Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1996, Vol. 70, No. 4, 727-739

Capyrighl 1996 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0022-3514/96/S3.00

Influence of Prototypes on Perceptions of Prejudice

Mary L. InmanTrinity University

Robert S. BaronUniversity of Iowa

Two studies examined the influence of cultural stereotypes and personal factors (one's race, gender)on perceptions of racial and gender discrimination. Overall, the data suggest that our perceptions ofprejudice are strongly influenced by specific expectations regarding who are the prototypic perpe-trators and victims of prejudice. More general expectations regarding out-group conflict or regardingonly the characteristics of the perpetrator appear to have less of an impact on such perceptions.Additionally, women were found to be more likely than men to perceive sexism directed against menand racism directed at African Americans and Caucasians. Also, African Americans were morelikely than Caucasians to perceive racist events against Whites and Blacks. The implications of these.data are discussed.

In 1956, if a male coworker offered a female colleague a"courtly" compliment on her appearance (""You sure lookpretty today"), it would have been unlikely to be viewed as ademeaning or a discriminating action and, indeed, may wellhave been received with pleasure. Forty years later, however, thissame comment would be perceived by many individuals asoffensive and condescending. In short, as our norms and ourawareness of issues of role and power change, so do our defini-tions and concepts of prejudice and discrimination. This exam-ple illustrates the extent to which these conceptions are subtlesocial constructions. Yet, up until quite recently (Baron, Bur-gess, & Kao, 1991; Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985), there waslittle research examining the factors affecting perception ofprejudice. This is unfortunate in our opinion. Noticing and cor-rectly categorizing prejudiced action (i.e., discrimination) is akey condition for changing such behavior, whether the changeoccurs through legal means, by confrontation, or by self-moni-toring of one's own actions. Failure to identify or rebut preju-diced behavior, when it occurs, often provides tacit support forsuch activity. Similarly, it is important to identify the situationswhen a person might be unjustly accused of biased intent in anambiguous setting in which no sexist or racist motives exist. Thepresent research explores the possibility that our expectancies

Mary L. Inman, Department of Psychology, Trinity University; Rob-ert S. Baron, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa.

The second study was supported by a University of Iowa Students'Research Grant. We are grateful to Brian Mullen for assistance with thedata analysis and Paula Raymond for her comments on an earlier draftof this article. We would also like to thank Britain Scott, Fred Metzger,Cherie Gerard, Joel Yoder, Dion Baylor, Gabrielle Eckley, and MariaValakos for their help in creating stimulus materials, running the stud-ies, recruiting participants, and coding the data in Studies 1 and 2. Weappreciate the assistance from Deborah Doherty, Robert Montoya,Catherine Adams, Kristin Weins, Letitia Bean, Anjanette Cureton, andRoselle Garcia with Study 2.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to MaryL. Inman. Department of Psychology, Trinity University, 715 StadiumDrive, San Antonio, Texas 78212. Electronic mail may be sent via theInternet to minman@trinity.edu.

(i.e., stereotypes) regarding prejudice influence our tendency todescribe potentially biased behavior as an instance of prejudice.

Some acts, of course, would unanimously be considered asprejudiced (e.g., the angry use of flagrant racial epithets), butmany other cases are more uncertain. The present research fo-cuses on biased acts that contain a degree of ambiguity. By am-biguous, we mean the protagonist's motives are not clearly ob-vious or the victim does not know if such behavior is normativeof the protagonist. It is precisely these situations in which wefeel it is most likely that cultural stereotypes and personal sche-mas will influence the judgments of the protagonist.

Thus, technically, this investigation addresses how potentialprejudiced actions are perceived, rather than the failure to de-tect unambiguously prejudiced actions. For ease of expression,however, we sometimes use the terms Whke-on- Black discrim-ination, Black-on-White discrimination, female-on-male dis-crimination, and so forth when describing our various condi-tions implying that the perpetrator's actions were clearly dis-criminatory, when in fact there was some degree of ambiguityregarding this fact. As noted, we feel that stereotypes are mostlikely to affect the perception of prejudice when some degree ofambiguity is present.

There is good reason to believe that stereotypes affect inter-pretations of ambiguous actions given the numerous studies inthe social cognition literature that have demonstrated sucheffects (Devine, 1989; Duncan, 1976; Sagar & Schofield, 1980;Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff, & Ruderman, 1978). For example, Dun-can and Sagar and Schofield showed that the racial status ofactors affected the extent to which their action was viewed ashostile. A few studies (Baron et al., 1991) have extended thesefindings by demonstrating that expectancies affect whether agiven action was labeled as an instance of prejudice. Specifically,Baron et al. (1991) argued that people were more likely to de-tect prejudiced behaviors when the situation matched one's ex-pectations (or stereotype) about prejudiced actions. In theirstudy, participants read a series of vignettes. Some of these sto-ries described discriminatory action against women. Partici-pants were asked in an open-ended format to describe the mostnoticeable traits of the primary actor (the perpetrator) in eachvignette. These responses were coded in terms of whether they

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728 INMAN AND BARON

described the actor as prejudiced. The results showed that par-ticipants were far more likely to label discriminatory actionsagainst women as instances of discrimination when the perpe-trator was an expected source (a man) than an unexpectedsource (a woman) and that when participants perceived dis-crimination, female participants saw the perpetrator as display-ing more sexist behavior than male participants. These findingsraise a number of other questions regarding the perception ofprejudice. For example, What is the nature of the culturalstereotype! s) regarding prejudiced behavior? Do these expec-tancies affect other forms of prejudice (e.g., racism) in a similarmanner? Does belonging to a traditionally oppressed socialgroup (e.g., women, Blacks) influence perceptions of discrimi-nation? The present studies attempt to answer these questions.

The present studies examine how cultural stereotypes affectperceptions of racially based discrimination as well as gender-based discrimination. Though the content and nature of gender-based and racial discrimination may differ due to historical andmotivational factors, we think that the cultural stereotypes thatpertain to both may serve the same functions (e.g., rilling inmissing information, guiding attention) and will affect percep-tions in a similar manner. That is, if influenced by these stereo-types, people should be more likely to perceive potentially prej-udiced behaviors as instances of bias when they are committedby those who are stereotypical ly expected to harbor such biases(cf. Fiske & Taylor, 1991). One key question then involves iden-tifying the precise nature of the cultural stcreotype( s) that seemto influence the perception of prejudice. The two present stud-ies examine three potential stereotypes regarding racism (Study1) and sexism (Study 2) and attempt to delineate among them.These three stereotypes, of course, provide three alternative ex-planations for the results reported by Baron et al. (1991). Thefirst explanation is that we expect certain types of prejudicedacts to come from specific perpetrators (e.g., men) and to bedirected toward specific targets (e.g., women). The second viewis that we expect prejudiced actions to come from the victim'sout-group. The third view is that we expect prejudiced actionsto come from particular perpetrators (e.g., men, Whites) whoare intolerant of anyone violating established norms.

More specifically, the first explanation (referred to below asthe prototype view) assumes that our perceptions of bias areaffected primarily by our prototypic conceptions of prejudiceand discrimination (i.e., our images of the prototypic perpetra-tors and victims of sexism, racism, ageism, etc.). Given that theprototypic case of sexism involves a man discriminating againsta woman' this view would suggest that we are particularly sen-sitive to this specific type of gender bias. This prototype view isrelated to theoretical work in social cognition in which proto-types are conceptualized as the most typical instance of the cat-egory or the average of the category members (Fiske & Taylor,1991, cf. pp. 105-121) that are abstracted from experienceswith examples of the category (Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth,1977; Posner & Keele, 1968; Reed, 1972). In short, people ex-tract out the most typical or average features of the category andthen decide if a new instance fits the category by assessing itssimilarity to this (idealized or most typical) prototype (Fiske &Taylor, 1991, p. 106). Instances that have such high prototypi-cality are presumed to be more likely to trigger stereotypiceffects in attention, memory, interpretation, and behavior (cf.

