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Given how impactful and ubiquitous our judgments of others are to our social lives, psychologists have long been interested in how perceivers integrate the many varied attributes that characterize a person. Among the many claims relied upon by theories of person perception, one core claim has been that the processing of certain attributes (e.g., individuating behaviors) are affected by cognitive capacity more than the processing of other attributes (e.g., social categories). However, current measures of person perception have not afforded appropriate tests of these claims. The current project uses multinomial process tree (MPT) modeling to avoid previous limitations in measuring person perception. MPTs afford independent measurement of each available cue to judgment. In so doing, the current experiment will manipulate participants’ cognitive capacity while they form judgments of others. If some social information (e.g., social categories like gender, race, and age) are less malleable to variations in cognitive capacity, then their use should not change as a function of cognitive load manipulations, whereas the use of other information (e.g., emotion) might.

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (435-2013-0992) and Canada Foundation for Innovation (9297) Grants to Kerry Kawakami., One reason for the persistence of racial discrimination may be anticipated dissimilarity with racial outgroup members that prevent meaningful interactions. In the present research, we investigated whether perceived similarity would impact the processing of same-race and other-race faces.Specifically, in two experiments, we varied the extent to which White participants were ostensibly similar to targets via bogus feedback on a personality test. With an eye tracker, we measured the effect of this manipulation on attention to the eyes, a critical region for person perception and face memory. In Experiment 1, we monitored the impact of perceived interpersonal similarity on White participants’ attention to the eyes of same-race White targets. In Experiment 2, we replicated this procedure, but White participants were presented with either same-race White targets or other-race Black targets in a between-subjects design. The pattern of results in both experiments indicated a positive linear effect of similarity—greater perceived similarity between participants and targets predicted more attention to the eyes of White and Black faces. The implications of these findings related to top-down effects of perceived similarity for our understanding of basic processes in face perception, as well as intergroup relations, are discussed., Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) 435-2013-0992, Canada Foundation for Innovation CGIAR 9297

This study aims at replicating and expanding results found in two previous studies conducted by the authors. In two studies (total N = 620) we examined the degree of entanglement between political attitudes and the salient level of identity dependent on one's political orientation. Building on previous work that found shifts in attitudes when a certain level of identity (personal vs. political) was induced (i.e., identity-based attitude shifts, Cohen, 2003; Conover & Feldman, 1984; Malka & Lelkes, 2010; Popp & Rudolph, 2011) we introduced the notion of easy and hard issues (Carmines & Stimson, 1980; Pollock et al., 1993). Social issues have often been assumed to be easy, that is, they are familiar, highly salient, and individuals often rely on heuristics when indicating their agreement with such. Economic issues have been labeled hard as they can be more abstract and complex than easy issues. In two studies, one in Canada, one in the United States, we assigned participants randomly to one of two conditions where either their personal or political identity salience was manipulated. Participants indicated their stance on a total of forty political attitude items half of which were pro-attitudinal for conservatives, and half were pro-attitudinal for liberals. We expected an interaction between the salient level of identity (personal vs. political) and the fit between one's own ideological orientation and the respective issue stance. That is, we assumed liberals to endorse conservative economic attitudes more strongly when their personal identity was salient compared to when their political identity was salient. And vice versa, conservatives were expected to endorse liberal attitudes more strongly when their personal identity was salient. Secondly, we hypothesized that when their political identity was salient, both, liberals and conservatives, would entrench their existing economic attitudes. We expected no such interaction for social issues. In line with these hypotheses, individuals indeed endorsed counter-attitudinal issues stronger when their personal identity was salient, and pro-attitudinal issues more strongly when their political identity was salient. This was only found for economic (hard) issues and for individuals whose 'own' party (i.e., the party associated with their own political orientation) was not in government. The finding of asymmetrical attitude shifts in Study 1 and 2 was not expected but might be explained by the fact that the respective group that did shift attitudes when their political identity was salient was not the group of the respective head of state or government. In terms of social identity theory, the party in office may be assumed to have a higher status than the party in opposition. However, given the nature of democracy, this hierarchy can just as easily be reversed with every national election. Ellemers, Van Knippenberg, and Wilke (1990) found that if one's group status is likely to change in the future, people do not dissociate from the group but rather engage in social competition. This was found to be true for low status groups rather than high status groups (Ouwerkerk, de Gilder, & de Vries, 2000). If status hierarchy is potentially unstable or perceived illegitimate, group members are more likely to engage in outgroup derogatory behavior (Hornsey, Spears, Cremers, & Hogg, 2003). The present study aims at highlighting the role of perceived group status in identity-based attitude shifts.

