The effects of groupmembership and social context on information organization

Self-categorization theory posits that the perception of group members is flexible and determined by the comparative social context as well as by group membership. Subjects read about either four ingroup or outgroup target persons in the context of four additional stimulus persons who were members of either the same group as the target persons (intragroup context) or the other group (intergroup context). Individualized and attribute-wise information organization was assessed on the basis of information clustering in free recall. As predicted, differential processing of ingroup information occurred as a function of the salient social context; in an intragroup context, ingroup information was organized significantly more by person than in an intergroup context. Conversely, ingroup information tended to be clustered more by attribute in an intergroup than in an intragroup context. Clustering of outgroup information was not sensitive to changes in the social context. The results indicate that the perception of group members may be based on more than group membership alone. #1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 27: 523±537 (1997) No. of Figures: 2 No. of Tables: 3 No. of References: 31 CCC 0046±2772/97/050523±15$17.50 Received 7 September 1995 #1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 28 September 1996 European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 27, 523±537 (1997) Addressee for correspondence: Heather Young, Department of Social Psychology, University of Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands, tel: +31 (24) 361-2684, e-mail: [email protected].