Effects of group membership and identification on categorization and subtyping in memory

✍ Scribed by Mariette Van Twuyver; Ad Van Knippenberg

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 233 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0046-2772
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(199807/08)28:4<531::aid-ejsp878>3.0.co;2-8

✦ Synopsis

A meta-analysis (N 229) was performed to test eects of group membership and identi®cation on the use of (sub)categories across ®ve of our own experiments. In each experiment a name matching paradigm was used to investigate the extent to which (sub)categories were used to organize social information in memory. Four subcategories (male students, female students, male teachers, female teachers) were available to categorize the stimulus persons, as a result of crossing sex and academic status. Comparing ®ndings over studies yielded (a) a strong tendency to use subtypes to organize social information in memory; (b) no support for the prediction of stronger subtyping of ingroup members than of outgroup members; (c) support for the prediction that subjects high on identi®cation with own-sex group would use subtypes within gender categories to a lesser extent than subjects low on identi®cation with ownsex. (d) In addition, it appeared that sex and academic status were used as independent overall categorizations as well, although superordinate categorization eects were caused for a large part (75±87 per cent) by name-confusions within subcategories, which suggests a preference for the use of subtypes over superordinate categories.