Two experimental studies were conducted to replicate the effect found by Baus et al. where language as a marker of social categories affected recognition of faces in an old/new paradigm. In Study 1, we presented faces along with utterances in Swedish and in English to native Swedish speakers. Faces presented along with Swedish utterances were not recognized better than faces presented along with English utterances. In Study 2, we used another language pair and presented faces along with utterances in Swedish and in Spanish to native Swedish speakers. Faces presented along with Swedish utterances were recognized better than faces presented along with Spanish utterances. Our results suggest that language functions as a marker of social categories and that, similarly to other markers of social categories, it can be modulated by various factors and is not unconditional. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Cristina Baus was supported by the Ramon y Cajal research program (RYC2018-026174-I).

PurposeBesides diversity's positive effects, groups of “we” against “them” may form in accordance with social categorization theory, showing diversity's negative consequences. The authors aim to reconcile these results and examine their boundary conditions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors studied 584 working professionals from five contexts (transnational companies dealing with multicultural interactions) and analyzed data using moderated-mediation procedures.FindingsA leader-promoting diversity climate plays a crucial role in moderating the negative relationship between perceived dissimilarity and group identification, which is mediated by value dissimilarity.Originality/valueThis study mainly contributes by treating dissimilarity as a multicomponent construct, emphasizing the crucial differences embodied in various conceptualizations of dissimilarity – namely visible and value dissimilarity. For dissimilarity to result in group identification, the results highlight leaders' crucial role, beyond that of organizations and individuals, in stimulating a diversity-embracing climate in work units.

This study examines how exposure to racial and linguistic diversity affects children's (4- to 10-year-old) race-based and language-based social categorizations.

Correctly identifying friends and foes is integral to successful group living. Here, we use repetition suppression to examine the neural circuitry underlying generalized group categorization—the process of categorizing in-group and out-group members across multiple social categories. Participants assigned to an arbitrary team (i.e., Eagles or Rattlers) underwent fMRI while categorizing political and arbitrary in-group and out-group members. We found that frontoparietal control network exhibited repetition suppression in response to “identical in-group” (Democrat-Democrat or Eagles-Eagles) and “different in-group” (Eagles-Democrat or Democrat-Eagles) trials relative to “out-group/in-group trials” (Republican-Democrat or Rattler-Eagles). Specifically, the repetition suppression contrast map included bilateral superior parietal lobule, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and bilateral middle temporal gyrus. Participants who reported an increased tendency to join and value their social groups exhibited decreased repetition suppression in bilateral DLPFC. Comparison of our whole-brain repetition suppression map with an independently identified map of frontoparietal control network revealed 34.3% overlap. Social categorization requires recognizing both a target’s group membership but also the target’s orientation toward one’s self. Fittingly, we find that generalized social categorization engages a network that acts as a functional bridge between dorsal attentional (exogenously-oriented) and default mode (internally-oriented) networks.

Research has robustly shown that diversity enhances creativity. However, one largely neglected question is whether such relationship can be reciprocal. Namely, does creativity inspire a preference for diversity? In the proposed research, we will examine whether creative thinking can improve people’s attitudes towards ethnically diverse individuals using explicit (Study 1), implicit (Study 2) and behavioral measures (Study 3). Building on research showing that creativity promotes cognitive, motivational and emotional changes, we propose that the mere act of thinking creatively has the potential to counteract mechanisms often responsible for a dislike and distancing from diverse individuals.

