Linguistic intergroup bias, a term coined by the social psychologist Anne Maass and her colleagues, is a model of how stereotypes are maintained through language: positive descriptions of one own group and negative descriptions of an outside group tend to be abstract and vague, while negative descriptions of one own group and positive descriptions of an outside group tend to be specific and concrete. The bias is more likely to appear when an outside group member is behaving in a way that fits an existing stereotype about that group, which suggests it operates as a largely automatic cognitive process requiring little conscious motivation.
Facts
Core ClaimPeople describe positive in-group and negative out-group behavior in abstract terms that imply a stable trait, while describing negative in-group and positive out-group behavior in concrete terms that read as one-off exceptions, which helps preserve existing stereotypes. 1 Classification
Type of PhenomenonSocial or Interpersonal Phenomenon 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Linguistic Intergroup Bias
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
It is a model of stereotype maintenance stating that positive in-group descriptions and negative out-group descriptions are abstract and vague, while negative in-group descriptions and positive out-group descriptions are specific and observable.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
Linguistic intergroup bias, a term coined by the social psychologist Anne Maass and her colleagues, is a model of how stereotypes are maintained through language: positive descriptions of one own group and negative descriptions of an outside group tend to be abstract and vague, while negative descriptions of one own group and positive descriptions of an outside group tend to be specific and concrete.
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