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

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• Social Cognition

Background:

• Everyday life involves group encounters, yet research primarily examines single-person perception.
• The impact of group versus individual perception on social cognition, like stereotype activation, is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether perceiving people in groups versus as individuals influences stereotype activation.
• To explore the cognitive processes underlying stereotype activation in person and people perception.

Main Methods:

• A sequential-priming task was employed, presenting participants with single or multiple facial primes.
• Drift diffusion modeling was used to analyze the underlying decision-making processes.
• Stereotype activation was measured by response patterns to targets following primes.

Main Results:

• Stereotype priming effects were observed but were not influenced by the number of primes presented (single vs. multiple).
• Priming effects occurred specifically at a short prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony of 250 ms.
• Response patterns indicated a bias towards congruent prime-target associations, driving the priming effect.

Conclusions:

• Stereotype activation during social perception is robust to whether individuals or groups are perceived.
• The findings highlight the role of response biases in the emergence of stereotype priming.
• This research advances the understanding of stereotype activation in both person and people perception contexts.