Group meaningfulness and the causal direction of influence between the ingroup and the self or another individual: Evidence from the Induction-Deduction Paradigm

PLoS One. 2020 Mar 10;15(3):e0229321. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229321. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to investigate the causal direction of influence between the ingroup as a whole and the self or another ingroup member considering a key feature of groups, i.e., their perceived meaningfulness. To this goal, in Study 1, 2, and 3 we predicted a preference for self-stereotyping and ingroup-stereotyping in the meaningful social categories of sorority women, left-handed people and psychology students. In Study 4 we further expect that the meaningfulness attributed to a group moderates the direction of causality between individual and ingroup perception. Thus, we used one's Zodiac sign as the ingroup whose degree of meaningfulness varies across participants and we hypothesized higher levels of meaningfulness attributed to the ingroup to be associated with higher self- and ingroup-stereotyping. Using the methodologically stringent Induction Deduction Paradigm, participants were given information on unfamiliar dimensions, about either the ingroup or an individual (self or other ingroup member) and asked to make inferences on those same attributes about the ingroup (induction condition) or the individual (deduction condition). As predicted, a preference for deduction to the self (i.e., self-stereotyping) and deduction to another ingroup member (i.e., ingroup-stereotyping) were found for the meaningful groups of sorority women, left-handed people, and Psychology students (Studies 1, 2, and 3). In Study 4, consistent with predictions, the higher the level of attributed meaningfulness to the Zodiac system the higher the degree of deduction both to the self (self-stereotyping) and to another Zodiac ingroup member (ingroup-stereotyping). Several implications of these results are discussed, for example in relation to the possibility of educational interventions aimed at invalidating intergroup differences.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Peer Influence*
  • Self Concept*
  • Social Identification
  • Social Perception
  • Sociometric Techniques
  • Stereotyping

Grants and funding

The research reported in this paper was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH40662 to Myron Rothbart. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.