Research Symposium

BIO

My name is Mona, and I am a behavioral neuroscience major from Clarksville, Maryland. I have a particular interest in researching social and behavioral psychology, and how this could be applied to medicine and the medical field in general. I will be attending medical school in the future in hopes of becoming a physician.

Perceived Entitativity & 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: Spontaneous trait inferences