A twitter thread summary of this paper on the accuracy of stereotypes, which I read so you don't have to: gwern.net/docs/psycholog
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Conversation
We open with a summary of attitudes in various fields (mostly academic) which assume stereotypes are inaccurate, with a few peeks into how the research supporting this assumption is lacking. Theory: that a belief that stereotypes are harmful has lead to belief they're inaccurate.
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Stereotypes *don't* mean prescriptions (e.g., "children should be seen and not heard), but rather descriptions (jews are rich). Believing that all descriptions of groups are inaccurate is silly. Calling only inaccurate group descriptions 'stereotypes' is also silly.
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They define the word: “a stereotype is a set of
beliefs about the personal attributes of a social group.”
We then go into what exactly 'accurate' means - it clarifies some nuance and different definition types, and provides their thresholds for degrees of scoring accuracy (r=.4)
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Stereotype accuracy is higher when measuring objective stuff as opposed to self-reported stuff.
In previous older literature with studies they consider to pass certain methodology criteria, they all find significant stereotype accuracy in race, gender, and occupation.
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They find no studies on racial stereotype accuracy after 2003.
In a recent gender study, they find the stereotype predictions that were inaccurate actually *underestimated* the measured difference between the genders.
Age stereotypes, however, overestimated difference.
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They say the age stereotypes were consistent across culture and country.
Studies are conflicted and spotty but show a trend that people are really bad at stereotyping on the national level, especially when self-stereotyping (e.g., Italians' stereotypes about Italians')
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Political stereotypes tend to be accurate but exaggerated, and one study finds activists to tend to exaggerate their stereotypes even more.
The difference in exaggerated stereotypes between repubs. and democs. is... stereotypical; the right exaggerates the left's stances on-
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crime prevention and military, and the left exaggerates the right's stances on public education and inequality, to the extent that they hit the 'inaccurate' threshhold.
Also, people consistently seem to believe other people hold more exaggerated stereotypes than they actually do.
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Replying to
Ok I got bored; skimming through the rest it seems to be mostly repetitive and discusses various pros and cons to existing studies. If you have any questions you can go read this yourself; they're moderately detailed about all the claims I listed above.
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Replying to
it seems like you expect racial & gender stereotypes to be real, but want ppl to let go of their stereotypes abt sex workers, polyamory, & sexual abuse. what makes you think those stereotypes are different? anything besides lived experience?
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