Social perception and interpersonal behavior: On the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes.

This research concerns the self-fulfilling influences of social stereotypes on dyadic social interaction Conceptual analysis of the cognitive and behavioral consequences of stereotyping suggests that a perceivers actions based upon stereotype-generated attributions about a specific target individual may cause the behavior of that individual to confirm the perceivers initially erroneous attributions. A paradigmatic investigation of the behavioral confirmation of stereotypes involving physical attractiveness (e.g., beautiful people are good people) is presented. Male perceivers interacted with female targets whom they believed (as a result of an experimental manipulation) to be physically attractive or physically unattractive. Tape recordings of each participants conversational behavior were analyzed by naive observer judges for evidence of behavioral confirmation. These analyses revealed that targets who were perceived (unknown to them) to be physically attractive came to behave in a friendly, likeable, and sociable manner in comparison with targets whose perceivers regarded them as unattractive. It is suggested that theories in cognitive