This article intends to evaluate the influence of two basic forms of representation of knowledge, through meanings and through images, in the process of creating stereotypes. By adopting a modified version of Bogardus's scale of distance, it seeks to determine whether the evaluation of a target category, through a simple presentation of the verbal label of it, differs from another evaluation, in which is added, during its presentation, a photograph of a typical sample of the mentioned category. A second focus of interest tries to determine the influence of contextual effects on the evaluation of stereotypes. The aspect chosen here is the influence of the size of city on the participant evaluation of social distance. The results point out a remarkable difference in the evaluation of the target category when participants were exposed to entirely abstract stimuli, compared to when photos of examples from the target group were added to it. In regard to size of city, this study concluded that it has a vivid influence on the degree of social distance of the participants in relation to members of the target category. It presents also some considerations on the utilization of semantic priming in contemporary experimental research about stereotypes.
Stereotypes; Stereotyping; Images; Meanings