Wenn Menschen nicht mehr als Individuen betrachtet werden, sondern als Mitglieder einer bestimmten Gruppe, kann dies zur Entstehung von Konflikten zwischen Gruppen beitragen. Dafür verantwortlich sind psychologische Mechanismen wie die soziale Kategorisierung, Stereotypisierung und die Anwendung von Vorurteilen über andere soziale Gruppen. Dieses Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit den Funktionen, der Entstehung und den möglichen negativen Konsequenzen dieser Mechanismen. Zwar stellen soziale Kategorisierung, Stereotypisierung und Vorurteile über andere Gruppen nützliche Hilfsmittel für Menschen dar. Soziale Kategorisierung und Stereotypisierung erfüllen beispielsweise basale kognitive Funktionen wie die Reduzierung von Komplexität im Umgang mit der sozialen Welt. Vorurteile können wiederum die Aufrechterhaltung eines positiven Bildes von sich selbst und der eigenen Gruppe fördern und erfüllen somit eine motivationale Funktion. Aber diese Mechanismen haben auch ihre Schattenseiten. Werden Stereotype durch soziale Kategorisierung aktiviert, dann können sie das Verhalten gegenüber der betreffenden Gruppe negativ beeinflussen. Auch wenn die Aktivierung von Stereotypen automatisch abläuft und schwer zu kontrollieren ist, bestehen doch Möglichkeiten, deren Auswirkungen und sogar die Aktivierung selbst zu unterbinden – beispielsweise durch eine hohe internale Motivation zu vorurteilsfreiem Verhalten. Ebenso kann die Aufwertung der eigenen Gruppe in soziale Diskriminierung und eine Abwertung von Fremdgruppen münden, wenn dies durch situative Faktoren wie Bedrohungserleben oder Persönlichkeitsvariablen wie Autoritarismus begünstigt wird. Neben den Funktionen und Folgen werden in diesem Kapitel auch die Faktoren beleuchtet, die zur Entstehung und Aufrechterhaltung von Stereotypen beitragen. Dazu zählen die subjektive Wahrnehmung tatsächlicher Zusammenhänge zwischen Gruppenmitgliedschaften und Eigenschaften oder Verhaltensweisen, die Verwendung bestimmter sprachlicher Muster und die in einer Gesellschaft vorherrschenden Rollenbilder. Weiterhin gibt es globale Eigenschaftsdimensionen, anhand derer Menschen andere als Teil einer Gruppe beurteilen., When humans are no longer seen as individuals but as members of a certain group, this can contribute to the development of conflicts between groups. Psychological mechanisms such as social categorization, stereotyping, and the application of prejudice towards other social groups are responsible for this. This chapter deals with the functions, the development, and the possible negative consequences of these mechanisms. Social categorization, stereotyping, and prejudice towards other groups constitute useful tools for humans. Social categorization and stereotyping, for instance, fulfill basic cognitive functions such as reducing complexity in dealing with the social world. Prejudice can foster the maintenance of a positive image of oneself and one’s own group, thereby fulfilling a motivational function. However, these mechanisms have their downsides. Once activated through social categorization, stereotypes can negatively influence the behavior towards the respective group. Although stereotype activation runs automatically and is hard to control, there are possibilities to prevent its consequences and even activation itself – for instance, through high internal motivation to behave unprejudiced. Likewise, ingroup enhancement can lead to social discrimination and outgroup derogation, if promoted by situational factors like threat perceptions or personality variables like authoritarianism. Besides the functions and consequences, in this chapter we will illuminate the factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of stereotypes. These are, among others, the subjective perception of factual relations between group memberships and characteristics or behaviors, the usage of certain linguistic patterns, and the role models that are prevalent in society. Furthermore, people use global dimensions of characteristics to evaluate others as part of a group.

