Ingroup members are believed to display the outgroup homogeneity effect because
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Outgroup Homogeneity Show A close cousin of assimilation is the "outgroup homogeneity effect." In the language of social psychology, an "ingroup" is a group to which someone belongs, and an "outgroup" is a group to which the person does not belong (hence, one person's ingroup may be another person's outgroup, and vice versa). Research on the outgroup homogeneity effect has found that when it comes to attitudes, values, personality traits, and other characteristics, people tend to see outgroup members as more alike than ingroup members. As a result, outgroup members are at risk of being seen as interchangeable or expendable, and they are more likely to be stereotyped. This perception of sameness holds true regardless of whether the outgroup is another race, religion, nationality, college major, or other naturally occurring group (Linville, 1998). In one of the first studies to document the outgroup homogeneity effect, Princeton University researchers asked students in four different "eating clubs" to rate members of their own group and members of three other groups on personality dimensions such as introverted-extroverted and arrogant-humble (Jones, Wood, & Quattrone, 1981). The results showed that students tended to rate members of their own group as more varied in personality than members of the outgroup -- regardless of which group students were in. Later research on outgroup homogeneity found that the effect is strongest when the ingroup and outgroup are enduring, real-life groups (rather than groups created artificially in laboratory experiments), and when the ingroup is large (Mullen & Hu, 1989). If the ingroup is small and the attributes in question are important to its identity, the outgroup homogeneity effect may disappear or even reverse (Simon, 1992; Simon & Pettigrew, 1990). Why are outgroups generally seen as more homogeneous than ingroups? One possible reason is that people usually have less contact with outgroup members than ingroup members, and indeed, there is good evidence for this explanation (Islam & Hewstone, 1993; Linville & Fischer, 1993). But contact alone cannot explain the outgroup homogeneity effect, because some studies have found that the effect is unrelated to the number of ingroup or outgroup members a person knows (e.g., Jones, Wood, & Quattrone, 1981). Furthermore, perceptions of outgroup homogeneity are sometimes found among groups that have extensive contact with each other, such as females and males (Park & Rothbart, 1982; Park & Judd, 1990). When men complain that "women are all alike" and women complain that "men are all alike," their charges rarely stem from a lack of contact. The best explanation is that a variety of factors produce the outgroup homogeneity effect. In addition to the fact that people usually have more contact with ingroup members, they tend to organize and recall information about ingroups in terms of persons rather than abstract characteristics (Ostrom, Carpenter, Sedikides, & Li, 1993; Park & Judd, 1990). In many cases, people are also more motivated to make distinctions among ingroup members with whom they will have future contact (Linville, 1998). When these factors operate together, the end result is often an ingroup that appears to have a diverse assortment of individuals, and an outgroup that appears relatively homogeneous and undifferentiated.
In this experiment, the researchers asked girls on a college campus to rank members of their own sorority (in-group) and other sorority members (out-groups). (Image: Bigstock). Background Information This study can be used to support the out-group homogeneity effect’s explanation of stereotype formation. The out-group homogeneity effect is a hypothesis that claims members of in-groups will perceive members of their own group as being more diverse than an out-group and they will perceive out-group members as being more similar to one another.