Fiske & Taylor, 1991) than are nonprototypic instances. Theprototype view outlined above assumes that interactions as wellas people and objects can take on prototypic qualities. Giventhe barrage of events depicted in the U.S. media that have beenhistorically labeled as sexist or racist, it seems likely that peopledevelop a prototype for sexist behavior that entails men oppress-ing women, whereas for racist behavior, the prototype undoubt-edly involves Whites oppressing Blacks. If so, male-on-femaleand White-on-Black discrimination should be more accessiblein memory as an instance of prejudice for the average individual(as opposed to say, Black-on-Black discrimination) and, conse-quently, new events that match these instances are more likelyto be spontaneously considered as instances of prejudice (cf.Cantor & Mischel, 1977; Medin, Altom,& Murphy, 1984).

The second explanation is based on the premise that stereo-types regarding intergroup conflict affect perceptions of preju-dice. According to this view (referred to below as the out-groupconflict view), people assume that prejudiced actions are mostlikely to stem from the victim's out-group. This explanationsuggests that people should be quite sensitive to any form ofprejudice directed between rival groups. This out-group conflictview draws directly on work on Social Identity Theory (e.g.,Tajfel & Turner, 1979/1985). In accordance with this view, var-ious researchers have shown that people put into arbitrarilybased groups allocate more rewards (Allen & Wilder, 1975; Taj-fel, 1970) and overestimate the performance (Sherif, 1966) ofin-group members and, overall, evaluate other in-group mem-bers more favorably (Brewer, 1979; Locksley, Ortiz, & Hep-burn, 1980) than out-group members. In short, in-group biasappears to be a fairly broad-based social phenomenon. We rea-soned that general awareness of this in-group bias could affecthow people perceive others' actions, with people discounting thepossibility that in-group members would be malicious to eachother. Similarly, given the frequent media coverage of in-tergroup (rather than intragroup) conflict in our culture, it

1 As an initial step in this research, we assessed the extent to whichparticipants in our samples endorsed these various stereotypes regard-ing prejudice. The results from samples from Iowa and Texas supportboth the out-group conflict and prototype view, depending on how thequestions were phrased. For example, Baron et al. (1991) asked pilotparticipants to indicate, "Who was most likely to discriminate against(various social groups)?" Their (largely Caucasian) participantsstrongly expected (in 91% of participants) anti-Black prejudice to ema-nate from Whites, anti-White prejudice to emanate from Blacks (67%),antifemale prejudice to emanate from men (88%), and antimale preju-dice to emanate from women (93%). All chi-squares were significant atthe p < .05 level. These findings represent what we have termed an out-group conflict expectancy.

However, in accord with the prototype view, when 17 additional ra-cially mixed participants were asked to describe the most typical sexistevent, most participants (65%) described a man discriminating againsta woman. When asked to describe the most typical racist event, themajority of these participants (over 60%) stated or implied a Whiteperpetrator derogating a non-White person. Responses did not differ byparticipants' race. Together, these data appear most congruent with theideas that participants have strong perpetrator victim expectancies withregard to racial prejudice in addition to their ideas regarding out-groupconflict. The issue then becomes which has the more pronounced effecton the perception of prejudice.

PREJUDICED PERCEPTIONS 729

seems plausible that expectancies of intergroup (rather thanintragroup) conflict would develop.

Finally, as a third explanation, it is possible that we expectcertain types of people (e.g., men, Whites, the wealthy) to begenerally intolerant of others who attempt to fill roles that arenot prescribed by society. This third stereotype, referred to asthe traditional oppressor view, assumes that people have strongexpectancies about the perpetrators of discrimination butweaker or no expectancies about the victim. The traditional op-pressor view seems most directly related to simple stereotypingresearch (e.g., Devine, 1989; Duncan, 1976), in which a par-ticular class of actors is expected to be more likely to commitvarious (antisocial) behaviors regardless of the victim's (orperceivers') characteristics. This research indicates that suchstereotypes lead to biases in interpretation and judgment closelyakin to those predicted in the present research.

In Baron et al.'s (1991) antifemale prej udice study, it was notpossible to fully evaluate these alternative views given that, inthe case of antifemale discrimination, all positions predict thesame (obtained) outcome. However, if one considers other casesof discrimination (e^g., antimale, anti-Black, anti- White), dis-tinctive predictions emerge (see below).

Predictions

What implications do the three explanations outlined abovehave for perceptions of various types of prejudice (e.g., antimale,anti-White, anti-Black)? If the out-group conflict stereotype in-fluences perceptions of gender prejudice, then individuals shouldbe most sensitive to male-on-female and female-on-male forms ofprejudice. Similarly, when considering racial prejudice, the out-group conflict hypothesis suggests that White-on-Black and Black-on-White discrimination will elicit more prejudiced responsesthan White-on-White or Black-on-Black discrimination. Bothcases suggest a Perpetrator Race (or Gender) X Victim Race (orGender) interaction.

In contrast, the prototypic view suggests that whereas the genderof the perpetrator should have a strong effect in cases of male-on-female discrimination, gender of the perpetrator should have littleeffect on perceptions of antimale prejudice because people havefew or weak expectancies regarding antimale actions given its non-prototypicality. As a result, male-on-female discrimination shouldbe more likely to lead to perception of prejudice than female-on-male, male-on-male, or female-on-female actions. Similarly, giventhe assumption that White-on-Black discrimination is more rep-resentative of racial discrimination, the prototypic view wouldpredict that participants seeing White-on-Black discriminationwould be more likely to label that as prejudiced than any otherform of White-Black discrimination (White-on-White, Black-on-Black, Black-on-White), yielding a significant Perpetrator Race XVictim Race interaction of a different kind. Finally, according tothe traditional oppressor view, male perpetrators of female-di-rected and male-directed prejudice should be labeled as preju-diced more often than female perpetrators (significant perpetratormain effect). This prediction assumes that people expect men tobe more intolerant of people "bending" traditional gender roles.Similarly, the traditional oppressor view would suggest that Whiteperpetrators should be called prejudiced more often than Blackperpetrators (yielding a perpetrator main effect). In short, these

alternative views each seem to make competing predictions incases of antimale and racial discrimination. Thus, it seemed pos-sible to gain further insight regarding the processes underlying theresults reported by Baron et al. (1991) by examining perceptionsregarding antimale prejudice and racial prejudice. This was onefunction of Studies 1 and 2.

A second goal of the present studies was to examine how indi-vidual difference variables (e.g., participant's gender, race)affected perceptions of prejudiced behavior. Initial work by Baronet al. (1991) found that, when participants perceived prejudicedbehavior, female participants reported it to be more negative thanmale participants did. Thus, participant characteristics appearedto have some impact on perceptions of prejudice. Three possibili-ties occurred to us. First, women may have been socialized to besensitive to other people's needs, including suffering (Pearson,Turner, & Todd-Mancillas, 1985), making interpersonal ex-changes central to their self-schema (see Markus, 1977). Conse-quently, compared with men, women should more readily inter-pret negative events directed toward themselves and toward othersas prejudiced. This prediction would yield a main effect of partic-ipant gender in racially based (Study 1) and gender-based (Study2) discrimination. Second, it may be that frequent recipients ofdiscrimination have a well-developed schema (see Markus, 1977)for dealing with events that are derogatory toward their own group(due to group preservational concerns) but not other groups. Thisprediction would be supported by a Victim Race (or Gender) XParticipant Race (or Gender) interaction. Third, frequentlytargeted groups may be more sensitive to unfairness directed to-ward other targeted groups because such actions have implicationsfor their own group or because they can easily empathize withother disadvantaged minorities. Historically, we have seen suchinvolvements (e.g., Jews participating in the civil rights marches),with the nontargeted group inferring that they will be next in linefor the benefits or anger they observed. Thus, participant genderand participant race main effects should occur for perceptions ofracism and sexism.

