Warmth and Competence as Universal Dimensions of Social Perception: The Stereotype Content Model and the BIAS Map

The stereotype content model defines two fundamental dimensions of social perception, warmth and competence, predicted respectively by perceived competition and status. Combinations of warmth and competence generate distinct emotions of admiration, envy, pity, and disgust. From these intergroup emotions and stereotypes, the BIAS (behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes) map predicts distinct behaviors, active and passive, facilitative and harmful. After defining warmth/communion and competence/agency, the chapter integrates converging work documenting the centrality of these dimensions in interpersonal as well as intergroup perception. Structural origins of warmth and competence perceptions result from competitors judged as not warm, and allies judged as warm; high status confers competence; low status confers incompetence. Warmth and competence judgments support systematic patterns of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions, including ambivalent prejudices. Past views of prejudice as a univalent antipathy have obscured the unique responses toward groups stereotyped as competent but not warm or as warm but not competent. Finally, the chapter addresses unresolved issues and future research directions.