This project is examining memory for unfamiliar faces. Generally speaking, memory for unfamiliar faces is poor, especially across different images of the same person. In contrast, familiar faces can be readily recognised across images, presumably because perceivers have mental representations of familiar faces that enable recognition despite changes in angle, expression, lighting, context, and so on. The current study will examine whether social categorisation facilitates recognition of unfamiliar faces across different images of the same person. Memory for unfamiliar faces tends to be poor, especially across different images of the same person (Bruce, 1982; Johnston & Edmonds, 2009). Changes in viewpoint, expression and context of a face dramatically reduce recognition of unfamiliar faces. However, recognition of familiar faces is largely unaffected by such changes. This has led to considerable interest in how familiar and unfamiliar faces are processed, and how faces become familiar (see Johnston & Edmonds, 2009, for a review). The current study will examine the role of social categorisation in memory for unfamiliar faces. Social categorisation is understood to play a role in face recognition and memory, but it is not clear exactly what role(s) categorisation plays. Categorising faces as belonging to a particular group, such as a racial outgroup, tends to reduce recognition accuracy (Meissner & Brigham, 2001). This effect has been observed even for social categories that are independent of facial appearance, such as university groups (Bernstein, Young, & Hugenberg, 2007; Hugenberg, Wilson, See, & Young, 2013). Mere categorisation of faces as belonging to one’s own or another group appears to produce an own group bias in face recognition. On the other hand, categorising faces into groups has been found to facilitate recognition under some conditions. For example, studies have found that pairing a face with an occupation label during learning leads to better recognition, especially for faces that fit the facial stereotype for the occupation (Hills, Lewis, & Honey, 2008; Klatzky, Martin, Kane, & Cognition, 1982). In a study by Pauker et al. (2009), memory was poorer for racially ambiguous faces than prototypical faces, yet when ambiguous faces were given a race label memory improved. Another study using racially ambiguous faces found that memory for moderately ambiguous faces was biased towards more prototypical faces (Corneille, Huart, Becquart, & Brédart, 2004). Together, these studies suggest that categorical information is used in face encoding, and can facilitate recognition. One way that social categorisation may facilitate face recognition is by activating a facial stereotype that provides a template for encoding novel faces. Facial stereotypes are abstract representations of the facial characteristics of group members (Oldmeadow, Sutherland, & Young, 2013). Facial stereotypes contain information about the common features of faces from a social category, and may also contain information about how faces within the category vary. This information may be useful for recognising individual group members, especially across different images. The proposed study will examine the effect of explicit social categorisation on memory for face identity. References Bernstein, M. J., Young, S. G., & Hugenberg, K. (2007). The cross-category effect: Mere social categorization is sufficient to elicit an own-group bias in face recognition. Psychological Science, 18(8), 706-712. Bruce, V. (1982). Changing faces: Visual and non‐visual coding processes in face recognition. British journal of psychology, 73(1), 105-116. Corneille, O., Huart, J., Becquart, E., & Brédart, S. (2004). When memory shifts toward more typical category exemplars: accentuation effects in the recollection of ethnically ambiguous faces. Journal of personality and social psychology, 86(2), 236. Hills, P. J., Lewis, M. B., & Honey, R. C. (2008). Stereotype priming in face recognition: Interactions between semantic and visual information in face encoding. Cognition, 108(1), 185-200. Hugenberg, K., Wilson, J. P., See, P. E., & Young, S. G. (2013). Towards a synthetic model of own group biases in face memory. Visual Cognition, 21(9-10), 1392-1417. Johnston, R. A., & Edmonds, A. J. (2009). Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition: A review. Memory, 17(5), 577-596. Klatzky, R. L., Martin, G. L., Kane, R. A., & Cognition. (1982). Semantic interpretation effects on memory for faces. Memory, 10(3), 195-206. Meissner, C. A., & Brigham, J. C. (2001). Thirty years of investigating the own-race bias in memory for faces: A meta-analytic review. Psychology, Public Policy, Law, 7(1), 3. Oldmeadow, J. A., Sutherland, C. A., & Young, A. W. (2013). Facial stereotype visualization through image averaging. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(5), 615-623. Pauker, K., Weisbuch, M., Ambady, N., Sommers, S. R., Adams Jr, R. B., & Ivcevic, Z. (2009). Not so black and white: memory for ambiguous group members. Journal of personality and social psychology, 96(4), 795.

