Historical representations of social groups across 200 years of word embeddings from Google Books.

Item request has been placed! ×
Item request cannot be made. ×
loading   Processing Request
Read More Add to Saved list
  • Author(s): Charlesworth TES;Charlesworth TES; Caliskan A; Caliskan A; Banaji MR; Banaji MR
  • Source:
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A] 2022 Jul 12; Vol. 119 (28), pp. e2121798119. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jul 05.
  • Publication Type:
    Historical Article; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Language:
    English
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: National Academy of Sciences Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 7505876 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1091-6490 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00278424 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: Washington, DC : National Academy of Sciences
    • Subject Terms:
      Books* ; Search Engine*; Female ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Language ; Male ; Population Groups/history ; Stereotyping
    • Abstract:
      Using word embeddings from 850 billion words in English-language Google Books, we provide an extensive analysis of historical change and stability in social group representations (stereotypes) across a long timeframe (from 1800 to 1999), for a large number of social group targets (Black, White, Asian, Irish, Hispanic, Native American, Man, Woman, Old, Young, Fat, Thin, Rich, Poor), and their emergent, bottom-up associations with 14,000 words and a subset of 600 traits. The results provide a nuanced picture of change and persistence in stereotypes across 200 y. Change was observed in the top-associated words and traits: Whether analyzing the top 10 or 50 associates, at least 50% of top associates changed across successive decades. Despite this changing content of top-associated words, the average valence (positivity/negativity) of these top stereotypes was generally persistent. Ultimately, through advances in the availability of historical word embeddings, this study offers a comprehensive characterization of both change and persistence in social group representations as revealed through books of the English-speaking world from 1800 to 1999.
    • References:
      Psychol Sci. 2021 Feb;32(2):218-240. (PMID: 33400629)
      Psychol Sci. 2021 Nov;32(11):1720-1730. (PMID: 34694929)
      PLoS One. 2015 Oct 07;10(10):e0137041. (PMID: 26445406)
      J Pers Soc Psychol. 2002 Jun;82(6):878-902. (PMID: 12051578)
      J Abnorm Psychol. 1951 Apr;46(2):245-54. (PMID: 14841006)
      Behav Res Methods. 2013 Dec;45(4):1191-207. (PMID: 23404613)
      Science. 2017 Apr 14;356(6334):183-186. (PMID: 28408601)
      Perspect Psychol Sci. 2022 May;17(3):805-826. (PMID: 34606730)
      Psychol Sci. 2019 Feb;30(2):174-192. (PMID: 30605364)
      PLoS One. 2019 Mar 22;14(3):e0213554. (PMID: 30901329)
      Front Artif Intell. 2020 Sep 16;3:73. (PMID: 33733190)
      J Pers Soc Psychol. 1969 Sep;13(1):1-16. (PMID: 5352372)
      J Pers Soc Psychol. 2012 Jun;102(6):1214-38. (PMID: 22448889)
      Science. 2011 Jan 14;331(6014):176-82. (PMID: 21163965)
      Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Apr 17;115(16):E3635-E3644. (PMID: 29615513)
    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: attitude change; natural language processing; stereotype change; word embeddings
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20220705 Date Completed: 20220706 Latest Revision: 20230106
    • Publication Date:
      20240105
    • Accession Number:
      PMC9282454
    • Accession Number:
      10.1073/pnas.2121798119
    • Accession Number:
      35787033