An additional factor that might influence how people interpretprejudiced actions involves the semantic definitions of certainwords used to describe prejudiced actions. Specifically, it is possi-ble that some individuals within our population assume that theterm sexist, like male chauvinist, is appropriately applied only tomale actors. Similarly, certain writers argue that, in the UnitedStates, the term racist^ (or racist) should be reserved uniquely forCaucasian acts directed against disenfranchised ethnic groups. Ifso, actions performed by men (or White perpetrators) would bedisproportionately labeled as sexist (or racist) because only theseperpetrators can be labeled as such, given such a 4folk" definition.This semantic bias could have serious implications, in that theprejudiced actions of certain people (men, Whites) would be dis-proportionately labeled as biased. Thus, a third function of thisresearch was to further examine whether such semantic processesaffected individuals' reports of prejudice.

Study 1: Perceptions of Racial Bias

Method

ParticipantsParticipants were recruited in one of two ways. First, 93 primarily

Caucasian students (51 women and 42 men) enrolled in lower level psy-

730 INMAN AND BARON

chology courses at the University of Iowa volunteered to participate inthis study as partial fulfillment of course credit. Due to the low numberof African American students in the lower level classes, an additional23 African American participants (12 women and 11 men) who wererecruited by friends of the research team and by posters were paid $4for their participation. Participants did not know of the two ways inwhich they could have been recruited.

Thus, a total of 119 participants completed a series of questionnairesprivately (101 in the lab, 18 in their dorm rooms). Nearly all partici-pants were run by an experimenter of the same race. Analyses revealedthat the effects of location (lab vs. field) and experimenter race did notinfluence any of the key variables (lowest p = . 11).

Procedure

Participants were told that the experimenters were interested in theirperceptions of various written interpersonal interactions. They weretold that they would read a series of stories and then provide reactions.They were told that even though the stories were fictitious, to pretendthat they were there in the situation watching the comments and behav-iors as they happened. Participants then read over each story and thenindicated, in their opinion, the strongest qualities or traits exhibited bythe actor (perpetrator) in the episode. The actor or actress was alwaysdesignated as the person whose name was spelled in capital letters. Thisopen-ended question was followed by three lines. Participants wereasked to write two traits and limit themselves to three traits. After theywrote two or three traits, they rated the extent to which the actor dis-played those traits on a 7-point scale that ranged from slightly displayed(1) to extremely displayed (7) ? This open-ended response format wasused to minimize the strong experimental demand that would have re-sulted from using a trait-rating index that included "How racist?" as atarget trait. The seven filler stories were used to further minimize suchproblems of demand. Participants were then fully debriefed, thanked,and dismissed.

Materials

Critical and filler stories. Fifteen stories were constructed. Eightcritical vignettes described conflict between two men and seven fillervignettes described amenable interactions between 2 men or 2 women.Stimulus vignettes were designed to contain elements of prejudice aswell as varying elements of ambiguity regarding actor motivation andchronicity. As a check on these qualities, approximately 90% of pilotparticipants rated our critical stimulus vignettes as highly prejudicedwhen they were asked directly "How prejudiced is this behavior?" Fillerstories, in contrast, were rated as being significantly less prejudiced,F( 1,45) = 174.8, p < .001. Perceived prejudice, however, dropped dra-matically when such direct questions were replaced with an open-endedformat in which participants were asked instead to indicate what traitswere exhibited by the actor. When participants' responses were coded,prejudice was mentioned in less than 50% of cases. This finding indi-cates that the stories did, in fact, entail a good deal of ambiguity regard-ing their prejudiced content.

The critical vignettes described such things as a man who was prom-ised a hotel room over the phone and was later denied the room whenhe showed up in person, a man auditioning as a guitarist in a rock bandwho was turned away because he was not the right type, and a carloadof boys being harassed by a police officer on a Saturday night. The fillervignettes in Baron et al.'s (1991) study that elicited the least amount ofprejudiced reactions were used in this study. See the Appendix for abrief description of each story. The vignette numbers in the Appendixrefer to the story's position in the stimulus booklet.

Actor's race was manipulated by attaching photocopied yearbook pic-tures of selected college seniors (from a 2-year-old yearbook) next to each

story. Only those pictures that were rated (from pilot testing) as mildlyattractive (range of 2 to 4) on a 21-point scale ranging from extremelyunattractive ( -11) to extremely attractive (11) were used. Each story con-tained one of four race permutations (White perpetrator/Black victim[W/B], White perpetrator/White victim [W/W], Black perpetrator/White victim [B/ W], or Black perpetrator/Black victim [B/B]), yieldingfour versions of the same story (and consequently, four versions of the stim-ulus booklets). Within each of the four booklet versions, two Black pic-tures and two White pictures with the same approximate attractivenessratings were used for a given story. The pictures associated with the fillerstories were always the same across stimulus booklets. Within a specificbooklet, a participant never saw the same photo repeated across stories.

In short, the materials were presented in a Latin square design. Eachparticipant read all 15 stories, including two critical vignettes with eachpermutation (W/W, W/B, B/W, B/B) and seven filler vignettes. The or-der of the stories was held constant in all conditions, with a filler story atthe beginning of the booklet.

Results

Interrater Reliability

Participants' open-ended responses were coded in terms ofwhether they perceived racist or prejudiced behavior on the part ofthe perpetrator. Two independent raters (blind to the experimentalhypotheses) and conditions were instructed, "Based on your ownpersonal experience, indicate those responses where you think thesubject perceives the actor as behaving in a racist or prejudicedmanner." Traits were coded by two independent raters as 1, indi-cating perceived prejudice, or 0, failing to perceive the perpetratoras biased.3 A reliability check on 21 randomly selected question-naires indicated that coders generally agreed on what was consid-ered prejudiced. Interrater agreement, correcting for chanceagreement, was 87% according to a modified version of Cohen'skappa, AT =.87.

Furthermore, we conducted internal analyses testing the seman-

* We had intended to explore the idea that participants may makestronger attributions (see perpetrators as displaying a strong degree ofdiscrimination) when perpetrators confirmed (rather than disconfirmed)their expectancies. We did not include these analyses, however, becausewhen we selected only those participants who perceived prejudice in thecritical stories for a given replication (two stories in Study 1, three storiesin Study 2), the sample size was reduced from 119 to 20 (yielding lowpower). Keeping all participants in the analyses (with no prejudiced re-sponses receiving a 0) made the intensity data redundant with the fre-quency data, so we omitted the intensity data entirely.

3 In these studies, participants' responses must be coded consideringthe content of the item (cf. Baron et al., 1991). In a noncritical item,terms such as unfair, biased, and so forth could easily refer to nonsexistor nonracist behavior (e.g., say failing to pay for your half of the pizza,claiming Mom loves you best, etc.). On the other hand, consider a situ-ation in which a participant describes someone as biased after learningthat person refused to hire a qualified and experienced applicant be-cause of his or her gender (or race). In this case, it seems at least highlylikely that the participants' verbal response indicates a perception ofprejudice. Asa result, coders were aware of which vignette participantswere responding to. They were kept blind with respect to conditions bycoding responses after the actors' pictures were removed from the story(Study I) or referring to the critical vignettes by vignette number andby placing their hand over the story while viewing the participants' re-sponses (Study 2).

PREJUDICED PERCEPTIONS 731

tic explanation. Raters were instructed to code stories in whichthe participant wrote racist and no other word describing biasedbehavior (e.g., unfair, prejudiced) differently from situations inwhich participants described the biased actions with other, less se-mantically loaded descriptors (e.g., unfair, prejudiced, biased).This coding allowed us to conduct a subanalysis of the data ex-cluding responses that used only this semantically loaded wordracist. The primary analyses reported below include racist re-sponses, because the results were largely unchanged when thisterm is excluded.