People often form impressions of others in contexts where both relatively static demographic cues (e.g., age, race, gender) and situationally flexible, dynamic cues (e.g., emotion expressions) are available. We examined whether and how attending to gender (male, female) versus emotion expression (neutral, smiling) affects threat-based person impressions. In three experiments, we heightened the salience of either gender categories or emotion categories in a sequential priming task. Category salience consistently moderated the use of both categories in threat impressions. The effect of gender (emotion) categories was stronger when attention was directed to gender (emotion) than when attention was directed to emotion (gender); however, category salience did not eliminate the use of either category. Implications for models of person construal and bias in person impressions are discussed.

Negative leadership may have drastic consequences for organizations and society. However, leaders do not operate independently but supervise followers who potentially perpetuate their negative . Currently, we lack an integrated understanding of those followers who are more likely to model negative leader . There are two perspectives on why people model negative leaders: (a) because they are endowed with role-model powers through their authority and legitimacy; (b) because they are prototypical of the group. We propose that both perspectives are limited and introduce an integrative model which proposes that: To be modelled, negative leaders need to be prototypical of their groups and demonstrate the negative behaviours others can model. We test this model in four studies across various research designs, samples, and behavioural outcomes. We find consistent evidence that followers will model only prototypical ingroup leaders, but not outgroup leaders, who demonstrate negative behaviours and tie them with desirable outcomes. This model represents a significant step towards understanding the intricate relationships between negative leaders and their followers. We encourage future research to develop and test alternative models of negative behaviour modelling. published

We study the effect of interpersonal but impersonal interactions on in-group bias in allocational choices. Before the elicitation of the choices, individuals either engage in a cooperative or competitive interaction, or in no interaction at all. We find that a cooperative interaction eliminates any in-group bias as compared to the case where there is no interaction, and even introduces relatively more pro-sociality with respect to out-group. A competitive interaction reduces pro-sociality in general, irrespective of whether others are in- or out-group. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We study whether recipients draw inferences about speakers’ stereotypic impressions from their ironic (vs. literal) remarks. Following up on the Irony Bias, we conducted two experiments in which participants were exposed (in writing or sound-recording) to only either literal remarks or irony referring to either positive or negative behaviors of an unknown social category. Results of both experiments show that participants recognize speakers’ biased impressions from their pattern of irony use. When speakers made ironic remarks about category members’ positive behaviors (but not about negative behaviors), participants inferred that speakers had a more negative impression of the category, and that they perceived higher essentialism of negative (vs. positive) behaviors. The impression participants perceived in speakers’ biased communication pattern did not translate to participants’ own reported category impression. We discuss various factors that may determine when a recognized stereotypic view in a speaker contributes to the formation and maintenance of stereotypic impressions.

Conjoint measurement was used to investigate the joint influence of facial gender and facial age on perceived gender (Experiment 1) and perceived age (Experiment 2). A set of 25 faces was created, covarying independently five levels of gender (from feminine to masculine) and five levels of age (from young to old). Two independent groups of observers were presented with all possible pairs of faces from this set and compared which member of the pair appeared as more masculine (Experiment 1) or older (Experiment 2). Three nested models of the contribution of gender and age to judgment (i.e., independent, additive, and saturated) were fit to the data using maximum likelihood. The results showed that both gender and age contributed to the perceived gender and age of the faces according to a saturated observer model. In judgments of gender (Experiment 1), female faces were perceived as more masculine as they became older. In judgments of age (Experiment 2), young faces (age 20 and 30) were perceived as older as they became more masculine. Taken together, the results entail that: (a) observers integrate facial gender and age information when judging either of the dimensions, and that (b) cues for femininity and cues for aging are negatively correlated. This correlation exerts stronger influence on female faces, and can explain the success of cosmetics in concealing signs of aging and exaggerating sexually dimorphic features.

