respecting versus liking: Status and Interdependence Predict Ambivalent Stereotypes of Competence and Warmth

Journal of Social Issues, Fall, 1999 by Susan T. Fiske, Jun Xu, Amy C. Cuddy, Peter Glick

Susan T. Fiske [*]

As Allport (1954) implied, the content of stereotypes may be systematic, and specifically, ambivalent. We hypothesize two clusters of outgroups, one perceived as incompetent but warm (resulting in paternalistic prejudice) and one perceived as competent but not warm (resulting in envious prejudice). Perceived group status predicts perceived competence, and perceived competition predicts perceived (lack of) warmth. Two preliminary surveys support these hypotheses for 17 outgroups. In -depth analyses of prejudice toward particular outgroups support ambivalent prejudice: Paternalistic prejudice toward traditional women, as well as envious prejudice toward career women, results in ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996). Envious prejudice toward Asians results in perceived competence but perceived lack of social skills. Ambivalent content reflects systematic principles.

In "Stereotypes in Our Culture," chapter 12 of The Nature of Prejudice, Gordon Allport (1954) opens with an odd comparison:

Why do so many people admire Abraham Lincoln? They may tell you it is because he was thrifty, hardworking, eager for knowledge, ambitious, devoted to the rights of the average man, and eminently successful in climbing the ladder of opportunity. Why do so many people dislike the Jews? They may tell you it is because they are thrifty, hardworking, eager for knowledge, ambitious, devoted to the rights of the average man, and eminently successful in climbing the ladder of opportunity. (p. 184)

Later in the same chapter, Allport describes another odd pairing in a silent reading test for children:

Aladdin was the son of a poor tailor. He lived in Peking, the capital city of China. He was always idle and lazy and liked to play better than to work. What kind of a boy was he: Indian; Negro; Chinese; French; or Dutch? The majority of the children in a class replied Negro. (p. 186)

Here is idle, lazy, playful Aladdin stereotyped as a "Negro," but Lincolnesque hard work and ambition stereotype Jews also. Allport made several significant points in his chapter on the content of stereotypes, but his contrast between stereotypes of Jews and Negroes, "the predominant forms" of prejudice (p. 194), is of primary interest here.

The distinctive images, Aladdin the Negro and Lincoln the Jew, reflect two portraits of stereotypes painted by Allport, based on contrasts drawn earlier by Bruno Bettelheim and Morris Janowitz (1950). The stereotype of African Americans at the time portrayed them as the psychoanalytic id (acting out unacceptable body impulses to be lazy, sexual, aggressive, dirty, playful), whereas the stereotype of Jewish Americans at the time portrayed them as the complementary superego (acting out more mental sins of pride and ambition). One might be attracted to various enactments of the id but never respect them, whereas one might respect enactments of the superego but never like them. Two differing outgroup stereotypes both occasion prejudice. While part of Allport's point was that even seemingly positive stereotype contents can be twisted to support prejudice, he also made the point that 1950s stereotypes of Jews and Negroes formed a direct contrast, with the Jews in effect being viewed as competent but cold, and the Negroes being viewed as incompetent, but pleasure-loving, sensual, and in some sense, warm.

Two differing kinds of stereotyped groups drive our recent research. In this article, we briefly note some precedents for viewing outgroups as coming in two main flavors (a more extensive literature review appears in Fiske, Glick, Cuddy, & Xu, 1999). Then we present some preliminary data gathered to test our hypotheses about two major kinds of outgroups. In particular, we focus on two complementary images that recur across a variety of outgroups, namely, competent but cold, and incompetent but warm, and suggest that these two dimensions underlie many stereotypes. As a result, many stereotypes are more ambivalent than typically considered. Moreover, social structural variables predict which groups will be viewed as competent and which as warm (Glick & Fiske, 1999, in press; additional studies are presented in Fiske et al., 1999). Finally, we present brief case studies of particular ambivalent stereotypes directed toward women and Asians. What are normally positive trait ascriptions can support (or even inflam e) antipathy (e.g., toward clever Asians). Although our hypotheses may appear to fly in the face of halo effects, consistency pressures, and sheer hate-filled bigotry, the analysis seems to apply to most outgroups current in the United States, as well as to the Negroes and Jews described by Allport and his Freudian colleagues Bettelheim and Janowitz.

Stereotype Contents

The contrast we draw relies less on Freud and more on Asch: The twin dimensions of competence and warmth correspond to Solomon Asch's (1946) earliest research on person perception, which contrasted a competent person who was warm with a competent person who was cold. The impact of this classic manipulation depended on the contrast between warmth and competence; most traits on the list presented to participants reflected competence (intelligent, skillful, industrious, determined, practical, cautious), but only one trait reflected a more sociable dimension (the crucial warm vs. cold manipulation). Asch's point, like Allport's, was that the same terms can change meaning in different contexts; for Asch, the meaning of intelligence differed in a warm (wise) individual and in a cold (sly) individual. For Allport's bigots, the meaning of determined ambition differed in Lincoln (an ingroup icon) and in Jews (the stereotyped outgroup). We do not disagree with the meaning change phenomenon, but focus here instead on t he two dimensions tapped by both Asch and Allport.