Children’s intergroup prosocial behavior: The role of group stereotypes

Children are prosocial from a young age onward but their prosocial actions are not necessarily egalitarian – especially with regard to others’ group membership. From around four years of age children tend to help and share more with in-group members compared to out-group members. However, a growing body of findings also suggest that sometimes children act more prosocially toward out-group members. How can we reconcile such seemingly contradicting behaviors? In this chapter, I describe how the salience of group stereotypes might shed light on these inconsistent findings. Specifically, different helping contexts can activate different group stereotypes. These different stereotypes could lead children to sometimes act more prosocially toward in-group peers, but sometimes show out-group bias in their helping or sharing behavior. For example, contexts that involve reciprocity could increase salience of a stereotype that out-groups are less trustworthy and thus children might be less inclined to share their resources with the out-group (i.e., in-group bias). Whereas an academic helping context might make a stereotype salient that entails out-groups are less competent and thus needing more help (i.e., out-group bias). Taking into account group stereotypes in children’s prosocial behavior will provide us with a deeper understanding of the underlying motivations that lead to selective prosociality in children. In the long run, such insights can contribute to combating discrimination and prejudice early in life.

The Effect of Facial Self-Resemblance on Emotional Mimicry

Social resemblance, like group membership or similar attitudes, increases the mimicry of the observed emotional facial display. In this study, we investigate whether facial self-resemblance (manipulated by computer morphing) modulates emotional mimicry in a similar manner. Participants watched dynamic expressions of faces that either did or did not resemble their own, while their facial muscle activity was measured using EMG. Additionally, after each presentation, respondents completed social evaluations of the faces they saw. The results show that self-resemblance evokes convergent facial reactions. More specifically, participants mimicked the happiness and, to a lesser extent, the anger of self-resembling faces. In turn, the happiness of non-resembling faces was less likely mimicked than in the case of self-resembling faces, while anger evoked a more divergent, smile-like response. Finally, we found that social evaluations were in general increased by happiness displays, but not influenced by resemblance. Overall, the study demonstrates an interesting and novel phenomenon, particularly that mimicry can be modified by relatively subtle cues of physical resemblance.

The Acoustics of the Social on Page and Screen

Sound positions individuals as social subjects. The presence of human beings, animals, objects, or technologies reverberates into the spaces we inhabit and produces distinct soundscapes that render social practices, group associations, and socio-cultural tensions audible. The Acoustics of the Social on Page and Screen unites interdisciplinary perspectives on the social dimensions of sound in audiovisual and literary environments. The essays in the collection discuss soundtracks for shared values, group membership, and collective agency, and engage with the subversive functions of sound and sonic forms of resistance in American literature, film, and TV.

Copy the In-group: Group Membership Trumps Perceived Reliability, Warmth, and Competence in a Social-Learning Task

Surprisingly little is known about how social groups influence social learning. Although several studies have shown that people prefer to copy in-group members, these studies have failed to resolve whether group membership genuinely affects who is copied or whether group membership merely correlates with other known factors, such as similarity and familiarity. Using the minimal-group paradigm, we disentangled these effects in an online social-learning game. In a sample of 540 adults, we found a robust in-group-copying bias that (a) was bolstered by a preference for observing in-group members; (b) overrode perceived reliability, warmth, and competence; (c) grew stronger when social information was scarce; and (d) even caused cultural divergence between intermixed groups. These results suggest that people genuinely employ a copy-the-in-group social-learning strategy, which could help explain how inefficient behaviors spread through social learning and how humans maintain the cultural diversity needed for cumulative cultural evolution.

Ingroup Bias in Healthcare Contexts: Israeli-Jewish Perceptions of Arab and Jewish Doctors

The influence of group membership on perceptions of outgroup members has been extensively studied in various contexts. This research has indicated a strong tendency for ingroup bias – preferring the ingroup over the outgroup. We seek to further expand on the growing literature regarding the effects of group membership within healthcare contexts. Focusing on the Arab-Jewish context in Israel, the present study explored the influence of group membership on Israeli-Jewish participants’ evaluations when exposed to potential malpractice. Specifically, participants (n = 165) read a description of an Israeli-Jewish or Israeli-Arab physician who was either culpable or non-culpable of malpractice. Consistent with our predictions, findings generally indicated more negative evaluations of the Israeli-Arab physician, regardless of objective culpability. We conclude by discussing the study’s limitations and implications.

Group Membership and Social Identities in a Formative Intervention in a Mexican Hospital

Formative intervention is a participatory methodology that supports organizational change by means of an interactive and systematic dialogue carried out by researchers and participants. In this process, the researchers contribute to expanding the conversational space in the organization by supporting participants in examining and reflecting on their own work practices, as well as in modeling, shaping, and experimenting with innovations. Drawing on transcripts of videotaped sessions, this study analyzes how change is discursively sustained by the researchers who conduct the meetings within a formative intervention in a Mexican hospital. The quantitative and qualitative analysis focuses on the collective pronoun “we” as a membership categorization device deployed by the researchers for rhetorical and pragmatical aims, such as questioning about the state of necessity for the intervention, engaging the participants, or introducing a proposal of innovation with the participants. Results show how group membership and social identity markers are used by researchers to support emerging forms of collaboration, involvement of participants and the creation of common ground during the intervention process. In terms of the practical implications of the study, an informed and strategic use of membership categorization devices used by the researcher can increase the effectiveness of their formative and expansive role.

Bridging the Gap between Spontaneous Behavior- and Stereotype-based Impressions

This chapter explores the largely parallel progressions of person memory and stereotyping research in social cognition, with particular focus on spontaneous inferences drawn from descriptions of behavior or social group membership. We consider the potential benefits of several potential empirical intersections for theory and for a more open and inclusive psychological science.