The effects of ingroup self-identity on the social perception of different groups

The aim of the study was to find universal contents, independent of the specific social groups, self-identity effects on ingroup favoritism (bias) and outgroup stereotyping. As the objects of perception we examined artificial social groups, insofar as the attitude to them was not actualized as ready-made, but formed during the experiment when relevant information was presented. Nevertheless artificial groups had their realistic prototypes, since they were formed according to the same criteria (categories) as the real ones: ethnic, ideological and socio-stratificational. In the experimental situation, the subject's ingroup self-identity was reported rather randomly. The study tested the hypothesis that the severity of ingroup bias and outgroup stereotyping was the result of a random ingroup self-identification of a subject mediated by a specific group category. The sample included students of Perm State University from 17 to 22 years old. Each subject received a description of two opposite groups relating to the same category ("ethnic", "ideological" or "stratificational"). The description was fabricated as a screenshot of a popular-scientific article presented the results of the study, during which these types of groups were allegedly discovered. After reading the text, the respondents were asked to complete several tests. First, they were proposed to determine their most probable group affiliation as the main indicator of ingroup self-identity. Second, they were proposed to designate which of the described groups was the majority (an additional indicator of in-group self-identity). Third, they had to describe each group as a whole, and also its individual representative and prototypical group using a fixed set of positive and negative characteristics. To measure ingroup bias, we used the prototyping index. For the measurement of outgroup stereotyping, we used the indicator of the selective prevalence of the generalized personality characteristics over the number of behavior facts (Machunsky & Meiser, 2014). It was found that the recognition of one's own group membership is the main factor determining ingroup favoritism and outgroup stereotyping. At the same time, there are additional factors mediating the influence of group membership on these phenomena: the awareness of group belonging to the majority or minority, and also the category of social group. It has been found that these mediating factors play a more significant role in the formation of ingroup bias than outgroup stereotyping. In the case when the target groups are classified as ethnic and ingroup is identified as the minority, ingroup favoritism tends to disappear, and the ingroup stereotyping, while remaining low enough, falls sharply for "phenotypically implicit" and increases sharply for "phenotypically explicit" group representatives.

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