The next psychology colloquium is scheduled for Wednesday April 19th at 3:30pm at BOUS A106. Dr. Marjorie Rhodes from the Department of Psychology, New York University will be presenting the work titled “Developmental origins of social stereotyping.” We hope that you will join us!
Individual meetings:
Interested students and faculty are welcome to meet with Dr. Rhodes for a group lunch on Wednesday, April 19th from 12-1pm and/or dinner at 6pm. Please email Cynthia Boo (cynthia.boo@uconn.edu) if you would like to join!
Abstract: In this talk, I will describe how commonplace features of language can contribute to the early development of social stereotypes in sometimes surprising and counterintuitive ways. Drawing on natural language studies, lab experiments, and longitudinal studies, I will discuss how generic descriptions of social categories (e.g., “boys play baseball”, “girls wear pink”) contribute to the development of stereotyping in ways that go beyond the content they describe (e.g., beyond beliefs about sports or color preferences) and can do so even when they describe counter-stereotypic content. To explain these findings, I present a theoretical account of how children understand generic references to categories in the context of communication with knowledgeable speakers. These findings have implications for how to talk to children about social categories in ways that might reduce the development of stereotyping and other problematic social phenomena.
For more information, contact: Merrisa Lin at merrisa.lin@uconn.edu