Publications

Emotions can be experienced not only at the individual level, but also on behalf of social groups by people who belong to and identify with those groups. As outlined in Intergroup Emotions Theory, these emotions are driven by appraisals of objects or events in terms of their relevance for the group (rather than the individual). They shift depending on currently salient group memberships, and are moderated by the degree of identification with the group. Consequences of group-based emotions include treatment of outgroups (including bias and discrimination) as well as attitudes and behavior toward the ingroup (including ingroup affiliation and support). A particularly important new direction is the study of emotion regulation processes as they operate with group-based emotions, with some recent research suggesting that emotion regulation interventions may be helpful in ameliorating intractable intergroup conflicts.

Over-time variability characterizes not only individual-level emotions, but also group-level emotions, those that occur when people identify with social groups and appraise events in terms of their implications for those groups. We discuss theory and research regarding the role of emotions in intergroup contexts, focusing on their dynamic nature. We then describe new insights into the causes and consequences of emotional dynamics that flow from conceptualizing emotions as based in group membership, and conclude with research recommendations.

Three studies integrated crossed-categorization and discrete emotion approaches to prejudice and prejudice reduction. Study 1 made salient crossed-categorization using naturally occurring groups and examined the ability of emotions to account for prejudiced evaluations. Study 2 constructed novel crossed-categorizations in the laboratory to examine the role of appraisal-based emotions in evaluations of crossed-categories. Study 3 crossed gender and sexual orientation, for which elicited discrete emotions predict different evaluative responses than do shared and unshared group memberships alone. In all three studies, discrete emotions were able to account for the effects of crossed-categorization on evaluative measures of prejudice and revealed emotional paths to prejudice reduction which would be obscured by the evaluative measures alone. In Study 3, a discrete emotions approach better predicted evaluations than did shared and unshared group membership alone. These results converge to highlight the importance of discrete emotions in understanding the evaluative implications of crossed-categorization, especially for prejudice reduction.

According to intergroup emotion theory, the impact of many intergroup events on intergroup outcomes is mediated by group-directed emotions. We demonstrate that the ability of apology to reduce retribution against and increase forgiveness of a transgressing outgroup is contributed to by discrete intergroup emotions. We examined both negative (anger and fear) and positive (respect and satisfaction) emotions directed toward the transgressing outgroup. Apology reduced the desire for retribution whereas lack of apology increased it, and outgroup-directed anger uniquely mediated this effect. In contrast, apology increased and lack of apology decreased forgiveness, particularly when the ingroup responded to the transgression, and only outgroup-directed respect mediated this effect. These results provide the first evidence that intergroup emotions can mediate the impact of apology on intergroup relations outcomes.

What can motivate members of disadvantaged groups to take action on behalf of their group? This research assessed a model in which measured perceptions of (study 1) and manipulated information about (study 2) other women’s anger influenced female participants’ group-based anger, their subsequent appraisals of instances of possible discrimination, and finally their collective action tendencies. Consistent with Intergroup Emotions Theory, the results suggested that emotional self-stereotyping is one mechanism by which group members can become motivated to respond to possible discrimination, a process supported by group-based anger-driven appraisals about specific discrimination events.

According to Intergroup Emotions Theory people categorized as group members experience the emotions of their ingroup as a consequence of that membership. Four experiments showed that participants con- verged toward what they believed to be their specific ingroup’s distinct emotional experience when reporting emotions as group members, but not when reporting emotions as individuals. Such self-stereo- typing of ingroup emotions occurred for an experimentally fabricated ingroup as well as a range of nat- urally occurring groups. Demonstrating the roots of this process in categorization, self-stereotyping was increased when motivations to affiliate were amplified and was moderated by ingroup identification. The adoption of ingroup emotions changed participants’ cognitive processing in a predictable way, demon- strating that emotional self-stereotyping involved the experience rather than merely the expression of group-based emotions. Self-stereotyping of ingroup emotions is thus one mechanism by which group- based emotions are shared and can be changed.

