Compensation Versus Halo: The Unique Relations Between the Fundamental Dimensions of Social Judgment

Recent work on the relations between the two dimensions of social judgment, that is, warmth and competence, evidenced compensation such that a group seen more positively than another group on one dimension is seen less positively on the second. The authors examine the status of this compensatory relation by introducing a third dimension in the judgment context. Experiment 1 extends earlier work in a different population, comparing compensation as a function of whether warmth or competence is manipulated and competence or warmth is the unmanipulated dimension. Experiments 2 and 3 use healthiness as the unmanipulated dimension and reveal the presence of halo rather than compensation between warmth or competence on one hand and healthiness on the other. These findings suggest that compensation may not only stem from a concern for distributive justice but may also derive from the unique structural and functional relations between the two fundamental dimensions of social judgment.

[1]  C. Hoffman,et al.  Gender stereotypes : perception or rationalization? , 1990 .

[2]  Aaron C. Kay,et al.  Exposure to benevolent sexism and complementary gender stereotypes: consequences for specific and diffuse forms of system justification. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[3]  E. Thoma.  Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality , 1965 .

[4]  J. S. Wiggins,et al.  Agency and communion as conceptual coordinates for the understanding and measurement of interpersonal behavior. , 1991 .

[5]  C. Judd,et al.  Fundamental dimensions of social judgment: understanding the relations between judgments of competence and warmth. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[6]  G. Peeters,et al.  From good and bad to can and must: subjective necessity of acts associated with positively and negatively valued stimuli , 2002 .

[7]  Philip C. Kendall,et al.  Handbook of research methods in clinical psychology , 1982 .

[8]  H. Tajfel,et al.  The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. , 2004 .

[9]  J. M. Digman.  Higher-order factors of the Big Five. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[10]  Bogdan Wojciszke,et al.  Morality and competence in person- and self-perception , 2005 .

[11]  V. Yzerbyt,et al.  Not Competent but Warm... Really? Compensatory Stereotypes in the French-speaking World , 2005 .

[12]  Amy J. C. Cuddy,et al.  The BIAS map: behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes. , 2007, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  H. Schreiber,et al.  Better or just different? Positive social identity by discrimination against, or by differentiation from outgroups , 1983 .

[14]  Amy L. Johnson,et al.  Panglossian Ideology In The Service Of System Justification: How Complementary Stereotypes Help Us To Rationalize Inequality , 2007 .

[15]  Amy J. C. Cuddy,et al.  Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[16]  Karen Phalet,et al.  Competence and morality dimensions of national and ethnic stereotypes: a study in six eastern‐European countries , 1997 .

[17]  Aaron C. Kay,et al.  Victim Derogation and Victim Enhancement as Alternate Routes to System Justification , 2005, Psychological science.

[18]  A. Abele,et al.  Agency and communion from the perspective of self versus others. , 2007, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[19]  Olivier Corneille,et al.  Do not prime hawks with doves: the interplay of construct activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative behavior. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  P. S. Vivekananthan,et al.  A multidimensional approach to the structure of personality impressions. , 1968, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[21]  Amy J. C. Cuddy,et al.  When Professionals Become Mothers, Warmth Doesn't Cut the Ice , 2004 .

[22]  M. Banaji,et al.  The role of stereotyping in system‐justification and the production of false consciousness , 1994 .

[23]  Amy J. C. Cuddy,et al.  A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  Amy J. C. Cuddy,et al.  This Old Stereotype: The Stubbornness and Pervasiveness of the Elderly Stereotype , 2005 .

[25]  V. Yzerbyt,et al.  Stereotypes as explanations: A subjective essentialistic view of group perception. , 1997 .

[26]  A. Eagly,et al.  Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles , 1984 .

[27]  S. Worchel,et al.  Psychology of intergroup relations , 1986 .

[28]  A. Mummendey,et al.  ‘Different‘ just means ‘better’: Some obvious and some hidden pathways to in‐group favouritism , 1984 .