Intersectionality and Stereotyping

刻板印象可能对人们如何看待个人以及他们所拥有的机会产生深远的影响。人们通常认为人们持有的刻板印象很简单，但事实并非如此。人们用来理解他人的刻板印象往往相当复杂。因此，了解这一细微差别对于建立更强有力的刻板印象、偏见和歧视过程的经验模型以及减少定型和歧视的情况都具有重要意义。这项拟议的研究利用有关年龄、性别、种族和人们所处的当地环境的特征(例如，他们所在社区的经济资源的可用性和可预测性)的信息，调查了社会接受者对他人的想法和行为的细微差别。这种方法提出了新的方法来减少对少数群体成员的许多最有害的刻板印象的应用，从而减少对他们的歧视。这项研究基于生命史理论，这是一个来自生物科学的概念框架，强调了年龄和性别在与当地生态相互作用中在塑造人们的目标、能力和行为策略方面所起的作用。因此，生活史理论可以有效地用来帮助解释为什么人们如此容易地使用年龄、性别和种族来理解他人，以及为什么人们拥有许多他们所做的特定刻板印象。根据这一框架提出的假设将在一系列研究中得到验证，这些研究采用了多种方法，包括国家调查和实验室实验。这项研究以创新的、变革性的方式扩展了理论；采用各种方法对新的、理论派生的假设进行了严格的实证测试；提出了减少刻板印象应用于个人的新干预措施；并在社会科学和生物科学之间建立了重要的、综合的联系，加强了两者之间的联系。

Stereotypes can have profound implications for how individuals are viewed and the opportunities they have. It is often presumed that the stereotypes people hold are simple, but they are not. The stereotypes people use to understand others are often quite complex. Understanding this nuance therefore has important implications both for creating stronger empirical models of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination processes and for reducing instances of stereotyping and discrimination. The proposed research investigates the nuanced manner in which social perceivers think about and behave towards others using information about age, sex, race, and features of the local circumstances in which people live (e.g., the availability and predictability of economic resources in their communities). This approach suggests novel ways of reducing the application of many of the most pernicious stereotypes to members of minority groups, and thus for reducing discrimination against them.This research is grounded in life history theory, a conceptual framework from the biological sciences, which highlights the roles that age and sex, in interaction with the local ecology, play in shaping people's goals, capacities, and behavioral strategies. Life history theory can therefore be usefully applied to help explain why people so readily use age, sex, and race to understand others, and why people possess many of the specific stereotypes they do. Hypotheses developed from this framework will be tested in a series of studies, employing multiple methods including national surveys and laboratory experiments. This research expands theory in innovative, transformative ways; provides rigorous empirical tests of novel, theoretically-derived hypotheses, employing a variety of methods; suggests novel interventions for reducing the extent to which stereotypes are applied to individuals; and makes important, integrative connections between the social and biological sciences, strengthening each.