DIAG-NonParty-Radio

Recent research has demonstrated that people infer ideological categories such as conservative, leftist, racist, feminist, environmentalist or party-categories like Democrat or Republican from short behavioral descriptions or expressions of opinion. The current study investigates whether these inferences can be reduced. To the extent that ideological inferences serve to predict a person's political opinions and behaviors they should be sensitive to perceived cue diagnosticity, that is, the extent to which a cue (e.g., an observed behavior) predicts membership in category A and non-membership in category B. In the current research we manipulate cue diagnosticity via counter-stereotypical exemplars. For instance, we present participants with a Republican, Democrat, conservative, or liberal who is either pro-gun rights or pro-gun control and test whether the stereotype-disconfirming exemplar (i.e., a pro-gun control Republican/conservative or a pro-gun rights Democrat/liberal) compared to the stereotype-confirming exemplar (i.e., a pro-gun rights Republican/conservative or a pro-gun control Democrat/liberal) leads to reduced category inferences on the basis of opinions about gun control.