Hack100.You Are What You Think

Hack 100. You Are What You Think

Thinking about how certain stereotypes behave can make you walk slower or get a higher score in a general knowledge quiz.

The concept of priming [Hack #93] runs all the way through explanations of how perception influences behavior. Subliminal perception of photographs can prime you to prefer those photos in the future [Hack #82], and simply spending time with someone who is, say, rubbing his face can infect you with his mannerism [Hack #98] . It's not necessary to consciously perceive the photographs or the gestures for them to automatically alter our behavior.

Nowhere is this truer than in exemplar activation: being exposed to ideas of stereotypes of people (the exemplars), not even the people themselves, will prime the characteristic traits of those people, and you'll begin to act in that way. It's very odd, and very cool.

10.9.1. In Action

Here's what John Bargh, Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows did¹: they gave 30 psychology undergraduates word puzzles to do (undergraduates are the raw material for most psychology studies). In half of the experiments, the puzzles included words associated with the elderly, like "careful," "wise," "ancient," and "retired." In the other half, all the puzzle words were neutral and not deliberately associated with any single concept. Immediately after individual students had completed the puzzle, they were free to go.

Bargh and team timed, using a hidden stopwatch, how long it took each undergraduate to walk down the corridor to the elevator. Students who had been given the puzzle featuring elderly related words took, on average, a whole second longer to make the walkan increase from 7.3 to 8.3 seconds. They had picked up one of the perceived traits of the elderly: slower walking speed.

10.9.2. How It Works

The specifics of how exemplar activation works is still an open question, but the basic mechanism is the same as how we pick up mannerisms [Hack #98] . It's a feature of the brain that perceiving something requires activating some kind of physical representation of the thing being perceived: simply making that representation primes that behavior, making us more likely to do what we see. Exemplar activation takes this a little further than we're used to, because it's the reading of wordsin an apparently unrelated task to walking along the corridorthat primes the concept of "the elderly," which then goes on to influence behavior. But the principle is the same.

Slow walking is only the half the story, though. Ap Dijskerhuis and Ad van Knippenberg² performed similar experiments. Instead of influencing their subjects with an "elderly" stereotype, they set up an experiment in which participants had to spend 5 minutes describing either professors or secretaries. (The subjects, again, were undergraduates.)

This time the experiment measured general knowledge, so the next stage of the experiment had the subjects answering Trivial Pursuit questions. They weren't aware the two stages were connected.

What happened is almost unbelievable: subjects who had previously described professorsknown for their perceived intelligenceattained, on average, 60% correct answers, against 46% for the people who had to describe secretaries.

It could be that people who have been considering the professor stereotype are more likely to trust their own judgment; the particular attribute of this stereotype that is causing the response isn't really known. The people exposed to the secretary stereotype didn't do any worse than they should have done: compared to people who hadn't been primed at all, they got about the same number of questions correct and worked their way through the questionnaire in only 6 minutes (compared to an 8-minute average). So in this case it turns out that both stereotypes have good qualities going for them. Secretaries are efficient. But it isn't always the case that stereotypes are positive.

People who identify with groups commonly stereotyped to be poor at math tend to do worse at math tests when their membership in that group is made relevant immediately before the test, as with a checkbox at the top of the test that asks them to indicate their ethnic identity or gender.³

Fortunately, it is possible to counteract this kind of exemplar activation. If you were in this situation, the activation can be overridden by reasserting yourself against the stereotype. Women who have been explicitly told that the math test they are about to do shows no gender bias don't underperformit's the subtle, nonconscious stereotyping that has a real effect (like having to tick a box at the top of the page), causing people who identify with a commonly stereotyped group to take on the stereotype assumption, even if incorrect. Once thinking about the stereotype and the effects it might have is made conscious, the bias disappears.

These exemplar activation experiments are as challenging as any you'll find in psychology. Word puzzles about the elderly slow your walking speed (and actually your reaction time too); just focusing on the stereotype of a professor for 5 minutes makes you better at general knowledge. But it also reinforces the stereotype: people who already hold that identity are pushed into their pigeonholes. Our need to conform runs deep, even when it's against our best interests. But in those cases, concentrating on your individuality is all you need to push back.

10.9.3. End Notes

1. Bargh J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 230-244.

2. Dijksterhuis, A., & van Knippenberg, A. (1998). The relation between perception and behavior, or how to win a game of trivial pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(4), 865-877.

3. Dijksterhuis, A., & Bargh, J. A. (2001). The perception-behavior expressway: Automatic effects of social perception on social behavior. In M. P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 1-40. New York: Academic Press.