Analyses

Recall that each participant read eight critical stories, two witheach race permutation (B/W, W/B, W/W, B/B). Thus, for aparticular story (e.g., teenagers harassed by a police officer), a par-ticular participant only received one perpetrator-victim race per-mutation, although across participants all four race permutationswere paired with each story. To hold story content constant, theresponses to the two stories that shared the same race permutation(for a given participant) were combined and compared across par-ticipants (see Table 1). As a result, story content is held constantgiven that this analysis averages over story content as well as par-ticipants. Thus, the four race permutations were treated as a 2(perpetrator race) X 2 (victim race) between-subjects variable.Analyzing the data in this way yielded four replications (or tests)of our hypothesis. Replication 1 contained Stories 3 and 11, Rep-lication 2 contained Stories 2 and 10, Replication 3 contained Sto-ries 5 and 13, and Replication 4 contained Stories 7 and 15. Thefrequency-dependent variable reflected the number (from 0 to 2)of critical stories in a given replication in which the participantdescribed the actor as prejudiced (by calling the perpetrator "bi-ased," "prejudiced," "racist," etc.). Due to large number of sig-nificance tests, an alpha level of .01 was adopted, with results withp values greater than .01 interpreted with caution.

Frequency data: Number of perpetrators labeled as prejudiced.It was expected that if stereotypes affect perceptions of prejudice,then according to both the prototype view and the out-group con-flict view, the Perpetrator Race X Victim Race interaction shouldbe significant (but show a different pattern of means). To test thisprediction, a 2 (perpetrator race) X 2 (victim race) X 2(participant gender) X 2 (participant race) between-subjects anal-ysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on the number of stories(from 0 to 2) seen as prejudiced for each of the four replications.

For all four replications, none of the four-way interactions(lowest p > .28) were significant, nor were any of the three-wayinteractions, with one exception.4 Most crucially, the expected Per-petrator Race X Victim Race interaction was the only two-wayinteraction that was consistently significant in three of four repli-cations: Replication 1, F{ 1, 97) = 13.1, p < .001; Replication 2,F(l, 97) = 15.3,p< .001; Replication 3 ,F(1 , 97) = 13.5,p<.001; Replication 4, F( 1,97) = 2.5, p = .12. Furthermore, a prioritests (testing the prototype view) comparing perception rates inthe White/Black condition versus all others revealed that in threeof four replications, participants who observed potential White-on-Black discrimination were significantly more likely to label theperpetrator as biased than participants in the remaining three racepermutations (p < .01, see Table 1). Moreover, this same tendencywas present but nonsignificant in Replication 1. In addition, fol-

low-up comparisons indicated that the remaining three conditions(Black-on-White, Black-on-Black, and Whiteon-White) did notreliably differ across the four replications (see Table 1). Stateddifferently, in three of four replications (i.e., Replications 2through 4), participants were significantly more likely to labelWhite-on-Black potential discrimination as prejudice than thesame situation in which Blacks derogate Whites. Taken together,these results support the prototype view over the out-group con-flict view.

Furthermore, the results supporting the traditional oppressorview seem to be primarily due to perceptions of White-on-BIackprejudice. That is, the perpetrator main effect was significant inReplications 2 and 4: Replication 1, p > . 19; Replication 2, F( 1,97) = 7.4, p < .01; Replication 3, p > .11; Replication 4, F( 1,97) = 4.4, p < .04, showing that participants occasionally foundWhite perpetrators more prejudiced (M = 1.13, A/ = .74) thanBlack perpetrators (M = .81, M~ .46). However, closer inspec-tion of the data (see Table 1) suggests that this effect was primar-ily due to the high numbers in the White-on-Black conditions,with the other three conditions not differing from each other(contrary to the traditional oppressor view).

It is important to note that in three of four replications, thisdata pattern remained statistically significant even when theloaded term racist was excluded from the analysis. In Replica-tions 2 through 4, more White-on-Black critical vignettes werelabeled as prejudiced (Ms = 1.04, .85, and .88, respectively)than vignettes with all other race permutations (highest Ms =.73, .61, and .50, respectively): Replication 2, F( 1,115) = 5.94,p < .01, one-tailed; Replication 3, F(\, 115) = 3.28,p < .05,one-tailed; Replication 4, F( 1, 115) = 9.3, p < .005, one-tailed.Furthermore, in this supplementary analysis, none of the otherthree race permutations (B/W, B/B, W/W) significantlydiffered from one another, ps = ns. In the fourth replication(Replication 1), none of the perception rates differed from oneanother,/? = .61. In summary, because the results were generallysimilar whether the emotionally charged term racist was in-cluded or omitted from the analyses, it appears that the seman-tic explanation does not fully explain the present results.

Participant variables. The participants' gender also influencedperceptions. In two of the four replications, participants' genderwas statistically significant, Replication 2, F(\, 97) = 6.8, p <.012, and Replication 3, F( 1, 97) = 7.9, p< .007, indicating thatfemale participants were more likely to label an action as preju-diced ( M =1.16 and M ~ 1.03, respectively) than male partici-pants(M= J6andM ~ .69). Furthermore, there was a tendencyfor participants of a different race to perceive potentially preju-

4 The Subject Race X Perpetrator Race X Victim Race interactionwas marginally significant in one instance, Replication 2, F( 1, 97) =4.9, p < .03, showing a tendency for Black participants(M = 1.22) morethan White participants (M = .71) to label Black-on-White prejudiceas unfair, p< . 10. The perceptions of Black and White participants didnot significantly differ for the other perpetrator and victim race condi-tions, p = ns. This pattern also occurred (though nonstatistically) intwo of the three other replications. Though we have speculations regard-ing this finding (e.g., perhaps Black participants may have moreexposure to anti-White comments, which affects their expectancies andperceptions), we'd like to see this finding replicated to bolster our con-fidence that this difference is reliable.

732 INMAN AND BARON

Table 1Study I (Racism Study): Mean Number of Stories Labeled as Prejudiced by Race ofPerpetrator and Race of Victim for Each Replication

Replication no. andmeasure

Replication 1(Stories 3 and 11)

Mn

Replication 2(Stories 2 and 10)

Mn

Replication 3(Stories 5 and 13)

Mn

Replication 4(Stories 7 and 15)

Mn

White/Black

1.13.32

1.61.28

1-37.27

1.00.26

Race of perpetrator/race of victim

Black/White

0.89^28

O.88b

26

0.8 8b*32

0.48h

27

Black/Black

0.54h

26

0.74b

27

0.7 lb

27

0.44b

32

White/White

0.56b

27

0.72b

32

0.5V26

0.50,28

W/B, B/W, B/B, and W/Wlinear contrast p value

<.0014

<.0001

<.000l

<.0049

Note. Means could range from 0 {no stones labeled prejudiced) to 2 (all stories labeled prejudiced). Story numbers refer to the position of the storyin the stimulus booklet. Means with different subscripts differ at p < .01. W = White; B = Black.*p<.05.

diced acts differently, Replication 1,F(I,97) = 3.4, p< .07; Rep-lication 2, F( 1,97) = 3.9, p = .05, with Black participants callingmore stories prejudiced (Replication 1, M = 1.05; Replication 2,M= 1.15) than White participants (Replication 1, M = .74; Rep-lication 2, M = .95). None of the Gender X Participant Race in-teractions were significant, lowest p > .48.