Individuals can often accurately perceive others’ emotions in a purely interpersonal context. However, when people identify with an important ingroup, they experience distinctive patterns of emotion (Smith, Seger, & Mackie, 2007). Thus, in three studies using a variety of meaningful groups, we examine how a salient distinction between groups might influence people’s ability to estimate the emotions of outgroup members. Participants demonstrated substantial though imperfect accuracy in estimating the emotions reported by outgroups. Specific biases affected their estimates, especially the overlap of perceived emotions of the outgroup with the ingroup’s own emotions. Furthermore, there was a general overprediction of outgroups’ negative emotions and underprediction of their positive emotions. Because of the importance of an outgroup’s emotions as potential causes of their behavior, accuracy and biases in group emotion estimation may be consequential for intergroup relations.

Previous research (Smith, Seger, & Mackie, 2007) has demonstrated that when people are explicitly asked about the emotions they experience as members of a particular group, their reported emotions converge toward a profile typical for that group. Two studies demonstrate that the same type of convergence occurs when a group identity is made situationally salient through priming, without an explicit request to report group-level emotions. People who identify more strongly with the group converge more, and show more similarity between their group-primed emotions and explicitly reported group-level emotions. This research confirms that activating a social identity produces convergence for emotions as well as for attitudes and behaviors. It also suggests that some previous emotion research may have tapped group rather than individual-level emotions, potentially requiring some reconceptualization.

Intergroup emotions theory seeks to understand and improve intergroup relations by focusing on the emotions engendered by belonging to, and by deriving identity from, a social group (processes called self-categorization and identification). Intergroup emotions are shaped by the very different ways in which members of different groups see group-relevant objects and events. These emotions come, with time and repetition, to be part and parcel of group membership itself. Once evoked, specific intergroup emotions direct and regulate specific intergroup behaviors. This approach has implications for theories of emotion as well as of intergroup relations. Because intergroup emotions derive from self-categorization and identification and because they strongly influence intergroup behavior, intergroup emotions theory provides an innovative framework for attempts to reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations.

Intergroup Emotions Theory posits that when social categorization is salient, individuals feel the same emotions as others who share their group membership. Extensive research supporting this proposition has relied heavily on self-reports of group-based emotions. In three experiments, we provide converging evidence that group-based anger has subtle and less explicitly controlled consequences for information processing, using measures that do not rely on self-reported emotional experience. Specifically, we show that intergroup anger involves arousal (Experiment 1), reduces systematic processing of persuasive messages (Experiment 2), is moderated by group identification (Experiment 2, post-test), and compared to intergroup fear, increases risk taking (Experiment 3). These findings provide converging evidence that, consistent with IET, emotions triggered by social categorization have psychologically consequential effects, and are not evident solely in self-reports.

Abstract: Recent advances in understanding prejudice and intergroup behavior have made clear that emotions help explain people’s reactions to social groups and their members. Intergroup Emotions Theory (Mackie et al., 2000; E. R. Smith, 1993) holds that intergroup emotions are experienced by individuals when they identify with a social group, making the group part of the psychological self. But what differentiates such group-level emotions from emotions that occur purely at the individual level? We argue that four key criteria define group-level emotions: group emotions are distinct from the same person’s individual-level emotions, depend on the person’s degree of group identification, are socially shared within a group, and contribute to regulating intragroup and intergroup attitudes and behavior. Evidence from two studies supports all four of these predictions and thus points to the meaningfulness, coherence, and functionality of group-level emotions.

Abstract: Three studies investigated the role of intergroup satisfaction in intergroup conflict. After reading about real acts of aggression committed by an ingroup, participants reported how those actions made them feel and how much they would support similar aggression in the future. In all three studies, experiencing intergroup satisfaction increased support for similar aggression, whereas experiencing intergroup guilt decreased support for similar aggression. Study 2 showed that ingroup identification increased justification appraisals, which increased satisfaction and decreased guilt, and thus increased support for future aggression. Study 3 provided an experimental test of the model: when justification appraisals were manipulated, emotion and support for further aggression changed accordingly. These findings demonstrate conditions under which intergroup satisfaction can facilitate and sustain intergroup conflict.

