Effects of Right-Wing Populist Political Advertising on Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes

We investigated the effects of antiforeigner political advertisements on implicit and explicit stereotypes. While stereotypical associations may become automatically activated (implicit stereotypes), individuals can reject these thoughts and decide not to use them for an overtly expressed judgment (explicit stereotypes). We hypothesized that even if citizens negated stereotypical content, advertisements might still affect implicit stereotypes. This hypothesis was tested using an experiment where participants (N = 186) were exposed to zero, two, four, or six stereotypical advertisements. The results showed that stereotypical advertisements did not influence explicit stereotypes but did influence implicit stereotypes, even in critical recipients who negated the stereotypical content

Effects of Right-Wing Populist Political Advertising on Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes

We investigated the effects of antiforeigner political advertisements on implicit and explicit stereotypes. While stereotypical associations may become automatically activated (implicit stereotypes), individuals can reject these thoughts and decide not to use them for an overtly expressed judgment (explicit stereotypes). We hypothesized that even if citizens negated stereotypical content, advertisements might still affect implicit stereotypes. This hypothesis was tested using an experiment where participants (N = 186) were exposed to zero, two, four, or six stereotypical advertisements. The results showed that stereotypical advertisements did not influence explicit stereotypes but did influence implicit stereotypes, even in critical recipients who negated the stereotypical content

Effects of News Stereotypes on the Perception of Facial Threat

The human face is central to social interactions and therefore of primary importance in social perception. Two recent discoveries have contributed to a more thorough understanding of the role of news stereotypes in the perception of facial threat: First, social-cognition research has revealed that automatically activated stereotypes influence the perception of facial threat. Individuals holding hostile stereotypes toward dark-skinned outgroup members perceive ambiguous dark-skinned faces as more hostile than similar light-skinned faces. Second, media-stereotyping research has found that the media can influence individuals’ automatically activated stereotypes. Combining these two findings, it was hypothesized that reading tabloid articles about crimes committed by dark-skinned offenders would increase the perceived facial threat of meeting dark-skinned strangers in a subsequent situation. This hypothesis was tested in a laboratory experiment. Participants read crime articles where cues indicating (dark) skin color were mentioned or not. The results showed that reading about dark-skinned criminals increases the perceived facial threat of dark-skinned strangers compared with light-skinned strangers

Effects of News Stereotypes on the Perception of Facial Threat

The human face is central to social interactions and therefore of primary importance in social perception. Two recent discoveries have contributed to a more thorough understanding of the role of news stereotypes in the perception of facial threat: First, social-cognition research has revealed that automatically activated stereotypes influence the perception of facial threat. Individuals holding hostile stereotypes toward dark-skinned outgroup members perceive ambiguous dark-skinned faces as more hostile than similar light-skinned faces. Second, media-stereotyping research has found that the media can influence individuals’ automatically activated stereotypes. Combining these two findings, it was hypothesized that reading tabloid articles about crimes committed by dark-skinned offenders would increase the perceived facial threat of meeting dark-skinned strangers in a subsequent situation. This hypothesis was tested in a laboratory experiment. Participants read crime articles where cues indicating (dark) skin color were mentioned or not. The results showed that reading about dark-skinned criminals increases the perceived facial threat of dark-skinned strangers compared with light-skinned strangers

Voter's Perception of Political Messages Against the Elite Classes in Spain: A Quasi‐Experimental Design

Demonization constitutes the construction of a simplified symbolic reality through the prism of hatred. The elite classes have been framed within the discourse of far-left parties in Spain to make them antagonistic to their target audience. In this area, research tends to use explicit measures, but few have used implicit measures. This article aims to assess both types of voter perceptions of anti-elite class messages in Spain. Eighty Spanish voters belonging to left- and right-wing ideologies participated in this study. Implicit attitudes were measured through the implicit association test. The result shows that demonization is deepening in various layers of society in order to provoke a confrontation with the elite classes. Social networks have emerged as a means of social control, but they are not perceived as such by the subjects but rather as an additional informational or purely propagandistic element. But even among the public who are aware of the latter, the more their perception of the elite classes is limited to demonization, the more extreme their social vision is

Thirty years after the German reunification - exploring stereotypes about East Germans on Twitter

Although further social category thinking on social media might harm the German democratic public sphere, the stereotyping of East Germans on social media has been under-researched so far. We combined computational text analysis and manual content analysis on N = 106,616 tweets to investigate the area of society to which the stereotypes apply, the kind of threat East Germans are described as, and what exact stereotypes exist. We show that stereotypic tweets about East Germans are relatively rare. East Germans are portrayed as a general political threat and are attributed right-wing attitudes, socioeconomic marginalization, and negative behaviors. The contextual stereotypes we found are in line with previous studies investigating traditional media and suggest that different groups, like Saxons, recur as targets of political stereotypes, depending on the events taking place. Practical implications of the results are discussed