Discussion

The aforementioned results are consistent with the notionthat both African American and Caucasian participants havespecific (prototypic) expectancies about the characteristics ofthe perpetrator and victim of racial prejudice and these expec-tancies influence their perceptions of potentially racist actions.Specifically, in every analysis, all participants were more likelyto label prejudiced actions by Whites against Blacks as preju-diced than when the same actions involved Black-on-White,White-on-White, or Black-on-Black discrimination (see Table1). These results are inconsistent with the traditional oppressorview because the characteristics of the victim interacted withperpetrators' characteristics. Nor do the results support the out-group conflict hypothesis because, according to this view, par-ticipants should have perceived Black-on-White actions as prej-udiced as White-on-Black actions. As noted, this did not occur.The present results increase our confidence that a prototypicstereotype (regarding racism, at least) is present and is affectingour participants' perceptions of prejudice (see also Footnote 6for additional data supporting this view). One goal of Study 2was to examine if such prototypes were present and influencedperceptions of gender bias.

The results of Study 1 also suggest that men and Caucasian par-ticipants were less likely to see potentially prejudiced events assuch, as compared with women and African American partici-

pants. This is a particularly interesting finding, as all the recipientsof the prejudiced actions in Study 1 were (Black and White) men.Thus, the simple explanation that people are more responsive todiscrimination directed toward their own group does not seemviable because male participants did not readily label the actionsas prejudiced. The results seem more consistent with what mightbe deemed the "sensitive victim" explanation. Specifically, partic-ipants who belong to traditionally oppressed groups (Blacks,women) may be more sensitive to potential prejudice. Perhapstheir own concerns regarding discrimination make the issue ofprejudice more accessible and central than is true for others. Cer-tainly, the fact that women seemed more sensitive to various formsof potential racism is congruent with this view, as is the fact thatAfrican American participants were more likely to label both anti-Black and anti-White actions as instances of racism.

In summary, the results of Study 1 support the view that per-ceptions of prejudice are strongly affected by prototypic perpetra-tor victim expectancies and replicate and extend prior reports(Baron etal., 1991) that women were more responsive5 to poten-tially discriminating behavior than men. Study 2 examined theextent to which the three possible stereotypes affected perceptionsof gender discrimination and examined the semantic explanationmore closely.

Study 2: The Sexism Sorting Study

Overall Design

Participants in Study 2 read and formed impressions aboutderogatory actions directed at both women and men. These ac-

5 Baron et al. (1991) found that female participants did not labelantifemale actions as prejudiced more often than male participants, butwhen all participants did perceive an act as prejudiced, women were

PREJUDICED PERCEPTIONS 733

tions emanated from either male or female perpetrators. In ad-dition, to test the semantic explanation, we asked participantsto sort the perpetrators of each story into piles having sharedcharacteristics and to label and diagram how they sorted theirpiles. This procedure circumvents problems raised by the se-mantic hypothesis (i.e., that certain verbal labels are only usedfor certain categories of people, e.g., men), because participantscould register their perception of prejudice on the part of (say)a woman by placing her in a sexist pile despite their not usingthat term to describe her. After this sorting was completed par-ticipants labeled their piles. If participants placed both men andwomen in piles that they later labeled as sexist, the data wouldfurther contradict the semantic bias explanation (that suchterms were reserved for men).

Study 2 also examines the extent to which the three possiblestereotypes discussed above influence perceptions of gender-based prejudice. If the prototypic view is operating, then poten-tially biased male-on-female actions should be labeled as preju-diced more often than female-on-male actions, female-on-fe-male actions, or male-on-male actions. If the out-group conflictview is operating, then potentially biased female-on-male andmale-on-female actions should be described more often as prej-udiced behavior than male-on-male and female-on-female ac-tions. Finally, if the traditional oppressor view is operating, thenpotentially biased male-on-female actions and male-on-maleactions should be more likely to be labeled as prejudiced thanfemale-on-male and female-on-female actions.6

Method

Participants

Sixty-two (24 men and 38 women) primarily Caucasian undergradu-ate students enrolled in introductory psychology classes at a private lib-eral arts university in Texas participated for extra credit in their psy-chology courses. Participants received instructions in groups of 3 andcompleted Ihe tasks privately in separate rooms.

Procedure

Participants were told there were three parts to the experiment. In thefirst part, participants heard the same cover story as in Study 1 inform-ing them that they would be reacting to various written interpersonalinteractions (or stories). Participants then read the 19 vignettes, react-ing to each in turn. As in Study 1, participants wrote two or three of the"strongest qualities or traits exhibited by the actor in (that) episode"and rated the extent to which the actor displayed that behavior on a 7-point scale ranging from slightly displayed (\) to extremely displayed(7). Participants wrote their responses on post-its (gummed labels) andattached the post-it onto the corresponding story.

After reading and rating all of the vignettes, participants were in-structed to sort the vignettes into piles based on any similarities he orshe saw in the actors' behaviors. They were told

You do not have to group the stories according to the verbatim wordsyou wrote on the post-its, but on the similarities and differences thatyou sec in the actors' behaviors or traits. For example, if you see a few"friendly" actors, you may want to put them into a pile. Furthermore,

more likely to say that the perpetrator displayed more extreme sexismthan men perceiving the same act.

you may opt (but do not have) to make subcategories of piles. Forexample, some friendly people might have been flirtatious, so thoseactors or actresses would be put into a separate pile. There are noright answers here. Just group them as you see them.

After sorting the stories, participants were asked to draw a diagramrepresenting their piles, placing very different piles away from eachother, and writing verbal labels next to their piles, so that a person coulddetermine how they represented their piles schematically. The particu-lar story number associated with the pile was also indicated. Further-more, if they fell that there were subcategories within the piles, theywere to include these subcategories on the diagram using hierarchicalbranches. They were also given a sample diagram and emphatically toldthat this was only a general example to aid in denning their task.

Materials

Participants randomly received one of two forms of the story book-lets. Six of the 19 stories described actions demeaning women (3 with amale perpetrator and 3 with a female perpetrator). These were takenfrom Baron et al.'s (1991) study. Similarly, 6 of the stories describedactions demeaning men (3 with a female perpetrator and 3 with a maleperpetrator). These were created from discussion groups of over 25 peo-ple using procedures similar to those used in Study 1. When asked di-rectly how sexist these stories were, 43 pilot participants rated them asmoderately to extremely sexist (range of 7.1 to 8.1 on a 9-point scale),although when an open-ended response format was used only approxi-mately 65% of the 12 critical vignettes were labeled as prejudiced, con-firming that the stories were, in fact, somewhat ambiguous. See the Ap-pendix for a brief description of the stories.

In the second form of the booklet, the perpetrators' gender was re-versed from the first, thus allowing us to examine the effects of perpe-trator gender holding story content constant. The seven filler vignettes(involving men and women) that were least likely to elicit prejudicedresponses in prior studies were adopted. As in the prior studies, the gen-der of the protagonist in the filler stories was constant across bookletforms and the filler stories were interspersed throughout the stimulusbooklet, with the restriction that two filler stories were placed at thebeginning of the booklets.

Results and Discussion

Interrater Reliability

As in the prior studies, two independent raters who were blindto perpetrator gender were instructed to give each critical story

6 An initial study (Inman & Baron, 1992) investigating these threestereotypes was conducted with 144 primarily Caucasian participantswho read filler stories and six stories describing a male or female perpe-trator demeaning a man (the same stories used in Study 2). The resultsshowed that instances of fe male-on-male discrimination were labeled asbiased more frequently (M = 2.26 of 3) than the same actions involvingmale-on-male discrimination (M = 1.85 of 3) in one of the two analy-ses, Replication f , f < 1, ns, Replication 2, p< .015. It's important tonote that the average effect size (.019) of the perpetrator gender maineffect was not as large in this study as the perpetrator gender main effectsize involving antifemale discrimination (r = .293, Baron et ah, 1991).Furthermore, female participants in the antimale study were morelikely (M = 2.25 of 3) than male participants (M = 1.9 of 3) to seeantimale actions as prejudiced,;? < .023, p = .03, with no other signifi-cant effects. Study 2 (in the text) was conducted to minimize the prob-lems associated with comparing antimale and antifemale perceptionrates across studies.