Introduction.The article analyzes the specificity of the categorical structure of the Armenian image among Russian students of Barnaul with different types of ethnic identity. Representatives of the Armenian ethnic group are one of the numerous ethnic groups living in Russia, and the space of higher education seems to be one of the platforms where you can meet them. Thus, among modern students, the need to adapt both to the new educational space and to its multinationality is becoming actual. The process of such adaptation includes a number of difficulties that students of different nationalities face. In our opinion, such difficulties are also associated with the specifics of categorization by the indigenous population of members of different ethnic groups.Materials and Methods.The specificity of the categorical structure of the Armenian image is presented in the form of a structure of categories identified on the basis of the prevailing type of ethnic identity of the respondents. To achieve the goal of the study, the following methods were used: free associations, subjective scaling, factor analysis of data, the questionnaire "Types of ethnic identity" by G.U.Soldatova and S.V. Ryzhova. The selection consisted of 187 students of different specialties and different universities in Barnaul.Results.Four models have been obtained that reflect the categorical structure of the image of an Armenian in groups of Russian students with different types of ethnic identity. All groups of respondents categorize the Armenian on the basis of emotionality, sociability, strategy of behavior in the conflict, and the prevailing position in the group. The fullness of the selected categories is distinctive. Thus, Russian students with a pronounced normal ethnic identity note negative qualities of an Armenian, but positive characteristics prevail in the structure of the image (cheerful, talkative, expressive, compliant). Russian students with a pronounced hyperidentity also represent the Armenian in a complex way, highlighting their positive and negative characteristics, where the latter are mostly represented (competing, impulsive, cunning). In the structure of the image of an Armenian, the majority of respondents with predominantly ethnic indifference have negative characteristics, and the group of students with pronounced ethnonihilism almost completely represents the Armenian in a negative light.Discussion and Conclusions.Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that it is necessary to form a positive ethnic identity among students. It is assumed that the specificity of the categorization of a member of the Armenian ethnic group by Russian students will determine their nature of communication with a representative of this nationality.

In-ethnicity bias, as one of the in-group biases, is widespread in different cultures, interfering with cross-ethnicity communication. Recent studies have revealed that an in-ethnicity bias can be reduced by an in-team bias caused by the membership in a mixed-ethnicity team. However, the neural correlates of different in-group biases are still not clear, especially regarding possible cultural differences. A total of 44 participants (20 Chinese and 24 Germans) were recruited and completed a social categorization fMRI-task, categorizing faces according to their ethnicity and a learned team membership. Our behavioral results revealed both in-ethnicity and in-team bias in German participants, but not in Chinese participants. Our imaging results, however, showed both biases across all participants, as reflected in increased dorsal medial frontal cortex (MFC) activation for in-ethnicity, as well as in-team categorizations, while activation in ventral MFC was higher for in-ethnicity faces in Chinese participants than in the German participants. Our results highlight the importance of the dorsal MFC for in-group categorization across cultures and suggest that cultures might modulate in-group biases.

Language use plays a crucial role in the consensualization of stereotypes within cultural groups. Based on an integrative review of the literature on stereotyping and biased language use, we propose the Social Categories and Stereotypes Communication (SCSC) framework. The framework integrates largely independent areas of literature and explicates the linguistic processes through which social-category stereotypes are shared and maintained. We distinguish two groups of biases in language use that jointly feed and maintain three fundamental cognitive variables in (shared) social-category cognition: perceived category entitativity, stereotype content, and perceived essentialism of associated stereotypic characteristics. These are: (1) Biases in linguistic labels used to denote categories, within which we discuss biases in (a) label content and (b) linguistic form of labels; (2) Biases in describing behaviors and characteristics of categorized individuals, within which we discuss biases in (a) communication content (i.e., what information is communicated), and (b) linguistic form of descriptions (i.e., how is information formulated). Together, these biases create a self-perpetuating cycle in which social-category stereotypes are shared and maintained. The framework allows for a better understanding of stereotype maintaining biases in natural language. We discuss various opportunities for further research.

