmth/morality/communality
appears as self-profitable and competence/agency as other-profitable.
These are not modern inventions; the SCM successfully applies to early
social psychologists’ descriptions of racial group stereotype content (Katz
& Braly, 1933; Bergsieker et al., 2012). These and other studies validate the
multidimensional nature of stereotype content.
STEREOTYPE AMBIVALENCE
Many standard models of prejudice would predict the SCM’s findings regarding groups that fall into the unambivalent quadrants of
high-warmth/high-competence and low-warmth/low-competence. People
tend to see the ingroup and societal reference groups as high-warmth/highcompetence, viewing the ingroup and its allies as friendly and trustworthy,
as well as capable and resourceful. Currently, in the United States, those who
identify as middle class, heterosexual, and Christian are widely regarded
as high warmth and high competence. In contrast, the most extreme of
social outcasts seem neither warm nor competent: drug addicts and the

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

homeless (Harris & Fiske, 2006), welfare recipients, and undocumented
immigrants (Lee & Fiske, 2006). These groups tend to be on the receiving
end of traditional, unambivalent prejudice.
The most useful contribution of the SCM is found in identifying ambivalent
warmth-competence combinations, those groups seen as high on one dimension and low on another. Indeed, stereotypes more often than not trade-off
warmth and competence. The evaluation of outgroups along these two
dimensions tends to operate in a compensatory manner. Groups stereotyped
as high on one dimension are usually seen as low on the other (Kervyn,
Yzerbyt, & Judd, 2010). For example, outgroups viewed as high in warmth
are assumed to be below in competence. Groups that fall into this ambivalent
quadrant include handicapped people, such as the physically or mentally
disabled, and the elderly. Such groups seem harmless and well-meaning, but
they are also seen as low-status and incapable. Outgroups that fall into the
high-warmth/low-competence quadrant may be liked as nonthreatening,
but they are not respected.
In contrast, groups that fall into the opposite ambivalent quadrant,
low-warmth/high-competence, seem competitive. In the United States,
groups such as Jews, Asians, the rich, and professionals are often evaluated
as cold and untrustworthy, but competent and high-status (Fiske et al.,
2002). Such groups do not qualify as allies or friends, but they do have the
competence and resources to act on their goals.
At a societal level, social structure predicts group placement along the
warmth and competence dimensions. High-status groups appear competent. In contrast, low-status groups appear incompetent. People generally
believe in meritocracy. The other dimension, warmth, is predicted by
perceived group cooperation or competition. As such, social structure
plays a significant role in the stereotyping of social groups, influencing the
images of certain groups. Therefore, the SCM’s predictions, based on those
fundamental dimensions of warmth and competence, can help explain
structural inequalities that perpetuate social injustice.
Once formulated, these ambivalent and unambivalent attributions of
warmth and competence predict emotions and behaviors toward outgroup
members. For example, groups viewed as high on both dimensions (i.e., the
societal ingroup, its allies) tend to elicit pride. Groups that are seen as high
in warmth but low in competence are pitied, and cold but competent groups
are envied. Lastly, outgroups that fall into the low-low quadrant are scorned,
eliciting emotions of contempt and even disgust (Harris & Fiske, 2006).
Each outgroup most elicits one of these four emotions, depending on
whether the group is liked/disliked as warm/cold or respected/disrespected
as competent/incompetent. These combinations predict certain forms of
discrimination that follow from harboring the specific emotions toward

Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

7

different outgroups. The behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes
(BIAS) framework (Cuddy et al., 2007) predicts intergroup behaviors along
two different dimensions: active/passive and facilitative/harmful.
Pitied, low-status outgroups receive active facilitation (helping), but they
also elicit passive harm (neglecting). Examples include institutionalization of
the mentally disabled or of the elderly in nursing homes. On the other hand,
envied, high-status outgroups elicit a far different reaction. These groups are
respected and receive a certain amount of passive facilitation (associating)
due to their perceived status, resources, and stereotypic competence. However they are also viewed with hostility due to their stereotypic coldness and
competition. This makes for a volatile combination, one that can result in
active harm (harassing) and Schadenfreude (malicious joy) when the envied
group is vulnerable (Cikara & Fiske, 2012; Fiske, 2010).
The evaluation of social groups using ambivalent and unambivalent combinations of warmth and competence has been shown in representative samples both within the United States and internationally (Cuddy et al., 2009;
Durante et al., 2013). The SCM’s warmth-competence dimensions of stereotyping also apply to several subgroups of larger societal categories (see Fiske
et al., 2007, for references). For example, generic images of black people tend
to hover near the center of the warmth and competence dimensions, unless
they are differentiated by social class, in which case they polarize. When
African-Americans volunteer their own subtypes of black people, the subgroups of African–American professionals and poor African–Americans, the
images spread out across the entire space. Similar warmth-by-competence
stereotypes describe other subgroups: men and women, gay men, and mentally ill people. Certain animal species and brands have even been found to
be categorized along warmth and competence dimensions (Kervyn, Fiske, &
Malone, 2012; Sevillano & Fiske, under review), simply because animals and
brands can be perceived as having intent and agency.
ILLUSTRATIVE NEXT STEPS
SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE OF STEREOTYPING PROCESSES AND CONTENT
Recent social neuroscience has revealed potential neural signatures of stereotypical warmth and competence, specifically, the four quadrants described
by the SCM.
Here, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the neural powerhouse of
social cognition, plays a crucial role in stereotype content. Social neuroscientists agree on the importance of the mPFC in person perception and
interaction. In one of the most reliable findings in social neuroscience, the
mPFC comes online when we encounter other people, especially when

