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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2024 Feb 6.
Published in final edited form as: Rehabil Psychol. 2022 Feb 24;67(2):231–234. doi: 10.1037/rep0000435

A Brief Report Examining the Stereotype Content Model with Blind Americans

Nazanin M Heydarian 1,*, Yessenia Castro 1, Osvaldo F Morera 3
PMCID: PMC10846887  NIHMSID: NIHMS1889161  PMID: 35201821

Abstract

Objective.

The Stereotype Content Model is a unifying theory of the makeup of stereotypes and their consequences on emotions and behaviors. There is a need to study this theory from the perspectives of those most affected by them—targets of stereotypes.

Research Methods.

Blind adults (n = 264) living in the United States completed the Stereotype Content measure asking participants to rate the extent to which they believed members of wider society held certain beliefs about Blind persons.

Results.

Confirmatory factor analyses showed good fit for the four-factor model of stereotype content: Warmth, Competence, Status, and Competition.

Conclusions.

This study confirms the Stereotype Content Model and begins to extend the Stereotype Content Model to be inclusive of the perspectives of those who are the targets of stereotypes.

Keywords: Blindness, Disability, Stereotype, Prejudice

The social cognitive model defines stereotypes as simplistic, overgeneralized beliefs about groups of people (Bordalo et al., 2016; Kahneman & Tversky, 1972; Schneider et al., 1979). Stereotypes influence the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions and interactions of persons who hold the stereotype. Commonly known as prejudice and discrimination, these actions are widely regarded as contributors to disparities in educational, employment (Fischer, 2010; Frankowski, 2017; Silverman & Cohen, 2014), and health (Donovan & West, 2015; Dovidio & Fiske, 2012; Ojeda-Leitner & Lewis, 2019; Stewart et al., 2012) outcomes among the groups toward which they are targeted.

The SCM organizes the content of stereotypes into two dimensions. The first, warmth, refers to the extent to which the target of the stereotype is believed to be “warm, trustworthy, friendly, honest, likable, and sincere,” (Fiske, 2018, p. 68). The second dimension, competence, refers to the extent to which the target is believed to be “competent, intelligent, skilled, and efficient, as well as assertive and confident,” (Fiske, 2018, p. 68). SCM proposes that warmth stereotypes are motivated by one’s perception of members of the target’s social group as a source of competition for resources, and competence stereotypes are determined by one’s perceived social status of members of the target’s social group (Fiske et al., 2002).

Existing literature on the measure of the SCM has been largely exploratory in that the analyses conducted have been examining how well groups form along the lines of the two-dimensional models (omitting competition and status). Other than Fiske and her colleagues, few have tried to cross validate this model in other samples. Exploratory work shows support for the SCM as applied to gender (Eckes, 2002), race (Walzer & Czopp, 2011), and region (Stanciu et al., 2017) stereotypes among other target social groups. However, this model remains to be tested using confirmatory methods.

Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, there is no research examining the target’s perceptions of stereotype content and motivation as explained by the SCM. Prejudice and discrimination against a social group affects outcomes through denial of opportunities by those persons and systems that act on stereotypes, but also through avoidance of opportunities wherein members of the targeted group believe they will fall subject to stereotypes (Fischer, 2010; Fraser et al., 2019; Heydarian et al., 2021; Ojeda-Leitner & Lewis, 2019; Silverman & Cohen, 2014). Long-term experience with perceptions of stereotypes targeting one’s social group can increase avoidance of situations where these stereotypes may be present (e.g., people with disabilities being unable to secure and maintain employment opportunities), thus leading target group members to avoid these situations, consequently perpetuating undesirable outcomes (e.g., unemployment) (Silverman & Cohen, 2014). Thus, there is a need to understand the content of stereotypes from the perspectives of members of the social groups that are the targets of the stereotypes. Understanding the content of stereotypes from the perspectives of target social groups allows for increased predictability of education, employment, and health outcomes of those who are the targets of stereotypes by shedding light on the respective contributions of dimensions of stereotypes on outcomes (e.g., Ojeda-Leitner & Lewis, 2019; Stewart et al., 2012).

