Research Symposium

BIO

I am a second-year Psychology student minoring in Business Analytics and Spanish. I have always been interested in social psychology and though my involvement in this research project only began at the beginning of this academic year, I have learned and grown immensely with the help of Ayanna, Dr. Okten, and the rest of the Motivated Social Cognition Lab. I am excited to continue my research in the coming academic year as a Lab Coordinator in the lab. I hope to implement my passion for this field and the skills learned from current and future work in a career in Industrial/Organizational psychology.

Perceived Entitativity and Spontaneous Trait Impressions of Groups

Abstract

It is understood, in person perception research, that perceivers frequently form unintentional spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) based on the observed behavior of others (Uleman et al., 1996), and these trait inferences tend to be diagnostic of the initial impressions that we form and maintain about others (Olcaysoy Okten & Moskowitz, 2020). Similarly, Hamilton and colleagues (2015) provide evidence that perceivers also make spontaneous trait inferences about groups (STIGs). Particularly, they found that STIGs are not affected by cognitive load, occur for high and low entitativity groups, are diagnostic of impression ratings, and generalizable to new group members. The proposed research project extends the research initiatives of Hamilton et al., (2015) study by building onto their target group manipulation. The purpose of the current research project is to design a manipulation of perceived entitativity by adding racial categories to target groups (All Black/ All White/ Combination of Black and White). This research project will contribute to the field’s limited understanding of STIGs through its addition of perceived group homogeneity, ethnicity, and group membership effects.

Keywords: entitativity, spontaneous trait inferences, spontaneous trait inferences about groups