Stereotypes Are The Psychologi

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research conducted within the last decade.
It appears from some of the research (for example Hamilton and Gifford, 1976; Hamilton and Sherman, 1989 and Chapman, 1967) that stereotypes are often derived from an over-awareness of statistically infrequent events. More specifically that if an event occurs infrequently amongst a group then it is remembered more vividly than events which might occur on a more regular basis. In a study carried out by Hamilton and Gifford (1976) they divided their participants into two groups with a disproportionate number of participants in the first group. The participants were then informed of a number of desirable and undesirable behaviours. It was found that despite the fact that members of both groups were just as likely to engage in undesirable activities an ‘illusionary correlation’ of the smaller group meant that a far higher number of these activities was perceived. Schaller and Maass (1989) found that this illusionary correlation ...

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of themselves at many different levels ranging from the most abstract, as in the perception of the self as human, to the most defined, that of the self as a well-defined individual. As with Social Identity Theory, individuals seek to perceive themselves in a positive way and seek to establish a positive distinctiveness between the self and other in-group members and between the in-group and the out-group. There have been a wide range of studies that have found support evidence for both these theories (for example Howard & Rothbart, 1980 and Oakes & Turner, 1980). One area of possible criticism is that far from finding that individuals with exceptionally low self-esteems ...

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