Disposition-Content Congruency and the Negation of Media Stereotypes

A critical assessment of mass-mediated stereotypes by media users can be deemed as beneficial for an open and humane society. One important concept in this regard is negation, which refers to an internal attempt to negate newly encountered stereotypic media content. This study predicted that disposition-content congruence moderates the negation process. In fact, it investigated whether those whose prejudicial dispositions are congruent with the stereotypic content negate less. An experiment (N = 245) using a quota-based sample was used to test the hypothesis. Participants read stereotypic crime texts including the "criminal foreigner"-stereotype or matched control texts. As hypothesized, unprejudiced readers who held favorable attitudes toward the social minority group negated the stereotypic information. Conversely, highly prejudiced individuals showed even less negation when exposed to the stereotypic versions of the crime texts. Highly prejudiced readers might have viewed exposure to criminal foreigners as a confirmation of their attitudinal predispositions.