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

considering others’ thoughts and feelings (for reviews, see Amodio & Frith,
2006; Mitchell, 2009). However, the mPFC uniquely fails to activate when
people consider the most scorned of outgroups, that is, drug addicts and the
homeless. In contrast, some level of mPFC activation appears for ingroups
and outgroups in all other quadrants of the SCM (Harris & Fiske, 2006). The
disgust-scorn-contempt reaction, documented also by questionnaire data,
shows the difficulty of connecting with these extreme outgroup members
on a human level. Unfortunately, the evolutionarily based research of
Neuberg and Cottrell suggests that such a reaction is only natural, for an
extreme aversion to disgusting things is evolutionarily adaptive (Cottrell
& Neuberg, 2005). However, merely asking participants to consider an
allegedly disgusting outgroup member’s individual preferences (e.g., his or
her favorite vegetable) reactivates the mPFC (Harris & Fiske, 2007).
Two other important neural structures come online in response to allegedly
disgusting outgroups: the ventral striatum (VS) and the insula (for a relevant
review, see Fiske, 2010, Ch. 2). The insula is a reliable indicator of emotional
experiences, especially feelings of disgust and other bodily states. Scorned
outgroups are seen as disgusting and to be avoided. Scorned outgroups are
also seen as inferior, which is where the VS comes into play. The VS is an
integral part of the brain’s reward system, responding to reminders of our
own reputation and the reward of having high status. The activation of the
VS when scorning outgroup members may simply implicate the rewarding
response of putting oneself above another, inferior group.
Another line of SCM research has shown that envy also has distinct neural
signatures. As mentioned, when enviable outgroups seem vulnerable, other
people tend to experience Schadenfreude or malicious glee. Schadenfreude
appears through affective and physiological means (i.e., reliable hints of a
smile when seeing a default investment banker step in gum or get splashed
on the street) (Cikara, Botvinick, & Fiske, 2011). Moreover, neural signs
of reward processing occur when envied groups are diminished, if only
momentarily. Neural areas implicated in reward processing, including the
VS, come online when witnessing envied rivals’ misfortune (Cikara et al.,
2011; Cikara & Fiske, 2011).
These ongoing lines of research hint at several distinct neural signatures
that signal disgust, envy, and Schadenfreude when encountering outgroups
that fall into the SCM’s different quadrants of warmth and competence.
Further research is examining the neural responses that reflect pride in the
ingroup and pity for high-warmth, low-competence groups. The reviewed
research indicates a start to using neural measures in social psychological
theory for predicting affective and behavioral responses.

Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

9

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SUSAN T. FISKE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor, Psychology and Public Affairs,
Princeton University (PhD, Harvard University; honorary doctorates,
Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; Universiteit Leiden,
Netherlands; Universität Basel, Switzerland). She investigates social cognition, especially cognitive stereotypes and emotional prejudices, at cultural,
interpersonal, and neuroscientific levels. Author of over 300 publications

Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping

11

and winner of numerous scientific awards, she has edited most recently,
Beyond Common Sense: Psychological Science in the Courtroom (2008), the
Handbook of Social Psychology (2010, 5/e), the Sage Handbook of Social
Cognition (2012), and Facing Social Class: How Societal Rank Influences
Interaction (2012). Currently an editor of Annual Review of Psychology,
PNAS, and Policy Insights from Behavioral and Brain Sciences, she wrote
two texts: Social Cognition (2013, 4/e) and Social Beings: Core Motives
in Social Psychology (in press, 3/e). Sponsored by a Guggenheim, her
2011 Russell-Sage-Foundation book is Envy Up, Scorn Down: How Status
Divides Us. Most recently, she wrote with Chris Malone, The Human Brand:
How We Relate to People, Products, and Companies. Her graduate students
arranged for her winning the University’s Mentoring Award.
Her laboratory webpage is http://www.fiskelab.org

CYDNEY H. DUPREE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Cydney H. Dupree is currently a social psychology graduate student at
Princeton University, working with advisor Dr. Susan Fiske. Cydney earned
her bachelor’s degree from Brown University, where she completed an
honors thesis under the direction of Dr. Bertram Malle. Before joining
Princeton’s social psychology program, she worked as laboratory manager
at Dr. Malle’s Social Cognitive Science Research Center and as a research
assistant at Brown University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies.
Cydney’s current research interests broadly examine intragroup factors that
influence behavior, cognition, and identity. Cydney was recently awarded
an NSF Graduate Student Fellowship to pursue her current project with Dr.
Fiske, which investigates self-presentation in same-group and other-group
contexts. She is also enrolled in Princeton’s interdisciplinary Joint Degree
Program in the Study of Inequality.
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