An Analysis of Stereotype Refutation in Playboy by an Editorial Voice: The Advisor Hypothesis.

Journal of Men's Studies, The, September, 2000 by ALLISON, SCOTT T.

Social scientists and policy makers have devoted a great deal of time, effort, and financial resources to the reduction of prejudice and intergroup conflict. One influential and historically important technique to accomplish this goal is known as the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954; Amir, 1969; Stephan, 1987). According to the contact hypothesis, direct contact between members of different groups can reduce intergroup tension, prejudices, and reliance upon stereotypes. Contact will be effective "when two groups (1) possess equal status, (2) seek common goals, (3) are cooperatively dependent on each other, and (4) interact with the positive support of authorities, law, or custom" (Pettigrew, 1971, p. 275).

The additional knowledge provided about out-group members, a by-product of contact, can contradict negative expectancies (e.g., Berger, Cohen, & Zelditch, 1972) and lead to more complex representations of out-group members (e.g., Linville & Fischer, 1993; Mullen & Hu, 1989). Moreover, Brewer and Miller (1984) proposed that contact inhibits category-based processing.

From this knowledge-based perspective, it is not the contact that breaks down stereotypes, but, rather, the information correlated with contact. Conditions such as equal status, a cooperative orientation, and the support of authorities are effective because they facilitate information exchange. In other words, the effectiveness of the contact hypothesis is mediated by knowledge about out-group members. The potential importance of cognitions as a mediator of contact has been explicitly recognized by two recent observations by Brewer and Brown (1998) in an influential chapter on intergroup relations. They wrote "one way to understand the conditions associated with the contact hypothesis is to think of it as an application of the principles of dissonance theory ..." (p. 578). They also asserted that "reconceptualizing much of the work on the contact hypothesis in terms of intergroup cognition provides a theoretical framework for understanding the mechanisms through which contact may alter intergroup attitudes" (p. 579).

Our intention, with the present work, was to provide support for the conceptualization proposed by Brewer and Brown (1998). Distinguishing between contact itself and the information exchange that may occur with contact allowed us to propose the existence of the "advisor hypothesis." The basic assertion of the advisor hypothesis is that a respected third party can exercise authority and promote information exchange to prevent individuals from relying on stereotypes about group members. The advisor hypothesis represents a novel extension of Brewer and Brown's (1998) recommendation that the contact hypothesis be examined in terms of intergroup cognition.

There is some indirect evidence that we should expect support for the advisor hypothesis, Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, and Ropp (1997) found that an individual's attitude toward the out-group softened when the individual discovered that a third person (a fellow in-group member) had a positive relationship with an out-group member. According to balance theory (Heider, 1958), enhancing one's attitudes toward the out-group would be a valid way to maintain cognitive consistency. A similar process would be expected to apply to a respected advisor.

There may be important practical benefits derived from the advisor hypothesis. Because it may be difficult to meet all the requirements for the contact hypothesis to be effective, contact-based reduction in stereotyping may be difficult to implement in practice. Under certain circumstances, contact can actually intensify intergroup bias (Deutsch, 1973; Rubin, 1980; Sherif, 1966; Worchel, Andreoli, & Folger, 1977). Because the advisor hypothesis does not require actual interaction, the unintended, negative consequences of interaction may be minimized.

The main goal of the present paper was to identify conditions that might promote the advisor hypothesis. In our analysis, we were guided by Allport's (1954) original formulation of the contact hypothesis. Allport emphasized the importance of information exchange under the benign shadow of authority. As our starting point, we assumed that similar factors would be relevant to the advisor hypothesis.

GENDER STEREOTYPES AND THE CONTACT HYPOTHESIS

Much of the past research on the contact hypothesis has been conducted with regard to race relations, most likely because the contact hypothesis was initially developed to address concerns in that area (Allport, 1954). In a list of other potential applications for the contact hypothesis, Allport mentioned religion and national origin (p. 250) but not gender, despite the centrality of gender as a social category. Even though actual differences between males and females are small in infants (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974), the differentiation between males and females begins at birth, with examination of the genitalia (Kessler, 1990), and the socialization process begins immediately (e.g., Barry, 1980; Stern & Karraker, 1989).