SHORT NOTE Effect of collectivistic cultural imperatives on Asian American meta-stereotypes Tracy Chu and Virginia S.Y. Kwan Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA The present study explored self-perceptions and meta-stereotypes along two dimensions, individuation and sociability, within a sample of Asian American and European American students. For both ethnic groups, meta-stereotypes in dimensions of individuation and sociability appear to be exaggerated forms of self- perceptions along these dimensions. Both Asian and European Americans distinguish between self-perceptions of sociability and individuation, showing that sociability and individuation are two independent constructs. Asian Americans, however, perceived that others who expect a certain level of sociability from their ethnic group would also expect the same level of individuation. Implications of these findings for the perpetuation of Asian stereotypes are discussed. Key words: acculturation, Asian Americans, culture, individuation, stereotype. Effect of collectivistic cultural imperatives on Asian American meta-stereotypes Research on intergroup bias is ubiquitous. Much of the psychological research is devoted to studying the notorious phenomenon of stereotyping, yet we are still strides away from understanding how its social psychological concomi- tants might differ or persist across cultures. Research on stereotypes for Asian Americans is especially lacking. A keyword search of peer-reviewed literature listed on PsychInfo revealed that only 28 articles were found with the words ‘stereotypes’ and ‘Asian American’ in their abstracts, out of 4895 articles published between April 1931 and December 2006 with the word ‘stereotypes’ in their abstracts. Therefore, the present article proposes that a deeper understanding of cultural imperatives is needed to accu- rately assess and appropriately address the complex effects of stereotyping that Asian Americans experience. Specifi- cally, we explore the connection between ethnic groups, their perceptions of themselves, and their conceptualization of how others perceive them, in the hope of stimulating further investigation in this emerging field. Asian American stereotypes The achievements and high education levels seen in some Asian immigrants and their children have created a contem- porary classification of Asian Americans as the ‘model minority’ (Petersen, 1971; Sue & Kitano, 1973). This ste- reotype characterizes Asians as smart, hardworking, and achievement oriented. Consistent with the model minority label, statistics suggest that Asian Americans are equal to or higher than their White counterparts in levels of education, career success, and salary, while lower in official rates of mental illness and divorce (Sue, Sue, & Sue, 1975; Sue, 1994). Common acceptance of these statistics without further examination has resulted in many negative consequences (Sue et al., 1975; Hsia, 1988; Leong, 1998), such as the neglect of socioeconomic problems faced by a large portion of Asian Americans (Sue 1994), the deflection of attention from the effects of prejudice on the lives of Asian Americans (Schmitt, 1992), and the undermining of individual differences within the ethnic minority (Hsia & Peng, 1998). Furthermore, this model minority stereotype, although seemingly positive, actually carries mixed connotations of simultaneous respect and resentment (Hurh & Kim, 1989; Ho & Jackson, 2001; Lin, Kwan, Cheung, & Fiske, 2005). One example of this is a mechanism known as racial trian- gulation (Kim, 1999). In this model, the social positions of races are not conceptualized in a traditional linear hierar- chy, but rather are ‘triangulated’ in a two-dimensional field by way of two mechanisms: relative valorization and civic ostracism. According to Kim, relative valorization func- tions to give Asian Americans a high social position relative to Black Americans, for example, in order to subordinate both groups relative to European Americans. This effect is compounded by what Kim calls civic ostracism, a process through which Asian Americans are seen as fundamentally different and foreign, and therefore not capable of true civic Correspondence: Virginia S. Y. Kwan, Department of Psychol- ogy, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-1010, USA. Email: vkwan@princeton.edu Received 23 May 2006; accepted 6 July 2007. © 2007 The Authors © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd with the Asian Association of Social Psychology and the Japanese Group Dynamics Association Asian Journal of Social Psychology (2007), 10, 270–276 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-839X.2007.00236.x