The role of subtypes in attitudes toward superordinate social categories

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to access the possible importance of subtypes in attitudes toward social categories. In Experiment 1, students who disliked the social category "substance abusers" chose to engage in fewer activities with a substance abuser from a subtype that they spontaneously associated with the category than with a substance abuser from a different subtype. They also sat at a greater physical distance from a substance abuser who represented their own spontaneously imagined subtype than from a substance abuser who represented a different subtype. In Experiment 2, students who disliked substance abusers were not, contrary to predictions and to an earlier study of attitudes toward mental patients, less likely to change their negative opinions of substance abusers if they read praise of the "right" subtype of substance abuser than if they read praise of the "wrong" subtype of substance abuser. Reasons for the discrepancy between Experiment 2's result and the conceptually parallel earlier study are discussed, as are the possibilities for establishing "subtype match" as one of the factors known to influence both attitude-behavior consistency and attitude change.