Measuring social stereotypes with the Photo Projective Method

This study aimed to measure social stereotypes with the Photo Projective Method (PPM) developed by Noda (1988). PPM is a new technique based on a projective method to capture perceived environments by photographs. Ten university students were provided with cameras and requested to take three pictures of "something representative of our university" and three pictures of "something not representative of our university." The results showed that stereotypes were measured on a microlevel and macrolevel by PPM. Also PPM allowed participants greater freedom in response production, therefore eliciting far more elaborate responses than language-based methodologies. The possibilities and advantages of PPM for measuring social identity, social representation, and other areas of social cognition are discussed.