Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Anna Clark
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Anthony Lyons
University of Newcastle, UK
The tendency to preferentially communicate stereotype consistent information has been attributed to a motivation to “ground” social information in mutual knowledge (the “common ground”). In line with this assumption, we hypothesize that this SC bias should be stronger when stereotypes are part of the personal common ground (PCG: CG accumulated in the context of specific interpersonal relationship) than when they are not. In Study 1, participants indeed communicated more SC statements and fewer SI statements (about an imaginary footballer) to a friend (with whom they had a PCG) than to a stranger. Study 2 directly manipulated the content of PCG: participants always narrated a story to another unacquainted student. However, before doing so, they either discussed about the main character’s group (i.e., incorporated its stereotype in the PCG) with their audience or not. In order to control for the influence of discussion per se, two control conditions were created in which participants told the story to a student either after discussing the stereotype with another student or without discussing at all. As expected, participants were more likely to communicate SC statements when they communicated with an audience with whom they had discussed the stereotype previously than in any of the three other conditions. Their impression of the main character was also influenced in the same direction, in line with the “saying-is-believing” effect (Higgins & Rholes 1978). The findings of these two studies suggest that a communicational SC bias is more likely to the extent that the stereotype is part of the PCG and that grounding may have different influences on the development of shared impressions as a function of the relationship between communicator and audience.
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