The central role of entitativity in stereotypes of social categories and task groups

Research indicates that people's intuitive beliefs about groups are organized according to a group typology (B. Lickel, D. L. Hamilton, & S. J. Sherman, 2001). In Study 1, the authors compared and contrasted people's spontaneous cognitive representations of two group types, task groups and social categories. Analyses revealed significant differences as well as commonalities in people's beliefs about the group types. Notably, perceivers used more abstract, enduring language and contextually rich descriptors when characterizing social categories than when describing task groups. In Study 2, the authors investigated the differential roles of distinct group perception variables (entitativity, homogeneity, essence, role differentiation, and agency) as predictors of stereotyping for the different group types. Entitativity and all of the group perception variables significantly predicted stereotyping for both social categories and task groups. However, perceptions of entitativity mediated the association between the group perception variables and stereotypic judgments. These findings demonstrate that laypeople hold stereotype-like mental representations of group types other than social categories and that entitativity plays a crucial mediating role in stereotyping across different types of groups.