Comparing person and people perception: Multiple group members do not increase stereotype priming

L.M. Persson, M. Golubickis, D. Dublas, N. Mastnak, J.K. Falbén, D. Tsamadi, S. Caughey, S. Svensson, C.N. Macrae

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A characteristic feature of daily life is encountering people in groups. Surprisingly, however, at least during the initial stages of processing, research has focused almost exclusively on the construal of single individuals. As such, it remains unclear whether person and people (i.e., group) perception yield comparable or divergent outcomes. Addressing this issue, here we explored a core social-cognitive topic—stereotype activation—by presenting both single and multiple facial primes in a sequential-priming task. In addition, the processes underlying task performance were probed using a drift diffusion model analysis. Based on prior work, it was hypothesised that multiple (vs. single) primes would increase stereotype-based responding. Across two experiments, a consistent pattern of results emerged. First, stereotype priming was insensitive to the number of primes that were presented and occurred only at a short prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (i.e., 250 ms). Second, priming was underpinned by a bias towards congruent (vs. incongruent) prime-target responses. Collectively these findings advance understanding of the emergence and origin of stereotype priming during person and people perception.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1418-1431
Number of pages14
JournalQuarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Volume74
Issue number8
Early online date12 Apr 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2021

Keywords

  • Stereotype activation
  • ensemble coding
  • people perception
  • person perception
  • priming

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