To address these gaps, the current study aims to test the SCM using confirmatory methods and examine its applicability to the content of Blind persons’ knowledge of stereotypes about their social group. We chose to capitalize “Blind” throughout the manuscript to emphasize the social identity aspect of Blindness, being part of a social group with its own community and cultural characteristics. Broadly, stereotypes about Blind people (Fiske et al., 2002) and people with disabilities (Nario-Redmond, 2010) revolve around low competence,

Methods

Participants and Procedures

Participants were 264 Blind adults recruited via Blind community email lists and social media groups from across the United states between 2017 and 2018 (Heydarian, 2018). Inclusion criteria were: 1) self-identification as blind/low vision; 2) at least 18 years old; and 3) currently residing in the U.S. Participants were mostly females (71.6%) and White (78.7%). The average age for the sample was 49.54 (SD = 15.45) and participants had an average educational attainment of 16.30 years (SD = 2.34).

Participation consisted of completion of a survey administered in an accessible format either online or via telephone. Online participants read the informed consent form and indicated consent by choosing to proceed with the survey. Telephone participants were consented by study staff and provided verbal consent. Participants were compensated with entry into a drawing for a $100 Amazon gift card. All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of The University of Texas at El Paso.

Measures

Stereotype Content:

stereotype content was assessed with the abreviated version of the Stereotype Content Model Questionnaire (SCMQ) from Fiske et al.’s (2002) Study 3. The abbreviated SCMQ is a 8-item questionnaire that assesses characteristics about a social group related to SCM constructs (warmth, competence, competition, status). Participants rate items on a scale of 1 (“not at all”) to 5 (extremely) with regard to the extent to which they believe members of the social group in question possess each of the attributes of warmth, competence, competition, and status. The SCM measure’s reliability has been demonstrated (Fiske et al., 2002). Furthermore, the SCM predicts emotional and behavioral responses (Cuddy et al., 2007) such as justification for offering patronizing help to disabled pedestrians (Wang et al., 2015) and has implications for discrimination in the healthcare setting (Dovidio & Fiske, 2012). To score the SCMQ, means are calculated for each of the factors. Prior research has established a four-dimensional structure (Fiske et al., 2002), and warmth and competence as two unique factors (Eckes, 2002; Stanciu et al., 2017; Walzer & Czopp, 2011). For this study, items were answered in reference to Blind persons as a social group (see Table 1). In addition, the SCMQ instructions were adapted to instruct the reader to rate each item according how strongly they believe society views members of the Blind and low vision community.

Table 1.

Factor Loadings for three-factor Model

Item Competence Warmth Status Competition
1. How confident are blind people? .759 - -
2. How competent are blind people? .848 - -
3. How sincere are blind people? - .539 -
4. How warm are blind people? - .697 -
5. How well educated are blind people? - - .794 -
6. How economically successful are blind people? - - .627 -
7. If blind people get special breaks, this is likely to make things more difficult for other people. - - - .563
8. Resources that go to blind people are likely to take away from other people. - - - .858
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Note. Factor correlations: Warmth with Competence = .744, Warmth with Status = .618, Warmth with Competition = −.392, Competence with Competition = −.574, Competence with Status = .948, Status with Competition = −.608. Factor descriptive statistics: Competence (M = 3.123, SD = 1.03), Warmth (M = 3.606, SD = .775), Status (M = 2.864, SD = .913), Competition (M = 2.564, SD = 1.168).

Sociodemographics:

For the purposes of describing the study sample, the following sociodemographics were examined: Age, race, ethnicity, gender, years of education.

Data Analyses

Confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the data for fit with the four-factor model presented by Fiske and colleagues (2002). Coefficient omega was calculated to estimate reliability for each of the four factors. Analyses were conducted using MPlus (Muthén & Muthén, 2009).

Results

Results of the four-factor model revealed a correlation between of .95 between the Status and Competence factors. The four-factor model demonstrated good fit; χ2 Test of Model Fit (df) and Scaling Correction Factor = 24.547 (14), 1.0309, AIC (smaller is better) = 5648.506, RMSEA (<.06) = .054, CFI/TLI (≥.95) = .981/.962, SRMR (<.05) = .029. The measure demonstrated fair-to-good reliability: coefficient omega Competence = .818, Warmth = .670, Status = .734, and Competition = .698. Factor descriptive statistics and loadings are presented in Table 1.

