.jpg)
When Compliments Fail to Flatter: American Individualism and Responses to Positive Stereotypes.
- Five studies show that being the target of a positive stereotype is a negative interpersonal experience for those from individualistic cultures [e.g., the U.S. and Europe]
- [This is] because positive stereotypes interfere with their desire to be seen as individuals separate from their groups.
- U.S.-born Asian Americans and women who heard a positive stereotype about their group in an intergroup interaction (e.g., “Asians are good at math,” “women are nurturing”) derogated their partner and experienced greater negative emotions than those who heard no stereotype.
- Negative reactions were mediated by a sense of being depersonalized, or “lumped together” with others in one's group, by the positive stereotype...
- [Further studies]... demonstrated that those with an independent self-construal [which is more prevalent in the U.S. and Europe] reacted more negatively to positive stereotypes than those with an interdependent self-construal [which is more prevalent in East Asian countries].
- By bringing together research on stereotypes from the target's perspective with research on culture, this work demonstrates how cultural self-construals inform the way people interpret and respond to being the target of positive stereotypes.
(Siy & Cheryan, 2013). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