The various group and category memberships that we hold are at the heart of who we are. They have been shown to affect our thoughts, emotions, behavior, and social relations in a variety of social contexts, and have more recently been linked to our mental and physical well-being. Questions remain, however, over the dynamics between different group memberships and the ways in which we cognitively and emotionally acquire these. In particular, current assessment methods are missing that can be applied to naturally occurring data, such as online interactions, to better understand the dynamics and impact of group memberships in naturalistic settings. To provide researchers with a method for assessing specific group memberships of interest, we have developed ASIA (Automated Social Identity Assessment), an analytical protocol that uses linguistic style indicators in text to infer which group membership is salient in a given moment, accompanied by an in-depth open-source Jupyter Notebook tutorial (https://github.com/Identity-lab/Tutorial-on-salient-social-Identity-detection-model). Here, we first discuss the challenges in the study of salient group memberships, and how ASIA can address some of these. We then demonstrate how our analytical protocol can be used to create a method for assessing which of two specific group memberships—parents and feminists—is salient using online forum data, and how the quality (validity) of the measurement and its interpretation can be tested using two further corpora as well as an experimental study. We conclude by discussing future developments in the field.

This article focuses on the role of language in social-stereotype formation through interpersonal communication. We conducted a between-subjects experiment (N = 423), in which participants were exposed to differential remarks about (members of) an unknown social group. Remarks varied in two linguistic devices: (a) label type, by distinguishing between generic and specific labels and (b) behavior descriptions, by contrasting negations and affirmations in descriptions of competent (e.g., not stupid vs. smart) and incompetent behaviors (e.g., not smart vs. stupid). Generic (vs. specific) labels increased perceived entitativity (“groupness” of category members), stereotype content (perceived competence) and perceived essentialism of described behaviors. Compared with affirmations, only the communication pattern with negations in descriptions of competent behaviors (e.g., not stupid) decreased perceived competence of group members, and increased perceived essentialism of incompetent behavior. Label type and negations did not interact, suggesting that these linguistic devices play a distinct, parallel role in stereotype formation.

The very early perceptional processes that underlie social categorization can be detected with event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Using this methodology, the present work aims to detect differential attentional processing of ingroup and outgroup members based on gender categories. Specifically, three EEG studies tested how factors that enhance social identity relevance, namely gender identification and contextual salience of gender representation, moderate neural gender categorization effects. Study 1 showed that both women (Study 1a) and men (Study 1b) were more likely to show preferential attention to ingroup over outgroup members, but only when they identified strongly with their gender group. Study 2 showed that when gender categories in an intergroup leadership context were made salient (i.e., when women were numerically underrepresented versus equally represented compared to men), women, irrespective of their level of gender identification, showed preferential attention to ingroup over outgroup members. Together, this work provides empirical evidence for (1) the neural gender categorization effect among both men and women as soon as 100 ms after face perception and (2) the moderating role of factors that enhance social identity relevance in early gender categorization.

We effortlessly sort people into different racial groups from their visual appearance and implicitly generate racial bias affecting cognition and behavior. As these mental activities provide the proximate mechanisms for social behaviours, it becomes essential to understand the neural activity underlying differences between own-race and other-race visual categorization. Yet intrinsic limitations of individual neuroimaging studies, owing to reduced sample size, inclusion of multiple races, and interactions between races in the participants and in the displayed visual stimuli, dampens generalizability of results. In the present meta-analytic study, we applied multimodal techniques to partly overcome these hurdles, and we investigated the entire functional neuroimaging literature on race categorization, therefore including more than 2000 Black, White and Asian participants. Our data-driven approach shows that own- and other-race visual categorization involves partly segregated neural networks, with distinct connectivity and functional profiles, and defined hierarchical organization. Categorization of own-race mainly engages areas related to cognitive components of empathy and mentalizing, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus. These areas are functionally co-activated with cortical structures involved in auto-biographical memories and social knowledge. Conversely, other-race categorization recruits areas implicated in, and functionally connected with, visuo-attentive processing, like the fusiform gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule, and areas engaged in affective functions, like the amygdala. These results contribute to a better definition of the neural networks involved in the visual parcelling of social categories based on race, and help to situate these processes within a common neural space.