All That You Can Be: Stereotyping of Self and Others in a Military Context

Abstract

The authors tested the shifting standards model (M. Biernat, M. Manis, & T. E. Nelson, 1991) as it applies to sex- and race-based stereotyping of self and others in the military. U.S. Army officers attending a leadership training course made judgments of their own and their groupmates\u27 leadership competence at 3 time points over a 9-week period. We examined the effects of officer sex and race on both subjective (rating) and objective/common-rule (ranking/Q-sort) evaluations. Stereotyping generally increased with time, and in accordance with the shifting standards model, pro-male judgment bias was more evident in rankings than in ratings, particularly for White targets. Self-judgments were also affected by sex-based shifting standards, particularly in workgroups containing a single ( solo ) woman. Differential standard use on the basis of race was less apparent, a finding attributed to the Army\u27s explicit invocation against the use of differential race-based standards.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/books/1059/thumbnail.jp