Person memory in intergroup contexts: Categorization versus individuation.

Three experiments were conducted to assess the effects of perceiver group identity and expectancies on whether social information is organized at the level of the individual or the social category. In all 3 experiments, participants viewed a videotaped discussion among 6 people whose category identity was signified by sweatshirt color. In Experiment I, performance on an identification test was affected by meaningfulness of the category distinction. Results of Experiment 2 indicated that intracategory confusions were higher under conditions of competitive interdependence between groups than under mere categorization or category salience conditions alone. Experiment 3 demonstrated that members of minority categories are individuated less than members of majority categories, except by members of the minority in-group. Results of the 3 experiments are discussed in relation to the concept of perceived entitativity of social categories.