734 INMAN AND BARON

a 1 if they thought the participant perceived some unfairness orinjustice in the situation (see Footnote 3). If the participant didnot perceive any unfairness, the raters were instructed to givehim or her a 0. As in Study 1, loaded responses such as sexistor chauvinist were scored separately, to examine the semantichypothesis. A reliability check on 15 randomly selected ques-tionnaires indicated that coders agreed on their ratings. In-terrater agreement, correcting for chance agreement, was 94%,using Cohen's kappa, K = .94, p< .001.

Analysis

As in Study 1, to hold story content constant, stories withsimilar perpetrators (3 men and 3 women for the male victimstories; 3 men and 3 women for the female victim stories) weregrouped and responses were compared across participants.Thus, there were two replications of our design for the malevictim stories and two for the female victim stories. Perceptionratings could range between 0 (no stones labeled as prejudiced)to 3 (all stories labeled as prejudiced).

Frequency Data: Number of Stories Labeled Prejudiced

Initial analyses conducted separately on nonloaded preju-diced responses (e.g., biased, unfair) and loaded responses(sexist, chauvinist) did not show any reliable differences. In ad-dition, there was no consistent tendency for male perpetrators,as opposed to female perpetrators, to be disproportionately la-beled as sexist or chauvinistic. As a result, the data were com-bined and reported below.

Four 2 {perpetrator gender) X 2 (participant gender)ANOVAs were conducted on the number of critical stories (0-3) in a given replication labeled as prejudiced. The resultsshown in Table 2 replicate results reported by Baron et al.(1991) and Inman and Baron (1992) (see Footnote 6), exactly,with the only exception being the participant gender main effectfor the male victim analyses (see below). The data are mostconsistent with the prototype view, with very weak support forthe out-group conflict view, and no support for the traditionaloppressor view.

For the two analyses involving female victim stories, neitherof the Perpetrator Gender X Participant Gender interactionswere statistically significant (lowest p > .4) nor were the partic-ipant gender main effects (lowest p > . 14). Moreover, as shownin Table 2, in both replications, male perpetrators of female-directed prejudice were more likely to be labeled as prejudiced{M- 2.31, M= 2.07) than female perpetrators performing thesame behavior (M = 1.43, M- 1.62); perpetrator main effects,Replication 1, F{ 1, 55) = 14.17, p < .001, and Replication 2,F(l,55) = 4.5, p< .04, yielding an average effect size7 of .165.

The results of the male victim stories were less consistent.This weaker effect replicates Inman and Baron (1992, see Foot-note 6). That is, as shown in Table 2, there was a tendency forparticipants to be more likely to label female-on-male actionsas prejudiced (M = 2.62) than in the case of male-on-male ac-tions (M = 2.23), and this occurred in only one of two replica-tions: Replication 4, F( 1, 55) = 3.7, p = .06; and Replication 3,F(l, 55) = .075, p> .70, yielding an average effect size of .063.The finding that the average perpetrator gender effect size was

significantly larger in the female victim replications (.165) thanin the male victim replications (.063), x2(3) = 15.2, p < .01,one-tailed, was also present in the earlier studies. Baron et al.(1991) found a stronger perpetrator gender main effect (averageeffect size = ,293) with their female victim stories than Inmanand Baron (1992) did with their male victim stories (averageeffect size = .019), z =• 1.83,7? = 03, one-tailed.

The present analyses failed to show statistically significantPerpetrator Gender X Participant Gender interactions for themale victim stories, p > .60, p > ,30, respectively. Surprisingly,nor were the participant gender main effects significant, p = .27in Replication 1, p - .30 in Replication 2. Whereas Inman andBaron (1992) found female participants more readily labeledantimale discrimination as prejudiced than male participants(p < .023, p < .03), women in this study tended to do the samein one replication (M = 2.49 for women, M = 2.21 for men),but this tendency reversed in the second replication (M = 2.54for men, M - 2.34 for women).

Schematic Diagrams

Schematic diagrams were analyzed to examine the verbal la-bels participants attached to their categories and to examineif certain (expected) perpetrators were overrepresented in theprejudiced piles.

Semantic labels attached to piles. Participants' diagramswere coded to determine four things: (a) what word(s) theyused to describe most prejudiced actions, (b) if the actions bymale and female perpetrators were grouped together, (c) howparticipants labeled subcategories of prejudiced actions, and(d) if participants created different subcategories for male andfemale perpetrators.

The results strongly suggest that certain words were not re-served for particular perpetrators. Specifically, of the 33 partic-ipants who used the words sexist or chauvinist to describe ac-tions (either as a global category or as a subcategory), only 2(6%) drew diagrams indicating that only male perpetratorswere sexist (female perpetrators were traditional). In addition,counter to the semantic hypothesis, the vast majority of partic-ipants (94%) who labeled their piles as sexist or chauvinistgrouped male and female perpetrators together. Furthermore,the majority of participants (85%) who described prejudicedactions with nonloaded words (e.g., prejudiced, biased, dis-criminating, stereotyping) grouped male and female perpetra-tors together. Taken together, these data suggest that the seman-tic view is not a viable explanation.

7 We computed effect sizes for each replication based on Rosenthaland Rosnow's (1991, p. 317) formula effect size = r}2/( 1 - V2)* wherei}2 is the proportion of variance accounted for in the dependent variableby group membership (i.e., the independent variable). We then aver-aged the effect sizes for the two male victim replications in Study 2 andrepeated the process for the two female victim replications in Study 2.The effect sizes reported for Baron et al.'s (1991) and Inman and Bar-on's (1992) findings were computed the same way. The significance tests(reported in the text) comparing the effect sizes for the male victim andfemale victim studies are based on Rosenthal and Rosnow's (1991, p.493) and Strube's (1985) work. The interested reader should see theirdiscussion for more on comparing results across studies.

PREJUDICED PERCEPTIONS 735

Table 2Study 2 (Sorting Study): Mean Number of Stones Labeled as Prejudiced as a Function ofPerpetrator and Victim Gender by Replication

Replication no. and measure

Replication 1Female victim (Stories 3, 11, and 15)

Mn

Replication 2Female victim (Stories 6, 12, and 19)

Mn

Replication 3Male victim (Stories 7,9, and 18)

Mn

Replication 4Male victim (Stories 4, 13, and 16)

Mn

Gender of perpetrator

Male

2.3la29

2.07a30

2.4129

2.23b30

Female

1.43b30

l-62b29

2.3330

2.62B29

Perpetrator maineffect, p

<.00l

<.O4

>,70

.06

Note. Numbers could range from 0 (no stories labeled prejudiced) to 3 (all stories labeled prejudiced).Story numbers refer to position of story in stimulus booklet. Means with different subscripts differ at p <.01.

Frequency data of the piles. A second key issue was the rel-ative frequency with which critical vignettes were placed inprejudiced piles as a function of perpetrator or victim gender.Each participant encountered three instances, each of potentialmale-on-female discrimination, female-on-female discrimina-tion, male-on-male discrimination, and female-on-male dis-crimination. Our interest was in how many vignettes of eachtype would end up sorted into a category that was subsequentlylabeled by the participants as prejudiced (or some synonym).Fifty-nine of the 62 participants used such labels. We expectedthat a greater proportion of male-on-female discriminationwould be seen in the piles than female-on-female discrimina-tion. This prediction was supported. On average, there weremore vignettes with male perpetrators (M = 1.966 of 3) placedin the prejudiced pile when the victim was a woman than fe-male-on-female stories (M = 1.299), /(58) = 4.71, p < .001.Furthermore, based on the effect sizes reported above and In-man and Baron's (1992) results, we did not expect more fe-male-on-male vignettes to be placed in prejudiced piles relativeto male-on-male vignettes. This prediction was also supported:When the victim was a man, the average number of vignettesplaced in the prejudiced pile did not differ by perpetrator gen-der: male perpetrator (M = 2.102), female perpetrator (M =2.203), /(58) = - .81, p = .42. In short, these results closelyparalleled the frequency data presented in Table 2. That is, theperpetrator's gender affected perceptions of prejudice in casesof antifemale but not in cases of antimale discrimination.

