Students’ assessment of complementary stereotypes of competence and warmth in fantasy characters with different wealth levels

Stereotypes about people with various well-being differ significantly from the real state of affairs as they can distort the meaning of communication and hinder student’s professional development. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the content of stereotypes about fantasy characters with different levels of wealth (rich and poor). The participants are 668 university students in Russia. The verification results of the assumption about the complementarity of competence and warmth stereotypes in relation to generalized images of characters from a distant planet have been obtained. The stereotypes complementarity corresponds to S. Fiske’s stereotype content model, in which persons with high status are attributed greater competence and less warmth, while those with low status are attributed greater warmth and less competence. The theory of this model has led to confirming the universality of warmth and competence parameters at the level of a large group of students, as significant differences in the stereotypical perception of subgroups with different levels of well-being within the same group have been revealed. The respondents’ explicit assessments show that the rich are viewed as more competent (competitive, proactive, and intelligent) and less warm in the generalized image of beings with a high level of well-being, while the poor are viewed as warmer (good-natured, tolerant, warm-hearted, and sincere) and less competent. Despite their great sympathy for low-welfare creatures, students identify with everyone with a tendency towards resemblance to high-welfare characters, which is the novelty of the research. In the future, we can recommend a similar program for measuring the stereotypes complementarity for other social groups representatives.

1. Artemov, V. L. (2016). System Justification theory as a new perspective on the problem of inequality. Scientific works of the Moscow University for the Humanities, 3, 43–52. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.17805/trudy.2016.3.5

2. Grigoriev, D. S. (2020). The Stereotype Content Model and Ethnic Stereotypes in Russia. The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology, 23(2), 215–244 (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.31119/jssa.2020.23.2.9

3. Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. 92002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6), 878–902. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.878

4. Wu, S. J., Bai, X., & Fiske, S. T. (2018). Admired Rich or Resented Rich? How Two Cultures Vary in Envy. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(7), 1114–1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022118774943

5. Cuddy, A. J. C., Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (2008). Warmth and competence as universal dimensions of social perception: The stereotype content model and the BIAS map. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 61–149.

6. Kay, A. C., Jost, J. T. (2003). Complementary Justice: Effects of “Poor but Happy” and “Poor but Honest” Stereotype Exemplars on System Justification and Implicit Activation of the Justice Motive. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 823–837. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.823

7. Ulybina, E. V., Abbasova, S. E. (2021). Support for the status quo as a motive: an explanation of tolerance for social inequality in J. Jost’s theory of justifying systems. Psychological Studies, 76(14). (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.54359/ps.v14i76.142

8. Agadullina, E. R., Ivanov, A. A, Sarieva, I. R., & Prusova, I. S. (2021). System Justification theory as a new perspective on the problem of inequality. Journal of Modern Foreign Psychology, 10(1), 132–141. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.17759/ jmfp.2021100113

9. Ulybina, E. V., Antonova, A. A. (2021). Relation of Belief in Justice to the Typicality of Complementary Stereotypes of the Rich and the Poor. Social Psychology and Society, 13(1), 51–69. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.17759/sps.2022130104

10. Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York.

11. Nartova-Bochaver, S. K., Podlipnyak, M. B., & Khokhlova, A.Yu. (2013). Belief in a just world and mental well-being in deaf and hearing youth and adults. Clinical and Special psychology, 3. (In Russian).

12. Durante, F., Tablante, C. B., & Fiske, S. T. (2017). Poor but Warm, Rich but Cold (and Competent): Social Classes in the Stereotype Content Model. Journal of Social Issues, 73(1), 138–157. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12208

13. Ericsson, E. H. (2006). Identity: Youth and crisis. 2nd ed. Moscow: Progress. (In Russian).