Maintaining Cultural Stereotypes in the Serial Reproduction of Narratives

Recent social cognition research showed that the individual often recalls stereotype-inconsistent (SI) information better than stereotype-consistent (SC) information. By contrast, classical studies in social psychology suggest that SC information is retained well in the collective remembering where...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 2000-05, Vol.26 (5), p.594-604
Main Author: Kashima, Yoshihisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognition
Collective memory
Communication Research
Cultural stereotypes
Culture
Factors
Memory
Narratives
Recall
Sex Stereotypes
Social psychology
Stereotypes
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Summary:Recent social cognition research showed that the individual often recalls stereotype-inconsistent (SI) information better than stereotype-consistent (SC) information. By contrast, classical studies in social psychology suggest that SC information is retained well in the collective remembering where a number of individuals are involved in the reproduction of stories. In the present experiment, individual and collective remembering were examined. A story about a man and a woman who exhibited gender-stereotype-relevant behaviors was transmitted through five-person communication chains. Although participants in earlier positions of the chains reproduced SI information more than SC information under some circumstances, SC information was retained better than SI information toward the end of the chains regardless. The stability of cultural stereotypes was discussed in terms of the tendency for collective information processing to favor the retention of information shared among individuals.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167200267007