The importance of social structure and social interaction in stereotype consensus and content: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

This paper addresses the hypothesis derived from self-categorisation theory (SCT) that the relationship between groups and stereotyping will be affected by the social structural conditions within which group interaction occurs. A mixed design experiment (n = 56) measured low-status groups stereotypes and preferences for conflict with a high-status outgroup prior to and after within-group discussion across varying social structural conditions. Over time, participants in open conditions consensualised around positive conceptions of the outgroup and endorsed acceptance of their own low status position. However, in closed conditions participants consensualised around positive conceptions of the ingroup, negative conceptions of the outgroup, and tended towards preferences for collective protest. It is argued that the data supports self-categorisation theory s contention that stereotyping and group processes are fundamentally interlinked and that neither can be properly understood in isolation from the dynamics of the surrounding intergroup context.