Discussion

The four-factor model presented by Fiske and colleagues (2002) had good fit. This model suggests that the dimensions of the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) hold from the perspectives of Blind persons.

Fiske and colleagues (2002) did not report means for each target group evaluated. Based on a visual inspection of their plot of averages, the present sample similarly rated widely held beliefs about Blind persons as being moderately high in warmth. However, the present sample rated widely held beliefs of Blind persons’ competence at slightly below moderate. This is higher than the competence rating observed in Fiske et al. (2002). This slightly less-than-moderate rating in competence may reflect low competence evaluations of a wider, majority-non-Blind society, however boosted by the contrary experiences of Blind persons themselves, considering their own competencies or those of other Blind persons they know. It is more likely that Blind persons know more Blind persons, given their belonging to a Blind community, than the non-Blind persons in Fiske et al.’s (2002) study knew. Thus, their ratings of stereotypic beliefs widely held in society may be stabilized by this greater amount of experience.

Similarly, participants in the current study rated society-wide held beliefs of the competitiveness of Blind persons as slightly below moderate agreement (M = 2.56, SD = 1.17). Although participants were instructed to complete the SCMQ based on their thoughts of wider society’s beliefs, their rating of Blind persons’ competitiveness may be stabilized by their perspectives as in-group members who do not feel as if they are competing with a group they are a part of. Participants may rate groups higher on warmth and competence when they are instructed to rate them based on their personal views rather than society’s views (Kotzur et al., 2020).

Results regarding the reliability of each of the subscales are mixed. For example, Eckes (2002) found a coefficients of the Competence subscale to be higher than a coefficients of the Warmth subscale, while, on the other hand, Stanciu and colleagues (2017) seemed to find higher reliability for warmth than for competence. These mixed findings with regards to reliability may be due to differences in the Stereotype Content Model Questionnaires used Alternatively, the differences could be driven by the different target groups in each of these studies. Future research may more consistently include all four subscales, including status and competition, and disentangle the possible mechanisms underlying patterns of differences in subscale reliability.

Limitations and Future Directions

This study offers confirmatory evidence for the SCM measure as well as novel results and insights into society-held stereotypes about Blind persons from the perspectives of Blind persons. However, there are a few limitations to consider. First, this sample is comprised of a majority of White and female persons who tend to be more educated than the wider Blind population. Furthermore, this sample was mostly recruited from Blind community email lists and social media groups. Thus, there may be an overrepresentation of Blind persons who are well connected within the Blind community, knowing more blind persons and having a sense of identity around blindness. Future research should expand recruitment efforts to include Blind persons who are less connected to the Blind community as well as examine the effects of community belonging and a sense of community identity on perceived society-wide stereotype content. Finally, the Stereotype Content Model should continue to be studied from the perspectives of other target group members. Future research may examine the perspectives of targets that are stereotypically ambivalent such as those that are evaluated as low in warmth and high in competence or those who are evaluated as high in warmth and low competence. Research may also examine the perspectives of member of target social groups stereotypically evaluated univalently low in both warmth and competence. Additionally, the link between stereotypic evaluations and emotional and behavioral responses should also be examined in samples of persons from target social groups to further validate the SCM.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the four factors of warmth, competence, status, and competition were supported by the perspectives of members of the social group that is the target of stereotypic evaluations (in this case, Blind persons). It is critical to examine the perspectives of target social group members through the lens of the Stereotype Content Model to begin gaining a fuller picture of the emotional and behavioral consequences of stereotypic judgements.

Acknowledgements.

The authors thank Carmel Heydarian, Gabrielle Salazar, Mary Uribe, and Francisco Arriaga-Pazos for their assistance with data collection. Also, the authors thank Ashley Bangert, Angela Frederick, Daniel Jones, and Michael Zarate for their feedback and comments.

Funding.

The National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (90DPHF0005); The National Federation of the Blind national and Texas state scholarship programs.

Footnotes

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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