Previous research has shown that an illusory correlation -- the perception of an association between two variables that does not exist in the information on which observers' judgments are based - - can be based on the co-occurrence of distinctive stimuli, and that this information processing bias can result in the differential perception of social groups. Recently completed experiments by the principal investigators has found that the nature of these processing biases may differ as a function of the target described in social information -- whether members of groups or individual persons are the units about whom information is being processed. These differences are interpreted in terms of a fundamental distinction between (a) on-line or impression-based processing, which is hypothesized to be characteristic of processing information about individuals, and (b) memory-based processing, which is viewed as typical of information processing about group members. The proposed research program develops and extends this work, testing the implications of this distinction between different modes of information processing for group and individual targets. The research also investigates the consequences of these different modes of processing for how we deal with self-relevant information and for judgments about the self. The results of the proposed research program will be informative about the nature and consequences of certain cognitive mechanisms and biases for perceivers' conceptions of and judgments about various targets of social perception -- social groups, individuals, and the self.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award (R37)
Project #
5R37MH040058-05
Application #
3486717
Study Section
Mental Health Behavioral Sciences Research Review Committee (BSR)
Project Start
1985-07-15
Project End
1992-06-30
Budget Start
1989-07-01
Budget End
1990-06-30
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
1989
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California Santa Barbara
Department
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Santa Barbara
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
93106
Lewis, Amy C; Sherman, Steven J (2010) Perceived entitativity and the black-sheep effect: when will we denigrate negative ingroup members? J Soc Psychol 150:211-25
Spencer-Rodgers, Julie; Hamilton, David L; Sherman, Steven J (2007) The central role of entitativity in stereotypes of social categories and task groups. J Pers Soc Psychol 92:369-88
Lickel, Brian; Schmader, Toni; Hamilton, David L (2003) A case of collective responsibility: who else was to blame for the Columbine high school shootings? Pers Soc Psychol Bull 29:194-204
Sherman, Steven J; Castelli, Luigi; Hamilton, David L (2002) The spontaneous use of a group typology as an organizing principle in memory. J Pers Soc Psychol 82:328-42
Crawford, Matthew T; Sherman, Steven J; Hamilton, David L (2002) Perceived entitativity, stereotype formation, and the interchangeability of group members. J Pers Soc Psychol 83:1076-94
Lickel, B; Hamilton, D L; Wieczorkowska, G et al. (2000) Varieties of groups and the perception of group entitativity. J Pers Soc Psychol 78:223-46
Susskind, J; Maurer, K; Thakkar, V et al. (1999) Perceiving individuals and groups: expectancies, dispositional inferences, and causal attributions. J Pers Soc Psychol 76:181-91
McConnell, A R; Sherman, S J; Hamilton, D L (1997) Target entitativity: implications for information processing about individual and group targets. J Pers Soc Psychol 72:750-62
Hamilton, D L; Sherman, S J (1996) Perceiving persons and groups. Psychol Rev 103:336-55
Garcia-Marques, L; Hamilton, D L (1996) Resolving the apparent discrepancy between the incongruency effect and the expectancy-based illusory correlation effect: the TRAP model. J Pers Soc Psychol 71:845-60

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