In this presentation we intend to make three contributions. First, we will present images (produced in reversed correlation studies) that allow immediate understanding of how two categories of people are represented by certain populations: Images of local Portuguese held by 3 sojourner samples (N = 118; N = 154; N = 22) and images representing poor people, produced by Portuguese adults (N = 214) and children (N = 112). Second, we present analyses linking variations in these images detected by independent raters (e.g., in valence) to socially meaningful context variables on the side of those who produced these images: Sojourners’ cross-cultural adaptation, adults’ causal attributions of poverty, children’s age. The (mixed) results suggest that several aspects of stereotypes are coherent with the relational meaning of target category membership for the stereotype holder. Third, departing from unsolved issues of these kinds of studies, such as questions of causality and stereotype evolution in sophisticated domains (e.g., high levels of cross cultural adaptation), we will invite for discussion of how the adaptive interlink between stereotype change on the one hand and the complex dynamic of inter-group relations on the other hand could be better captured.

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social class,stereotype change,inter-group relations