Thermal facial reactivity patterns predict social categorization bias triggered by unconscious and conscious emotional stimuli

Members of highly social species decode, interpret, and react to the emotion of a conspecific depending on whether the other belongs to the same (ingroup) or different (outgroup) social group. While studies indicate that consciously perceived emotional stimuli drive social categorization, information about how implicit emotional stimuli and specific physiological signatures affect social categorization is lacking. We addressed this issue by exploring whether subliminal and supraliminal affective priming can influence the categorization of neutral faces as ingroup versus outgroup. Functional infrared thermal imaging was used to investigate whether the effect of affective priming on the categorization decision was moderated by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). During the subliminal condition, we found that stronger SNS activation after positive or negative affective primes induced ingroup and outgroup face categorization, respectively. The exact opposite pattern (i.e. outgroup after positive and ingroup after negative primes) was observed in the supraliminal condition. We also found that misattribution effects were stronger in people with low emotional awareness, suggesting that this trait moderates how one recognizes SNS signals and employs them for unrelated decisions. Our results allow the remarkable implication that low-level affective reactions coupled with sympathetic activation may bias social categorization

The Language of Bias: A Linguistic Approach to Understanding Intergroup Relations

[Excerpt] This chapter explores the role of language in the relationship between diversity and team performance. Specifically, we consider how a linguistic approach to social categorization may be used to study the social psychological mechanisms that underlie diversity effects. Using the results of a study examining the effects of gender, ethnicity and tenure on language abstraction, we consider the potential implications for team processes and effectiveness. In addition, we propose a revised team input-process-output model that highlights the potential effects of language on team processes. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research linking diversity, linguistic categorization and team effectiveness

Acting Out Against Gender Discrimination: The Effects of Different Social Identities

Self-categorization theory suggests that when a social identity is salient, group- oriented behavior will ensue. Thus, women should be likely to act out against gender discrimination when their social identity as women is salient. However, self-categorization theory has typically defined a social identity along stereo- types, which may serve instead to maintain the status quo. Two studies therefore examined the effects of two different social identities on taking action against discrimination. Participants were female students (Anglo American (93%), African American (2%), Native American (2%), Hispanic (1%), Asian American (1%) and Other (1%)). Study 1 examined a structural model and Study 2 examined the causal relationships, both hypothesizing that a social identity based on stereotypes would be associated with less collective action than a social identity based on social experiences. The hypothesis was supported, and implications for expanding definitions of social identities were discussed

Cognitive consequences of perceiving social exclusion

Although a great deal is now known about how people mentally represent individuals and groups, less attention has been paid to the question of how interpersonal relationships are represented in memory. Drawing on principles of categorization, this paper reports an investigation into how we mentally represent the relationships of others. In three experiments, evidence for assimilation effects following social exclusion (and subsequent categorization) is found. Experiment 1 uses a judgment paradigm to demonstrate that social exclusion influences the perception of interpersonal closeness. Experiments 2 and 3 employ a memory confusion paradigm to establish that representations of relationship partners are assimilated following the exclusion of a third party. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Categorical Cognition: A Psychological Model of Categories and Identification in Decision Making

There is a wealth of research in psychology demonstrating that agents process information with the aid of categories. In this paper we study this phenomenon in two parts. First, we build a model of how experiences are sorted into categories and how categorization affects decision making. Second, we analyze the personal biases that result from categorization, in economic contexts. We show that discrimination can result from such cognitive processes even when there is no malevolent taste to do so and workers' qualifications are fully observable. The model also provides a framework that is equipped to investigate the social psychological concept of identity, where identity is viewed as self-categorization.

Is social categorization spatially organized in a “Mental Line”? Empirical evidences for spatial bias in intergroup differentiation

Social categorization is the differentiation between the self and others and between one’s own group and other groups and it is such a natural and spontaneous process that often we are not aware of it. The way in which the brain organizes social categorization remains an unresolved issue. We present three experiments investigating the hypothesis that social categories are mentally ordered from left to right on an ingroup–outgroup continuum when membership is salient. To substantiate our hypothesis, we consider empirical evidence from two areas of psychology: research on differences in processing of ingroups and outgroups and research on the effects of spatial biases on processing of quantitative information (e.g., time; numbers) which appears to be arranged from left to right on a small–large continuum, an effect known as the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC). In Experiments 1 and 2 we tested the hypothesis that when membership of a social category is activated, people implicitly locate ingroup categories to the left of a mental line whereas outgroup categories are located on the far right of the same mental line. This spatial organization persists even when stimuli are presented on one of the two sides of the screen and their (explicit) position is spatially incompatible with the implicit mental spatial organization of social categories (Experiment 3). Overall the results indicate that ingroups and outgroups are processed differently. The results are discussed with respect to social categorization theory, spatial agency bias, i.e., the effect observed in Western cultures whereby the agent of an action is mentally represented on the left and the recipient on the right, and the SNARC effec

A Continuous Opinion Dynamics Model Based on the Principle of Meta-Contrast

We propose a new continuous opinion dynamics model inspired by social psychology. It is based on a central assumption of self-categorization theory called principle of meta-contrast. We study the behaviour of the model for several network interactions and show that, in particular, consensus, polarization or extremism are possible outcomes, even without explicit introduction of extremist agents. The model is compared to other existing opinion dynamics models.Opinion Dynamics, Self-Categorization Theory, Consensus, Polarization, Extremism

Психологічні особливості розвитку комунікативної компетентності на основі соціальної категоризації студентів. (Psychological characteristics of communicative competence from students’ social categorization perspective.)

У статті відображено результати теоретичного й емпіричного дослдіження щодо розуміння соціальної категоризації в концептуальному полі соціальної когніції. Окреслено вплив соціальної категоризації на утворення соціальних схем та встановлено психологічні особливості розвитку соціальної категоризації як чинника комунікативної компетентності студентів. (The article considers the achievement of psychological science in understanding social categorization in the conceptual field of social cognition. The impact of social categorization in the formation of social schemes are revealed. Psychological peculiarities of social categorization as a factor of communicative competence are defined.