Abstract: If intergroup emotions are functional, successfully implementing an emotion-linked behavioral tendency should discharge the emotion, whereas impeding the behavioral tendency should intensify the emotion. We investigated the emotional consequences of satisfying or thwarting emotionally induced intergroup behavioral intentions. Study 1 showed that if an attack on the ingroup produced anger, retaliation increased satisfaction, but if an attack produced fear, retaliation increased fear and guilt. Study 2 showed that outgroup-directed anger instigated via group insult dissipated when the ingroup successfully responded, but was exacerbated by an unsuccessful response. Responding in an emotionally appropriate way was satisfying, but ingroup failure to respond elicited anger directed at the ingroup. Study 3 showed that intergroup guilt following aggression was diminished when the ingroup made reparations, but was exacerbated when the ingroup aggressed again. Satisfying behavioral intentions associated with intergroup emotions fulfills a regulatory function.

Abstract: The current research investigated participants’ reactions to positive and negative comments directed toward them as individuals or as members of a social group. Using both perspective-taking (Studies 1 and 2) and actual interaction methodologies (Study 3), three studies found that participants generally responded negatively to negative comments regardless of the level of identity to which the comment was directed. Positive comments were generally viewed positively except when the comment was directed at the group and was stereotype relevant. When the latter was the case, participants reported increased anger and desires to attack (and avoid) the speaker. Furthermore, these negative feelings and action tendencies were partially mediated by an attribution to prejudice to the speaker.

Abstract: Two broad distal causes of prejudice are past history of intergroup contact and general political predispositions. Two studies investigate the extent to which these effects are mediated by emotions directed at the outgroup, as proposed by Intergroup Emotions Theory (Smith, 1993). In both studies, past intergroup contact and Social Dominance Orientation predict prejudice, as measured either by a feeling thermometer or the Modern Racism Scale. Furthermore, for both studies these effects are significantly mediated by intergroup emotions. Stereotype endorsement (in Study 1) and stereotype knowledge (Study 2) were entered as alternative potential mediators alongside emotions but were found to have no effect. Increased attention to the role of emotions in intergroup relations, including in the mediation of such powerful and well-known effects as those of intergroup contact and political predispositions, appears to be warranted.

Abstract: Three studies tested the idea that when social identity is salient, group-based appraisals elicit specific emotions and action tendencies toward out-groups. Participants’ group memberships were made salient and the collective support apparently enjoyed by the in-group was measured or manipulated. The authors then measured anger and fear (Studies 1 and 2) and anger and contempt (Study 3), as well as the desire to move against or away from the out-group. Intergroup anger was distinct from intergroup fear, and the inclination to act against the out-group was distinct from the tendency to move away from it. Participants who perceived the in-group as strong were more likely to experience anger toward the out-group and to desire to take action against it. The effects of perceived in-group strength on offensive action tendencies were mediated by anger.

The Representation and Incorporation of Close Others’ Responses model (RICOR; Smith &
Mackie, 2015) proposes that social influence occurs because 1) people naturally and spontaneously construct mental representations of others’ responses or experiences (their beliefs, emotions, attitudes, or behaviors) and 2) those representations are then spontaneously and unknowingly incorporated (via parallel constraint satisfaction processes) into the perceiver’s own responses. Psychological closeness (conceptualized as self-other overlap) is a powerful moderator of these processes, with the reactions of close others (those with interpersonal or group connections) more likely to be represented, and their representations more likely to be unknowingly incorporated, compared to strangers or outgroup others. Emerging empirical evidence supporting the model is reviewed and implications of the model for traditional approaches to influence are discussed.

