Intergroup perception

Social categorisation theory attempts to explain, among other phenomena, the attitudes of people towards eg. in-groups and out-groups. Research found that social perceivers (eek! what a term) who had categorised other people as members of either an in-group or an out-group (even if the creation of the groups were based on meaningless or irrelevant criteria) would differentiate between them in ways that more often favoured the in-group.

Thus social perceivers would (these observations are from separate studies) (a) give greater rewards; (b) give more positive evaluations; (c) associate better physical and personal attributes; and (d) behave more sociably towards in-group members than out-group members. Out-group members would typically be viewed in a more homogeneous fashion ("they're all alike"), whereas diversity in the in-group is appreciated.

Attributions are also distributed differently across the in-group and out-group. Whereas positive actions or results by in-group members are likely to be attributed to the stable character traits of the in-group member(s), positive effects by the out-group are attributed to situational factors (i.e., they don't get any credit). Negative effects get similar treatment, in the reverse: out-group members' negative traits are confirmed, situational factors are blamed in the in-group.

Now when we go a bit further to prejudice which is where all of this is leading to, we soon find out that no one has found a cure-all for prejudice.

I digress, back to social categories. Apparently we respond to others as members of groups rather than as individuals. This, it would seem, is because our brains would pop if we had to process all the social information coming at us all day long. Instead we rely on salient social categories, based on the individuals' group membership(s), to do the work for us.

Now, in an effort to reduce intergroup bias two alternatives were researched by Gartner and colleagues (1989). In two separate scenario's, two groups were created among a group of research subjects, and intergroup bias was induced. In the one scenario the two groups were given a superordinate identity that were to replace the former separate groups (the "one group" condition). In another scenario, the two groups were broken down and individuals all sat separately (the "separate individuals" condition). So in both cases the intergroup boundary was done away with.

Well, as it turns out these two attempts at reducing intergroup bias have different effects! Whereas in the "one group" condition former out-group members received the positive biases previously reserved only for in-group members, in the "separate individuals" scenario former in-group members were evaluated less positively, and the evaluations of former out-group members did not really change.

More about the long-anticipated relation between intergroup perception and prejudice next time. The reader's patience is held in esteem.