Are stereotypes of warmth and competence intersectionally complex? Investigating intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and religion.

Intersectional stereotype research has consistently found that stereotypes vary simultaneouslyacross categories such as race and gender. Recently, studies have started to investigate thecomplex interplay of multiple (more than two) categories, with some finding that stereotypesare best viewed as based on independent categories. By contrast, other studies find thatstereotypes are intersectionally complex, meaning that they result from unique combinationsof categories. We fielded a harmonized factorial survey experiment across nine Europeancountries (n = 20,339) in which respondents evaluated perceived warmth and competence ofvignette profiles that varied on gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and religion. We find that whilemain effects account for 95% of stereotype variance, compared with 5% of interactions,single category stereotypes still show effect variation; sometimes to the degree that a negativestereotype turns positive. Our study shows that stereotypes are primarily explained bycategorical effects, but with small but consistent intersectional effects.