We propose a new model of social influence, which can occur spontaneously and in the absence of typically assumed motives. We assume that perceivers routinely construct representations of other people’s experiences and responses (beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors), when observing others’ responses or simulating the responses of unobserved others. Like representations made accessible by priming, these representations may then influence the process that generates perceivers’ own responses, without intention or awareness, especially when there is a strong social connection to the other. We describe evidence for the basic properties and important moderators of this process, which distinguish it from other mechanisms such as informational, normative, or social identity influence. The model offers new perspectives on the role of others’ values in producing cultural differences, the persistence and power of stereotypes, the adaptive reasons for being influenced by others’ responses, and the impact of others’ views about the self.

We discuss a novel form of priming that (a) involves the activation of em- bodied as well as mental representations in the perceiver and (b) is caused by the observation or simulation of the belief, attitude, emotion, or behavior of one or more other people. As in any form of priming, the representation, once activated, may have effects on the perceiver’s own responses. We focus on effects of simulating another person’s or group’s responses, which give rise to a form of priming that can occur without observation of or communication from the other. Theoretical considerations predict that this type of priming will be moderated by self–other overlap between the perceiver and the other, and will have greater effects on implicit or time- pressured responses than on more explicit, deliberative responses. Laboratory ndings offer preliminary evidence for this form of priming, and recent thinking in cultural psychology converges by proposing that an individual’s judgments and behavior are often driven not by that individual’s beliefs, attitudes, or values, but by those that are assumed to be held by many people in the culture. Several implications of this novel form of priming are discussed.

Although person perception is central to virtually all human social behavior, it is ordinarily studied in isolated individual perceivers. Conceptualizing it as a socially distributed process opens up a variety of novel issues, which have been addressed in scattered literatures mostly outside of social psychology. This article examines some of these issues using a series of multiagent models. Perceivers can use gossip (information from others about social targets) to improve their ability to detect targets who perform rare negative behaviors. The model suggests that they can simultaneously protect themselves against being influenced by malicious gossip intended to defame specific targets. They can balance these potentially conflicting goals by using specific strategies including disregarding gossip that differs from a personally obtained impression. Multiagent modeling demonstrates the outcomes produced by different combinations of assumptions about gossip, and suggests directions for further research and theoretical development.

When making decisions, people typically gather information from both social and nonsocial sources, such as advice from others and direct experience. This research adapted a cognitive learning paradigm to examine the process by which people learn what sources of information are credible. When partici- pants relied on advice alone to make decisions, their learning of source reliability proceeded in a manner analogous to traditional cue learning processes and replicated the established learning phenomena. However, when advice and nonsocial cues were encountered together as an established phenomenon, blocking (ignoring redundant information) did not occur. Our results suggest that extant cognitive learning models can accommodate either advice or nonsocial cues in isolation. However, the combination of advice and nonsocial cues (a context more typically encountered in daily life) leads to different patterns of learning, in which mutually supportive information from different types of sources is not regarded as redundant and may be particularly compelling. For these situations, cognitive learning models still constitute a promising explanatory tool but one that must be expanded. As such, these findings have important implications for social psychological theory and for cognitive models of learning.

Research on person perception typically emphasizes cognitive processes of information selection and interpretation within the individual perceiver and the nature of the resulting mental representations. The authors focus instead on the ways person perception processes create, and are influenced by, the patterns of impressions that are socially constructed, transmitted, and filtered through social networks. As the socially situated cognition perspective (E. R. Smith & G. R. Semin, 2004) suggests, it is necessary to supplement consideration of intra-individual cognitive processes with an examination of the social context. The authors describe a theoretical model of processes of distributed social cognition that takes account of 3 levels: the individual perceiver, the interacting dyad, and the social network in which they are embedded. The authors’ model assumes that perceivers elicit or create as well as interpret impression- relevant information in dyadic interaction and that perceivers obtain information from 3rd-party sources who are linked to perceivers and targets in social networks. The authors also present results of a multiagent simulation of a subset of these processes. Implications of the theoretical model are discussed, for the possibility of correcting biases in person perception and for the nature of underlying mental representations of persons.

