Research Symposium

BIO

Lexi Ramsay is a sophomore at Florida State University, where she is pursuing a dual degree in Psychology and Media/Communication Studies with minors in Political Science and Sociology. Her main research interests are in the field of social psychology, with the hope that she will get to examine the relationship between political communication and social behavior. Beyond research, Lexi is also involved in the Florida Public Relations Association, Her Campus, and the Undergraduate Law Review.

Group Impressions: The Role of Members’ Characteristics in First Impressions

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 they 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). One of their main findings was that STIGs occur similarly for groups perceived high and low in entitativity. Perceived entitativity is the extent to which a group of individuals are perceived as a collective unit or a unified whole. The proposed project extends the research initiatives of Hamilton and colleagues’ (2015) study by building onto their target group manipulation. The purpose of the current work was to design a manipulation of perceived entitativity by adding racial categories to target groups (All Black/ All White/ Combination of Black and White). Specifically, we investigated whether (1) differences of perceived group entitativity would emerge when the physical similarities (i.e., race) of groups differ and (2) whether differences in perceived group entitativity, in turn, would affect STIGS. Our work seeks to offer a critical advancement in understanding how impressions of groups form as a result of shared (or unshared) group member characteristics.

Keywords: psychology, impressions, groups