Persuasion: Are you warm and competent?

Without thinking, we judge people on two dimensions: warmth and competence. For warmth, we check whether a person is trustworthy, warm, tolerant, good-natured, and sincere. We automatically look for signs of confidence, intelligence, capability, and independence for competence. Thus enabling us to respond quickly to similar situations as well as decide who is friend or foe in a crisis. The downside of these stereotypes, however, is that it leads us to ignore differences between individuals and make untrue generalizations about people.  

Fiske and colleagues created the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) which proposes that all social groups tend to fit within each of the four combinations of high and low levels of warmth and competence, reflection both negative and positive social attitudes:

1. High Warmth/High Competence. People in this group are perceived as both warm and competent (e.g., middle class, close allies) Positive emotions and admiration are high for this group.  
2. Low Warmth/High Competence. People in this group are perceived as high on competence, but low on warmth (e.g., educated, the rich) Feelings of envy and resentment are common for this group.  
3. High Warmth/Low Competence. People in this group are perceived as warm but incompetent (e.g., homemakers, the elderly) This group is usually liked however pitied.  
4. Low Warmth/Low Competence. People in this group are perceived as not warm and incompetent (e.g. poor people, welfare recipients) This group usually elicits feelings of contempt and pity.  

SCM was found to be reliable across different cultural contexts. Given that individuals (as well as robots!) perceived with more warmth and competence have more power to influence us, it can be a powerful tool for those who want to improve their influencing ability as well as mitigate negative stereotypes that can lead to active, passive and even harmful behaviours. For example, neglecting the elderly or only hiring perceived ‘competent’ people with perceived high warmth and competence. The SCM can also help organizations improve their perceived likeability by making their digital interfaces and software to appear warm, respectful, and helpful (and of course competent, i.e., they work when they are supposed to!)