Abstract: Cognition almost invariably occurs in the context of other people: the web of face-to-face encounters, personal relationships, and social group memberships that make us who we are. Not only do these social entities very frequently constitute the content of our thoughts and feelings, but they fundamentally shape the processes underlying our cognition and behavior as well. To detail some of the evidence for this broad claim, this chapter describes the interface of situated cognition with social psychology. We make the case that these two fields focus on many of the same empirical and conceptual issues, although sometimes taking different perspectives. Following a brief section that introduces the field of social psychology, the main body of the chapter is organized under four broad principles that we believe capture major areas of overlap and common interest between situated cognition and social psychology.

Abstract: The field of social psychology – defined by its focus on the social aspects of human cognition and behavior – has in recent years begun to make contact with emerging perspectives in the cognitive sciences generally, especially the themes of embodiment and distributed cognition. This chapter reviews contributions of social psychology in these areas, with a particular focus on the intersection of embodied and distributed cognition. Research regarding embodiment in psychology and cognitive science has generally focused on implications of embodiment for individual-level functioning—for example, on the role of sensori-motor systems in mental representations. But embodied cues also contribute to relational functioning—linking the perceiver to other people—and thereby influence a broad array of social/relational processes, such as liking, interpersonal coordination, and prosocial behavior. In the area of distributed cognition, research in social psychology on group interaction and problem-solving, and in cognitive science on collective search tasks, is now converging on powerful and insightful descriptions of the processes that allow a group to discover good potential solutions without closing off consideration of diverse alternatives. Research in this area has only begun to incorporate the insights of the embodiment principle, which offers interesting and novel hypotheses for potential exploration.

Abstract: Social cognition refers to the mental representations and processes that underlie social judgments and behavior—for example, the application of stereotypes to members of social groups. Theories of social cognition have generally assumed that mental representations are abstract and stable and that they are activated and applied by relatively automatic, context-independent processes. Recent evidence is inconsistent with these expectations, however. Social-cognitive processes have been shown to be adaptive to the perceiver’s current social goals, communicative contexts, and bodily states. Although these findings can often be given ad hoc explanations within current conceptual frameworks, they invite a fuller integration with the broad intellectual movement emphasizing situated cognition. Such an approach has already been influential in many areas within psychology and beyond, and theories in the field of social cognition would benefit by taking advantage of its insights.

Abstract: Social psychologists have studied the psychological processes involved in persuasion, conformity, and other forms of social influence, but they have rarely modeled the ways influence processes play out when multiple sources and targets of influence interact over time. However, workers in other fields from sociology and economics to cognitive science and physics have recognized the importance of social influence and have developed models of influence flow in populations and groups—generally without relying on detailed social psychological findings. This article reviews models of social influence from a number of fields, categorizing them using four conceptual dimensions to delineate the universe of possible models. The goal is to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations to build models that incorporate the detailed, microlevel understanding of influence processes derived from focused laboratory studies, but contextualized in ways that recognize how multidirectional, dynamic influences are situated in people’s social networks and relationships.

Abstract: We propose a new integration of social psychology and situated cognition, which we term socially situated cognition (SSC). This new approach rests directly on recent developments in psychology and cognitive science captured by the label situated cognition, but also has roots going back to William James and Frederick Bartlett. The approach involves a shift in the guiding metaphor regarding cognition and action, from computation to biology, and highlights four core assumptions that are common to current social psychology and the situated cognition perspective. (a) Cognition is for the adaptive regulation of action, and mental representations are action-oriented. (b) Cognition is embodied, constrained and directed by the nature of our bodies. (c) Cognition and action are the emergent outcome of dynamic processes of interaction between an agent and an environment. (d) Cognition is distributed across brains and the environment (e.g., through the use of tools) and across social agents (e.g., when information is discussed and evaluated in groups). With regard to each of these themes, we review and integrate relevant social psychological research, and also suggest ways in which the theme can be carried further by rethinking current assumptions. Our overall goals are both to make social psychology part of the interdisciplinary integration emerging around the concept of situated cognition, and to advance these four themes as high-level conceptual principles that can organize seemingly disparate areas of research and theory within social psychology itself.