This can explain how stereotypes are formed for out-groups since stereotypes are generalizations about groups of people. In order to make a generalization, you have to create a simplified (and generalized) description of that group of people (e.g. Old people are bad drivers; boys are more adventurous than girls; girls in that sorority love to party, etc.). If you think that an out-group is more similar, it becomes easier to create that generalization. If we combine this with social identity theory, we can see how negative stereotypes of out-groups could be formed: we want to view out-groups as inferior in some way to boost our own self-esteem by comparing that inferior group with our superior in-group. This experiment can also provide some evidence in support of social identity theory since it shows that the groups demonstrated ethnocentrism (i.e. in-group biases) when rating their in-groups and out-groups on a range of characteristics. At the time of this study (1982), the authors claim there was little evidence to support the out-group homogeneity hypothesis, so the primary aim was to test this hypothesis. There were four experiments in this series, but we’ll be looking at the third (Original Study link). Methods (Experiment #3) The researchers worked with three sororities at the University of Oregon. They wanted to see if members of the sororities would demonstrate the out-group homogeneity effect – that is to say, they wanted to see if sorority girls would think of their own members as being more different to one-another than the members of other sororities. In other words, if participants perceived the girls in other sororities were more similar to one-another than their own sorority, they would be demonstrating the out-group homogeneity effect. The researchers chose three sororities that were similar to one another in terms of proximity and values. There were 90 participants (about 30 from each sorority). The data was gathered using questionnaires. The girls were asked to rank their own sorority and an out-group sorority on ten dimensions. Those dimensions were:
In the questionnaire, the girls were asked to rank their own sorority and the other two in terms of how characteristic each of these dimensions were for the group. There responses could range on a 7 point scale, ranging from 0 – not at all characteristics to 7 – extremely characteristic. For example, a question might look something like this:
Questions were asked for all ten dimensions and the results were compiled. This first part of the experiment was to measure ethnocentrism: did the girls view their own sorority more positively than the others? The results showed that this was the case and these results will be discussed in more detail below. To measure the out-group homogeneity effect, the girls were also asked to compare the intragroup similarity for each of these dimensions. That is to say, they were asked to rank how similar to one-another the girls in each of the sororities were. Here’s an example question:
Results: Out-group Homogeneity The results showed that girls in all three groups viewed their own sorority members as being more dissimilar than the other girls thought they were. In other words, they thought out-group members were more similar to one-another than their own in-group members were to each other. Thus, they were demonstrating the out-group homogeneity effect.
In terms of explaining stereotypes, we can see how this view of out-group members as being similar to one-another could make it easier to make generalizations about that group of people and since stereotypes are generalizations of groups, the out-group homogeneity effect could explain how stereotypes are formed. For example, there could be a stereotype that one sorority is a party house while another is full of geeks and do-gooders. If out-group homogeneity effect is occurring, the number in the falling diagonal should be lower than the other two numbers in the same column. Is this the case? Results: In-group Bias (Ethnocentrism) The results also showed that in all three groups the girls tended to view partying and being sexually active as unfavourable characteristics, and the other eight as favourable, so the two were analyzed separately. For the eight favourable characteristics, all groups said that they were more characteristic of their own sorority than the other sororities. This shows in-group bias and can support social identity theories explanation of how belonging to a group can lead to in-group bias and favouritism, possibly as a result of wanting to boost one’s self-esteem and positive social identity. For the two unfavourable characteristics, in-group bias was shown in two of the sororities as they ranked the unfavourable characteristics as being more characteristic of the other sororities than their own. This is more evidence to explain how the cognitive process of social identity – social categorization and social comparison – can lead to in-group bias. For favourable characteristics, in-group favouritism is shown if the number in the falling-diagonal cell is higher than the other numbers in that column (more characteristic). For unfavourable characteristics, that number should be lower (less characteristic). Here’s a video of SIT and it contains an explanation of this study… Critical Thinking Considerations
ReferencePark, Bernadette, and Myron Rothbart. “Perception of Out-group Homogeneity and Levels of Social Categorization: Memory for the Subordinate Attributes of In-group and Out-group Members.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42.6 (1982): 1051-068 Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator. Which of the following is an example of the outgroup homogeneity effect?Outgroup homogeneity is the tendency for members of a group to see themselves as more diverse and heterogeneous than they are seen by an outgroup. Thus, for example, whereas Italians see themselves as quite diverse and different from one another, Americans view Italians as more similar to each other, or more alike.
Which group is most likely to show ingroup favoritism?People who score higher on the scale show more ingroup favoritism in comparison with those who score lower on it (Stangor & Thompson, 2002).
When people are divided into Ingroups and Outgroups we are prone to ingroup?Fill in the blanks to complete the passage about one of the findings central to social identity theory. When we divide people into ingroups and outgroups, we are prone to ingroup favoritism, which means that we treat those in our ingroup better than those in our outgroup.
Which of the following best describes in group bias?In-group Bias (also known as in-group favoritism) is the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others who belong to the same group that they do. This bias shows up even when people are put into groups randomly, making group membership effectively meaningless.
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