Please join us for the annual Department of Psychology, Ziva Kunda Memorial Lecture, presenting Dr. Susan Fiske.
Talking Down: The Power of Positive Speaking
Being nice can be disrespectful: It can create stereotyping by omission. People often convey warmth while downplaying competence (or vice versa). This occurs across roles. Communicators routinely omit the negative dimension in describing ambivalent (mixed) impressions of others. Listeners hear the innuendo and infer the omitted negativity. Impression-managers instead use positive innuendo, downplaying one dimension to convey the other. In power relations, high-status speakers talk down, conveying warmth (but downplaying competence), and low-status speakers talk up, conveying competence (but downplaying warmth). Inter-racial interactions also illustrate these dynamics.
Susan Tufts Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at the Princeton University Department of Psychology. She is a social psychologist known for her work on social cognition, stereotypes, and prejudice. Fiske leads the Intergroup Relations, Social Cognition, and Social Neuroscience Lab at Princeton University. A recent quantitative analysis identifies her as the 22nd most eminent researcher in the modern era of psychology (12th among living researchers, 2nd among women). Her notable theoretical contributions include the development of the stereotype content model, ambivalent sexism theory, power as control theory, and the continuum model of impression formation.
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The Ziva Kunda Memorial Lecture is presented annually by the Department of Psychology to honour the memory of Ziva as an outstanding scholar, friend and mentor who passed away in February 2004.