Abstract: The recent rise of interest in situated and embodied cognition has a strong interdisciplinary flavor, with contributions from robotics, cognitive anthropology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology, among other disciplines. However, social psychology has been almost completely unrepresented. Social psychologists investigate the ways people perceive, interact with, and influence each other, and this field therefore offers an ideal standpoint for the investigation of many of the most central aspects and themes of the situated cognition approach—because the relevant ‘situation’ in which cognition takes place is, almost always, a social situation defined by an individual’s group memberships, personal relationships, and social and communicative goals. This paper briefly reviews social psychological research and theory related to five major themes of situated and embodied cognition. The themes are: cognition is for action; cognition is situated (radically affected by situations, and makes use of situations as resources); artifacts and situations effectively extend cognitive processes out beyond the individual; cognition is embodied; and situated cognition affects and interacts with symbolically based thought.

A brief, casual interpersonal touch results in positive behavior toward the toucher, presumably because touch is a cue to friendship. Research on intergroup contact shows that feelings of friendship toward an individual outgroup member reduce prejudice toward that entire group. Integrating these areas, we examined whether interpersonal touch by an outgroup member could reduce prejudice. In three replications in two studies, interpersonal touch decreased implicit, though not explicit, prejudice toward the toucher’s group. Effects of interpersonal touch can extend beyond the toucher to others sharing the toucher’s ethnicity, and findings suggest that such effects are automatic and outside conscious awareness.

Current research demonstrates that people rely on metaphors in comprehending abstract concepts, but leaves the situational or dispositional determinants of metaphor use largely uninvestigated. Based on Construal Level Theory, we propose that metaphor use increases as the concept becomes psychologically removed from the immediate self, because distance causes it to be construed more abstractly. Two studies tested this psychological distance model of metaphor use. In Study 1, people opposed an open immigration policy when they were motivated to protect their bodies from physical contamination, but only when they imagined reporting their attitudes in a distant, rather than near, future. In Study 2, metaphorically representing a stock market as an autonomous agent led to predictions that it would achieve its “goals” by continuing to increase (decrease) in performance following a bullish (bearish) day. This metaphoric effect, however, only happened when the stock market was spatially distant, either objectively or subjectively.

Previous work has shown that compared to passive perceivers who view preselected information about target persons, active perceivers are less confident in their impressions, do not show increased confidence with increased amounts of information, and like targets less. The authors now explain these findings, postulating that perceivers without control over the amount of information they receive should be motivated to form impressions earlier, altering their information-processing strategies. Study 1 predicted and found that content-only active perceivers who control the content, but not the amount, of information show the same positive relationship between confidence and amount of information as passive perceivers, as well as the same reading-time patterns and level of liking. Study 2 used clearly valenced target stimuli and found support for the hypothesis that passive perceivers form more extreme early impressions, leading to greater liking when early information is positive but less liking when it is negative.

Person perception research is dominated by studies of passive perceivers who exert no control over the information they receive. In contrast, perceivers in everyday life can often actively choose the type and quantity of information they receive. In this study, active and yoked passive perceivers formed impressions of individuals based on information from Facebook. Compared to active perceivers, passive perceivers reported greater confidence and ease in their judgments. Passive perceivers exhibited greater confidence (though not greater accuracy) with increased information, but active perceivers did not show this effect, placing a boundary condition on past research. Passive perceivers also liked targets more than active perceivers, a finding that is not explained by valence-dependant sampling by active participants, or by misattribution of fluency or greater sensitivity among passive participants. These provocative findings highlight the need to account for active and interactive processes in person perception rather than continuing to focus on passive perceivers.

Distributed connectionist models of mental representation (also termed PDP or parallel distributed processing, or ANN or artificial neural networks) constitute a fundamental alternative to the associative or schematic models that have been much more prevalent in social psychology. A connectionist model is made up of a large number of very simple processing units, richly interconnected and able to send signals to each other depending on their momentary activation levels. No individual processing unit represents a meaningful concept; instead, overall patterns of activation hold representational meaning. This article emphasizes the novel properties of connectionist representation that might appeal to theorists and researchers in social psychology, including their context sensitivity and flexibility, ability to represent prototypes and exemplars within a single network, and ability to determine whether a stimulus is familiar even before the stimulus can be identified or categorized.