Finally, we expected that of those participants who separatedtheir prejudiced piles by intensity (mildly, moderately, and ex-tremely prejudiced), a higher frequency of male-on-female dis-crimination would be seen as extremely prejudiced than fe-male-on-male discrimination if the prototype hypothesis wascorrect. The data supported this hypothesis. Of the 14 partici-

pants who separated prejudiced piles by intensity, more male-on-female potentially prejudiced acts were placed in the se-verely or harshly prejudiced piles {M = 2.07) than female-on-male potentially prejudiced acts (M= 1.14), f( 13) = 2.88, p<.01, one-tailed.

General Discussion

These two studies, manipulating the social category of the per-petrator and the victim, showed that perceptions of prejudice weremoderated by characteristics about the perpetrator, the victim,and the participant. We found that participants were more likelyto label certain perpetrator and victim configurations as preju-diced than others: Participants were most likely to call a potentiallyprejudiced action an instance of prejudice if it involved a specifickind of perpetrator and specific kind of victim (Whites derogatingBlacks, Study 1; men derogating women, Study 2) than if the sameactions came from Blacks directed toward Whites (Study 1) orderogatory actions by women toward men (Study 2). Further-more, cases of Black-on-White (Study 1) and women-on-men(Study 2) discrimination tended (albeit nonsignificantry) to pro-voke more frequent perceptions of prejudice from participantsthan cases of in-group discrimination (in six of eight replications).Finally, women and Black participants more readily labeled po-tential acts of racism as instances of prejudice in Study 1, whereasin Study 2 women were more likely than men to label prejudiceacts involving potential antimale sexism (see also Inman & Baron,1992) as discrimination than male participants.

Nature of the Cultural Stereotypes

We examined whether three possible stereotypes, applicableto sexism and racism, influenced perceptions of discrimination.

736 INMAN AND BARON

Our preferred explanation for the above results is that partici-pants' perceptions regarding prejudice are being primarilyaffected by specific cultural expectations regarding the proto-typical perpetrators and victims of racism and sexism (i.e., par-ticipants feel that the most typical forms of sexism and racisminvolve men who discriminate against women and Whites whodiscriminate against Blacks, respectively). The strongest evi-dence for this view stems from Study 1, in which White-on-Black discrimination provoked the strongest perceptions ofprejudice; the rinding that perpetrator gender effects in Study 2are more reliable in cases of antifemale discrimination (effectsize = .165) than in cases of antimale prejudice (effect size =.063, see Footnote 7); and by the frequency results of the sort-ing task in Study 2. The results did not show that other cases ofintergroup conflict (e.g., Blacks against Whites, women againstmen) provoked the same amount of prejudiced responses, re-futing the out-group conflict hypothesis. Nor were actions bymale or White protagonists consistently labeled as prejudiced,disconnrming the traditional oppressor view.

We are not entirely ruling out the out-group conflict andother stereotypes that may be operating in other prejudice-rele-vant situations (e.g., when blatant racist or sexist symbols arepresent but the intent or the identity of the perpetrator isunclear). For example, Kirby, Willis, Chandler, and Hill (1994)reported that White participants were most likely to see a racialslur (e.g., nigger, honkie) as most biased and prejudiced whenthe comment came from an out-group member (i.e., a Whitederogating a Black or a Black derogating a White), and leastlikely when the slur came from the victim's in-group.

Where Do Prototypical Expectancies Come From?

Given that our data (based on perceptions of ambiguously racistand sexist actions) are reliably consistent with the notion that peo-ple react most vigorously to the "classic" (i.e., prototypical) in-stances of prejudice, one might ask how do these prototypical ex-pectancies develop? We think a general principle that may underlieexpectancies about racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudiceis that high-status groups may be seen as prototypical perpetratorsof prejudice and low-status groups as its victims. Stated differently,we form prototypical expectancies about who will be the perpetra-tors and victims of discrimination based on traditional statusdifferences (e.g., Blacks, women, people with stigmas, and elderlypeople will be expected to be victims because they have tradition-ally held low-status positions, whereas White men are expected tobe the perpetrators because they historically have held powerfulpositions in the United States). At least two versions of this statusexplanation are possible. First, there could be a general expectancyin which people expect potentially derogatory comments and ac-tions from group members who have held high-status positions inmost situations and expect such behavior to be directed at anylower status member (e.g., Whites derogate Blacks, Whites dero-gate Mexicans, etc.). Second, status expectancies may be shapedby the historical context of a particular situation (e.g., women maybe perceived as high-status individuals in situations involving childcare). This specific status expectancy view predicts that peoplebelonging to groups that have historically had power in a particularsituation should provoke more prejudiced responses in perceivers(when directed at subordinates) than when the perpetrator be-

longs to a historically low-status group (for that situation) or whenthe victim belongs to a historically high-status group. These viewsalso predict that perceivers have no or weak expectancies regardingprejudice directed against high-status groups. Current research isinvestigating the adequacy of these two views.

Indeed, naive raters who examined the nature of our vignettesfound most (five of six) of antifemale stories described situationsin which men historically have been in positions of power (hiringdecision, group leader or decision maker) and some (three of six)antimale stories described situations in which women have tradi-tionally held power (e.g., kindergarten teacher, tending to a child'swound), which are consistent with the perpetrator effects that wefound in most (10 of 12 cases) of our male victim and femalevictim stories. Similarly, these naive raters said many (five of eight)of the stories in Study 1 contain situations in which White menhave held powerful positions, and the perpetrator effects for eachstory (found in Study 2) support these expectancies in six of eightcases. Admittedly, Studies 1 and 2 do not test the status explana-tions directly, as we did not systematically set out to select storieswith clear or ambiguous historical precedents.

Participant Factors Influencing Perceptions

As noted, there is some evidence to suggest that female par-ticipants were more likely than male participants to label po-tentially prejudiced actions as biased. Similar, albeit largelynonsignificant, trends were observed in Study 2. This partici-pant gender main effect now has been found regarding the per-ception of potentially discriminating actions against women(Baron etal., 1991), men (Inman& Baron, 1992), and AfricanAmerican and Caucasian men (Study 1). Moreover, our Afri-can American (male and female) participants were more likelyto label potentially racist actions directed at Blacks and Whitesas racist than White participants were (Study I) .

One explanation for these results is that for members of tradi-tionally oppressed groups, the issue of prejudice is generally morecentral and accessible than it is for other individuals. This height-ened accessibility may be associated with concerns of self-interest(in that discrimination must be detected if it is to be protested),but it also may be associated with a general feeling of empathy forother oppressed minorities as well. Supplementing this mecha-nism, women may have a heightened sense of interpersonal sensi-tivity due to their socialization (Pearson et al., 1985), conse-quently leading them to notice interpersonal infringements of allkinds more readily than men. These gender and racial differencesmay be moderated to some extent by individual difference vari-ables such as the extent to which participants are self-schematicas activists (e.g., feminists, ethnic militants, etc.). For example,Gutierrez and Hirsch (1973) found differential perception of prej-udice in reaction to a given (police action) vignette on the part ofmore ethnically active Latino participants (self-describedChicanos) as opposed to presumably less active participants (self-described Mexican Americans).

Other Factors Influencing Perceptions

One might argue that the data patterns in Tables 1 and 2 aredue to other factors (e.g., the severity of the prejudiced actionsor degree to which the actions themselves match prototypical

PREJUDICED PERCEPTIONS 737

prejudiced behaviors) than the characteristics of the perpetra-tor, victim, or participant. We acknowledge that these factorsmay also affect perceptions of prejudice (in addition to the per-petrator's, victim's, and participant's characteristics), but giventhe way we designed our study and the results of the (following)post hoc analyses, these two explanations cannot, by them-selves, explain the present data patterns.

