Stereotypes
Pedro Bordalo,
Katherine Coffman,
Nicola Gennaioli and
Andrei Shleifer
Working Paper from Harvard University OpenScholar
Abstract:
We present a model of stereotypes based on Kahneman and Tversky?s representativeness heuristic. A decision maker assesses a target group by overweighting its representative types, defined as the types that occur more frequently in that group than in a baseline reference group. Stereotypes formed this way contain a ??kernel of truth??: they are rooted in true differences between groups. Because stereotypes focus on differences, they cause belief distortions, particularly when groups are similar. Stereotypes are also context dependent: beliefs about a group depend on the characteristics of the reference group. In line with our predictions, beliefs in the lab about abstract groups and beliefs in the field about political groups are context dependent and distorted in the direction of representative types. JEL Codes: D03, D83, D84, C91.
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://scholar.harvard.edu/shleifer/node/467407
Related works:
Journal Article: Stereotypes (2016) 
Working Paper: Stereotypes (2014) 
Working Paper: Stereotypes (2014) 
Working Paper: Stereotypes 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qsh:wpaper:467407
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Working Paper from Harvard University OpenScholar Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Richard Brandon ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).