Abstract: Most social and psychological phenomena occur not as the result of isolated decisions by individuals, but rather as the result of repeated interactions between multiple individuals over time. Yet the theory-building and modeling techniques most commonly used in social psychology are less than ideal for understanding such dynamic and interactive processes. This paper describes an alternative approach to theory-building, agent-based modeling (ABM), which involves the simulation of large numbers of autonomous agents that interact over time with each other and with a simulated environment, and the observation of emergent patterns from their interactions. We believe that the ABM approach is better able than prevailing approaches in our field, variable-based modeling (VBM) techniques such as causal modeling, to capture the types of complex, dynamic, interactive processes that are so important in the social world. The paper elaborates several important contrasts between ABM and VBM, and offers specific recommendations for learning more and applying the ABM approach.

Abstract: How we think about the representation of attitudes has a profound impact on how we think about attitudes themselves, attitude change, and the attitude-behavior relationship. In this paper, we briefly review the model of attribute representation in a distributed, connectionist memory system, which portrays attitudes as time-dependent states of the system rather than as static “things” that are “stored” in memory. This model is particularly well-suited to addressing some of the field’s most pressing questions about the multiplicity of attitudes and their stability (or instability) over time. We address several of these questions from the distributed, connectionist perspective, concluding that the new model renders some questions meaningless, suggests straightforward answers to others, and hints at exciting new hypotheses about the answers to still others.

Abstract: Previous exposure to information of several types has been shown to reduce analytic or systematic processing of that information. Two experiments find that previous exposure has the same effect in the process of person perception, reducing individuation and thereby increasing stereotyping of previously encountered target persons based on their social group memberships. The effect is not due to familiarity-induced liking (the mere exposure effect), nor is it mediated by increased accessibility of the target’s social category, nor by increases in perceived social judgeability. The effect is interpreted as due to the use of feelings of familiarity as a regulator of processing mode. In everyday life, frequent exposure to another person ordinarily produces not only familiarity but also liking, individuated knowledge, and friendship, factors that may effectively limit stereotyping. But when previous exposure is unconfounded from these other factors, its effect can be to increase stereotyping.

Abstract: The present paper focuses on the automatic evaluation of exemplars whose category membership has been learned in the past. It is predicted that once an exemplar has been encoded as a member of a given group, at a later encounter the evaluation associated to the group will be unintentionally retrieved from memory, even when no perceptual cue indicating the category membership is present. Studies 1 and 2 confirm this hypothesis adopting an affective priming procedure and a modified version of the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998). Study 3 extends the results to the domain of ingroup/outgroup differentiation. In addition, it is argued that stored evaluations can be retrieved and affect responses even when the semantic information on which the evaluations were originally based (i.e., the category membership) is no longer available for retrieval. Studies 4 and 5 confirm this hypothesis. Finally, Study 6 investigates the effects of exemplar-based representations on spontaneous approach-avoidance behavior tendencies. Overall, results demonstrate the pervasive effects of person-based representations and they will be discussed in terms of recent models of person perception and outgroup discrimination.

Abstract: Three studies tested the hypotheses that inequality among group members, as well as specific reasons for inequality, would significantly influence strength of group identification and cooperative responses to a social dilemma. In Study 1, participants reacted to scenarios describing a public good social dilemma. For some scenarios there was an equal distribution of initial resources, while in others the distribution was unequal. As predicted, group identification led to more cooperation in the dilemma. Starting with more money tended to reduce group identification for females but to increase it for males. In Study 2, participants were faced with an actual one-trial public good social dilemma involving real money. In some conditions, participants began with endowments of different sizes, and the inequality was explained as either random or justified. As predicted, reasons for inequality as well as the fact of inequality had an impact on group identification which, in turn, influenced cooperation in the dilemma. Replicating the results of Study 1, different conditions tended to enhance group identification for women and men. Study 3 was a conceptual replication of Study 2, and resulted in similar findings. Overall, these results may have important implications for real-world dilemmas, where inequality among the parties is almost always a salient feature.

