Managing Ambivalent Prejudices

• DOI: 10.1177/0002716211418444
• Author: Susan T. Fiske
• Date: 01 January 2012
• Published date: 01 January 2012

ANNALS, AAPSS, 639, January, 2012 33

Not all biases are equivalent, and not all biases are uni-

formly negative. Two fundamental dimensions differ-

entiate stereotyped groups in cultures across the globe:

status predicts perceived competence, and cooperation

predicts perceived warmth. Crossing the competence

and warmth dimensions, two combinations produce

ambivalent prejudices: pitied groups (often traditional

women or older people) appear warm but incompetent,

and envied groups (often nontraditional women or out-

sider entrepreneurs) appear competent but cold. Case

studies in ambivalent sexism, heterosexism, racism,

anti-immigrant biases, ageism, and classism illustrate

both the dynamics and the management of these com-

plex but knowable prejudices.

Keywords: stereotypes; prejudice; discrimination;

race; gender; age; class

A

middle-aged white man walks into an

office . . . what is your mental image?

People assume a lot, right away, sizing each

other up, in an instant. Social categories such as

gender, race, and age immediately impinge on

impressions, whether we like it or not. In today’s

global management context, immigrant status,

nationality, and social class rapidly shape impres-

sions as well. Beyond these first-millisecond

impressions, social categories condition what

ensues. First impressions do count. More and

more, organizations are expected to know that

decision-makers and peers cannot help auto-

matically noticing social categories. What is more,

people often act on these categories, unaware of

their influence. Decades of research establish

these realities (Macrae and Bodenhausen 2000;

Fiske 1998).

418444ANN Managing Ambivalent PrejudicesThe

Annals of the American Academy

Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of

Psychology, Princeton University, and author of Envy

Up, Scorn Down: How Status Divides Us (Russell Sage

Foundation 2011), supported by a Guggenheim and a

Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar award. She

also wrote Social Cognition (McGraw-Hill 2008) and

edits the Annual Review of Psychology and the

Handbook of Social Psychology.

DOI: 10.1177/0002716211418444

Managing

Ambivalent

Prejudices:

Smart-but-Cold

and Warm-but-

Dumb

Stereotypes

By

SUSAN T. FISKE

34 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Evolution argues for the utility of this rapid category-based social judgment.

People have to know whom to approach or avoid and for what purposes. Evolution

also argues that just a few fundamental principles describe how people understand

each other. Knowing these dimensions organizes and informs what may otherwise

seem an arbitrary and overwhelming miscellany of group images that could affect

diversity management. This article describes two fundamental, apparently univer-

sal, dimensions of out-group images, which situate race, gender, and other catego-

ries in a larger societal map that predicts stereotypic belie fs, emotional prejud ices,

and discriminatory tendencies. A novel contribution of this framework is the

concept of ambivalent images, applied here particularly to gender bias, hetero-

sexism, racism, anti-immigrant biases, ageism, and classism. Another novel

contribu tion demonstrates the primacy of warmth and trust over sheer status and

power, what might be termed a focus on relational capital in management.

Universal Dimensions of Social Cognition

When people encounter an individual or group, they first need to know the

“Other’s” intentions, for good or ill. Whether someone walks into your office,

approaches you in a dark alley, or sits next to you in public, you need to know

immediately whether that Other is benign or harmful. Our ancestors had the

same dilemma, and modern citizens especially have the same problem in reaction

to new immigrant groups. People have intentions, which set them apart from

inanimate objects and help to predict what they will do. The Stereotype Content

Model (SCM) calls this first dimension perceived warmth, which includes appar-

ent trustworthiness, friendliness, and sociability (Fiske et al. 2002; Fiske, Cuddy,

and Glick 2007). People infer warm (or cold) intent from respectively cooperative

or competitive structural relationships between individuals or groups. That is,

those groups who cooperate appear warm and trustworthy; those who compete

appear cold and untrustworthy, even exploitative. These links are robust (Cuddy,

Fiske, and Glick 2008).

Knowing a stranger’s intentions solves only part of the dilemma, because one

must know the Other’s capability to enact those intentions. An incompetent foe

poses less threat and an incompetent friend offers less benefit than their more

competent counterparts. People infer this competence (capability, skill) from

apparent status (prestige, economic success) (Cuddy, Fiske, and Glick 2008;

Kervyn, Fiske, and Yzerbyt n.d.-b). People all over the world believe in meritoc-

racy (status = competence) to a surprising degree.

Most prior descriptions of group images have focused mainly on either sta-

tus characteristics (Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch 1972; Ridgeway 1991) or on

cooperation-competition (Sherif and Sherif 1953). Combining these two dimen-

sions also goes beyond standard dichotomous in-group/out-group designations

(Tajfel 1981). These dimensions emerge from multidimensional scaling (Kervyn,

Fiske, and Yzerbyt n.d.-a); in representative and convenience samples; in surveys,