Preprint: When Does Group Information Influence the Automatic and Deliberate Judgment of Individual Group Members?

According to some impression formation theories, when people perceive an individual member of a social group, the information about the group is activated more spontaneously and easily than information specific to the individual. Therefore, the judgment of individual group members might be more sensitive to group information (relatively to individuating information) the more automatic (fast, unintentional, and effortless) the judgment is. We tested this premise with a minimalistic impression formation paradigm that provided evaluative information about eight individuals and assigned them to two novel groups. In one group, three members behaved positively, and one member behaved negatively. In the other group, three members behaved negatively and one positively. In seven main experiments and 12 auxiliary experiments, we examined whether people’s automatic (but not deliberate) judgment of the atypical group members would be determined by the valence of the typical behavior in the group (group information) or the valence of the typical behaviors of that person (individuating information). Individuating information had a larger effect on automatic and deliberate evaluation than group information. The relative effect of group information (vs. individuating information) was slightly stronger on automatic than on deliberate judgment. This discrepancy increased when we increased the salience of group membership upon judgment, or when participants belonged to one of the groups. Our findings suggest that, inherently, automatic judgment of individuals is only slightly more biased than deliberate judgment by group information. Yet, under circumstances that are common in everyday life, that bias increases in automatic but not in deliberate judgment.

Bridging the divide: The effect of humanizing information on attitudes toward political outgroup members

Liberals and conservatives in the United States dislike and dehumanize those on the other side. This divide leads to political stalemates, destroyed relationships, and even violence. We examined the benefits of humanizing members of the political outgroup by providing people with humanizing information—cues that signal a person’s cognitive and emotional complexity. We examined the effectiveness of humanizing information in three preregistered experiments (N = 1389). Study 1 tested whether learning humanizing information about an outgroup member would reduce bias towards them, relative to a control containing only political information. Study 2 sought to replicate this effect by comparing the humanizing information to a control that contained non-humanizing individuating information. Study 3 tested this effect in the timely context of social media feeds, while also testing whether the benefits of learning humanizing information extended to additional members of the outgroup. Each methodology revealed that, compared to those who read non-humanizing controls, participants who learned humanizing information about a political outgroup member were less hostile and more empathic toward that outgroup member. All three studies also provided evidence that judging the outgroup member as more human contributed to this reduction in bias. Further, Study 3 revealed that the benefits of humanizing information extended to members of the outgroup that were connected to the humanized member. The current studies thus identify a promising avenue for reducing interparty hostility.

The effect of group membership and individuating information on automatic and deliberate evaluation of well-known people

eople’s automatic preference between groups often determines their automatic preference between unknown individual members of these groups, a prominent example for automatic prejudice. What happens when the person making the judgment has long known the target individuals? Practice might automatize the deliberate judgment of the individuals. Then, if deliberate judgment is non-prejudiced, automatic prejudice might decrease. In 29 studies (total N = 4,907), we compared automatic and deliberate preferences between a famous member of a dominant social group and a famous member of a stigmatized social group. In most studies, we chose pairs based on prior self-reported preference for the member of the stigmatized group. Across all studies, automatic preference was discrepant from deliberate preference, often favoring the member of the dominant group. We replicated these results with various target individuals, two pairs of social groups (Black/White, Old/Young), two automatic evaluation measures, and in two countries (Studies 1-23). The automatic pro-dominant preference was stronger when visual characteristics of the group were present rather than absent (Studies 24-25), suggesting a stronger effect of group characteristics on automatic than on deliberate preference between the individuals. The automatic preference between the individuals was related more strongly to automatic than to deliberate group preference (Studies 26-27), yet it was still moderated by individuating information (Studies 28-29). Our results suggest that familiarity with members of a stigmatized group does not automatize the positive deliberate evaluation of these individuals, and does not dethrone group evaluation from its central role in the automatic evaluation of the individual.

Bald and Bad?

According to (a) the beauty ideal of a full head of hair and (b) the physical attractiveness stereotype (PAS; “what is beautiful is good”), bald men should appear less attractive than nonbald men, not only physically but also socially. To explain inconsistent results on this prediction in previous research, we suggest two antagonistic processes: the automatic activation of the PAS at the implicit level and its suppression at the explicit level, the latter process selectively triggered by individuating information about the target person. In line with this account, we only found negative social attractiveness ratings for bald men by same-aged women when individuating target information was lacking (Experiment 1). In contrast, irrespective of whether individuating information was available or not, we reliably found evidence for the PAS in different implicit paradigms (the implicit association test in Experiment 2 and a source monitoring task in Experiment 3). We conclude that individuating information about bald men suppresses PAS application, but not PAS activation.