Abstract: A distributed connectionist network can account for both bookkeeping (M. Rothbart, 1981) and subtyping (M. B. Brewer, V. Dull, & L. Lui, 1981; S. E. Taylor, 1981) effects. The finding traditionally regarded as demonstrating subtyping is that exposure to moderate (compared with extreme) disconfirmers leads to subsequent ratings of the group that are less stereotypic. Despite learning that is incremental and analogous to bookkeeping, the simulations replicate this finding and suggest that the “subtyping” pattern of results will be drastically reduced if disconfirmers are encountered before the stereotype is well-established. This novel prediction holds with human participants and offers a tantalizing suggestion: Although moderate disconfirmers may produce more stereotype change, stereotype development might be discouraged by exposure to either extreme or moderate disconfirmers.

Abstract: Models postulating 2 distinct processing modes have been proposed in several topic areas within social and cognitive psychology. We advance a new conceptual model of the 2 processing modes. The structural basis of the new model is the idea, supported by psychological and neuropsychological evidence, that humans possess 2 memory systems. One system slowly learns general regularities, whereas the other can quickly form representations of unique or novel events. Associative retrieval or pattern completion in the slow-learning system elicited by a salient cue constitutes the effortless processing mode. The second processing mode is more conscious and effortful; it involves the intentional retrieval of explicit, symbolically represented rules from either memory system and their use to guide processing. After presenting our model, we review existing dual-process models in several areas, emphasizing their similar assumptions of a quick, effortless processing mode that rests on well-learned prior associations and a second, more effortful processing mode that involves rule-based inferences and is employed only when people have both cognitive capacity and motivation. New insights and implications of the model for several topic areas are outlined.

Abstract: People’s reports on their own characteristics are facilitated by matches with their relationship partner’s or in-group’s perceived characteristics and inhibited by mismatches. These results suggest that mental representations of the self, partner, and ingroups overlap. A previously untested implication is that judgmental facilitation or inhibition should operate in the reverse direction as well. The authors find that reports on the characteristics of a relationship partner or in-group are facilitated or inhibited by matches or mismatches with the participant’s own characteristics. The size of the effect for the partner is linearly related to perceived relationship closeness. These findings, in combination with the previous ones, suggest that representations of self, other people, and social groups are constructed on-line rather than being stable, static entities, and the authors advance a connectionist model of this construction process.

Abstract: Connectionist models contrast in many ways with the symbolic models that have traditionally been applied within social psychology. In this article the authors apply an autoassociative connectionist model originally developed by J. L. McClelland and D. E. Rumelhart (1986) to reproduce several well-replicated and theoretically important phenomena related to person perception and stereotyping. These phenomena are exemplar-based inference, group-based stereotyping, the simultaneous application of several stereotypes to generate emergent characteristics, and the effects of recency and frequency of prior exposures on accessibility (the probability of a representation’s use). Though many of these phenomena are explained by current theories in social psychology, the simulation contributes to parsimony and theoretical integration by showing that a single, very simple mechanism can generate them all. The model also predicts a new phenomenon–rapid recovery of accessibility after it has declined to zero.

Abstract: Social psychologists can benefit from exploring connectionist or parallel distributed processing models of mental representation and process and also can contribute much to connectionist theory in return. Connectionist models involve many simple processing units that send activation signals over connections. At an abstract level, the models can be described as representing concepts (as distributed patterns of activation), operating like schemas to fill in typical values for input information, reconstructing memories based on accessible knowledge rather than retrieving static representations, using flexible and context-sensitive concepts, and computing by satisfying numerous constraints in parallel. This article reviews open questions regarding connectionist models and concludes that social psychological contributions to such topics as cognition-motivation interactions may be important for the development of integrative connectionist models.