9319752 MILLER ABSTRACT In culturally plural societies such as the U.S., individuals typically belong to several groups, (e.g. race, religion, occupation, place of residence, hobby or interest groups, etc.) When the social category memberships of an actor and another individual provide convergent evidence of their respective ingroup and outgroup identities, category distinctiveness is high and prejudice or bias is likely because there is no competing loyalties. By contrast, when an actor and a target person belong to different social categories on one dimension but are members of the same category on a second dimension, such crossed clues for ingroup/outgroup identity sometimes reduce intergroup bias in comparison to that found with convergent cues for outgroup membership. Six specific patterns regarding the relative bias toward double ingroup, crossed, and double outgroup targets have emerged in prior research. This research invokes principles related to affective arousal, cognitive sources of variation in category salience, and the structure of the setting, to explain when each pattern will be found. The current studies assess these theoretical principles in the context of impression formation tasks, and in ingroup interaction settings. Key measures include self-reports of liking, perceived similarity, and reward allocations toward ingroup, crossed, and outgroup targets, as well behavioral preferences for interacting with different types of targets. Electromyographic measures (EMG) of non-visible movement in facial muscles that control the smile and the frown (furrowing of the brow) will assess non-voluntary positive and negative affect respectively. This is important in studies that use targets who are members of racial-ethnic groups because current norms for our college age subjects invoke a masking of expression of negative attitudes toward ethnic minority groups on the paper and pencil measures typically used in laboratory research. Results from the proposed research will be useful for structuring more effective intergroup contact interventions and for reducing intergroup conflict. Intergroup hostility and conflict across racial-ethnic gender, and other important dimensions of social category differentiation (e.g. age) can be a source of misplaced energy in the work setting, contributing to lowered productivity. The outcomes of the proposed research can add to the development of a set of rules for structuring work settings so as to minimize this source of diminished productivity.
