Are positive stereotypes a good thing?
Perhaps the greatest element of complexity introduced to research on race-relations by stereotyping studies, however, is the role of positive stereotypes. One would think that a positive stereotype of a group would mean that all sorts of negative attitudes toward such a group would be minimal. This appears not to be so. Viljoen (1974) found that South African Blacks thought higher of English-speaking whites than they did of themselves yet those same blacks still liked their own group best in other ways. In particular, blacks preferred more social distance from the English-speaking whites than from other blacks. To put it plainly, the blacks thought that the English- speakers were admirable but still did not like the thought of their daughters marrying one. A positive stereotype went with greater rather than lesser social distance. Similarly, Miller (1985) found that older Australian schoolchildren (whites) who had large numbers of blacks (Australian Aborigines) in their classes resente