For example, one might argue that perhaps more extremelyprejudiced stories were used in the antifemale vignettes, yield-ing the stronger male-on-female discrimination findings and theweaker female-on-male findings (see Table 2). Indeed, given theneed to embed our instances of gender bias in an appropriatecultural context, the content of the gender bias vignettes was notheld constant across cases of antimale and antifemale discrimi-nation. To test this explanation, we asked naive pilot partici-pants to rate the harmfulness (or severity) of the prejudicedactions described in each of our male victim and female victimstories, with the gender of the perpetrators omitted. We foundno differences between male victim and female victim ratings,p- ns. Most pilot participants (at least 75% in every case) con-sidered the male victim and female victim actions somewhatharmful or extremely harmful.

Furthermore, note that in Study 1 (the racism study), theactions were identical for each perpetrator or victim permuta-tion, and we still found evidence that the characteristics of theactors in the situation influenced perceptions. To test the ex-tremity explanation more directly, however, we asked these na-ive pilot participants to rate the harmfulness of each racismstory in Study 1, and we categorized stories as not harmful orextremely harmful. We then examined the p value associatedwith the Perpetrator Race X Victim Race interaction for eachracism story and compared the average/* value across preratedextreme stories to the average/? value across nonextreme storiesand found no significant difference between p values, t(6) = 1.2,ns. Taken together, these two findings suggest that the degree ofharm described in the stories is not responsible for our datapatterns in the main studies.

The second explanation contends that the prototypicality ofthe prejudiced actions (not the characteristics of the actors) in-fluenced perceptions. In other words, actions that are more pro-totypical of sexist actions should be called prejudiced more thannonprototypical ones. This explanation does not explain whywe obtained the significant perpetrator gender effects (Study 2)or any perpetrator and victim differences (Study 1) when storycontent was held constant. Alternatively, one could argue thatstories containing more prototypically sexist or racist actionsled participants to call the action prejudiced only when thecharacteristics of the perpetrator and victim matched expectan-cies (yielding the perpetrator and victim results in the mainstudies). In other words, prototypically prejudiced actions arenecessary (yet not sufficient) for eliciting a prejudiced response.The data from the following analyses suggest that the prototyp-icality of the action (like severity) is unimportant too.

We asked the same pilot participants to indicate the extent towhich the actions in all our stories "matched a typically preju-diced event," while we omitted the characteristics of the perpe-trator. Thus, raters were just judging the action, ignoring thecharacteristics of the actor. If the aforementioned explanationis valid, the female victim stories should be rated as containing

more prototypically prejudiced actions than male victim stories(given the stronger perpetrator gender main effects with femalevictim stories). Pilot participants did not say the actions in fe-male victim stories were more prototypical (five of six storieswere) than actions in male victim stories (four of six), %2{ 1) =.44, ns, however. In addition, we did not find stronger perpetra-tor and victim effects with racism stories in Study 2 that wereprerated as containing prototypically racist actions (average/?value - .049) than ones containing nonprototypical actions(average p value = .066), ;(6) = .005, ns. Nevertheless, wewould agree that examining the interactions among the situa-tion's, perceiver's, and protagonist's characteristics is worthy offurther research.

Social Implications

Besides these conceptual issues, these data have important prag-matic implications. In general, participants were more likely tolabel an action as biased when a man derogated a woman or whena White person derogated a Black person. This finding suggeststhat a good many prejudiced actions will go undetected, and there-fore, uncorrected if it involves in-group-in-group discriminationor discrimination from prototypical victims against either othervictims or prototypical perpetrators. One is reminded of prejudiceand discrimination between disadvantaged minority groups (e.g.,Latinos and Italians against African Americans; African Ameri-cans against Koreans) that goes unrecognized, untreated, and ig-nored by the media for years until it erupts into such violence (inlocations such as Howard Beach and Crown Heights in New YorkCity), that its presence can no longer be ignored. A complemen-tary point is that these data also raise the possibility that thoseperpetrators who are expected to have prejudiced motives will beperceived to have prejudiced motives when none may exist. Obvi-ously, false suspicions of bias are extremely dysfunctional in a widerange of organizational, social, and educational settings. Giventhese perceptual distortions and the limited attentional resourcesoften available during a busy day, these data suggest that out-groupmembers, particularly members of traditionally dominant socialcategories (men and Whites), need to exercise care in what theysay and do if they are to avoid the resentment, low morale, andinterpersonal friction when biased motives are assumed.

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PREJUDICED PERCEPTIONS 739

Appendix

Stories Used in Studies 1 and 2

Descriptions of Vignettes Used in Study 1 (Racism Study)

Vignette numbers refer to the story's position in the stimulus bookletFiller Vignette 1: One coworker teases another for working so hard

and making him look bad.Critical Vignette 2: A man jabs his feet into Steve's back at a rock

concert and comments that he doesn't know why they let people likeSteve into the concert.

Critical Vignette 3: An employer interviews and hires the best candi-date for the job and comments about affirmative action.

Critical Vignette 5: The host at a restaurant tells a customer that therestaurant will close early due to a slow night and then tells a friend onthe phone that it will be a busy night at the restaurant.

Critical Vignette 7: Two men waiting for the same job interview arechatting when one says, "I wouldn't worry about it [the interview], Idon't think they will hire someone like you."

Critical Vignette 10; After reserving a motel room over the phone,Ron drives to the motel to hear the desk clerk tell him there are novacancies, his reservation must have been a mistake.

Critical Vignette 11; A car salesman comments that he is surprisedthat this customer knows about cars (given people like him) and com-ments that he expects this customer to be a feisty negotiator.

Critical Vignette 13: A man is turned down (despite his stellarperformance) as a bass guitarist in a rock band because he wasn't theright type.

Critical Vignette 15: A police officer harasses a few males out on ajoy ride.

Critical Vignettes Used in Study 2 (Sorting Study)

Male Victim Stories

Vignette 4: Though qualified for the job, Mr. Johnson is told that thecompany he is applying for is pressured to hire minorities. He is thendismissed.

Vignette 7; A neighbor testifies that the children should be placedwith the mother because women take better care of their children.

Vignette 9: The perpetrator comments that men know nothing aboutwedding arrangements.

Vignette 13: A neighbor enters the victim's house to tell him and hisspouse that their child was hurt playing in the backyard. As the fathergoes to the aid of the child, the neighbor responds, ". . . (she's) reallyupset. I think it's going to take a woman's touch to handle this one."

Vignette 16: A parent plans to switch her child from Mr. Jones's classto Miss Tompson's class because women are naturally better able to carefor children.

Vignette 18: Mike, who is interested in applying for a job as a floralarranger, is refused a job unless he wants to deliver flowers.

Female Victim Stones

Vignette 3: A house guest comments that the hostess ought to get inthe kitchen and "rattle those pots and pans, girl."

Vignette 6; When delegating assignments on a group project, the per-petrator comments that the women should take secretarial jobs and themen should take the executive jobs.

Vignette 11; When finding out that Larry's girlfriend is pregnant, theperpetrator responds, "That dumb b ! She's really ruined hischance to go to medical school now. How could she have let thishappen?"

Vignette 12: The car salesperson tells the wife about the color schemeof the cars (and the easy-to-operate rear door), while he/she directsnegotiation matters to the husband.

Vignette 15: A chemistry major is advised to change her major tonursing (and give up her ideas of medical school) during a familyreunion.

Vignette 19: A physical education professor comments that today'sclass discussion will be about variables affecting coordination andstrength, a topic that the girls may find a bit frustrating and tedious, butthe boys will enjoy.

Received July 19, 1994Revision received October 1, 1995

Accepted November 16, 1995 •