THE EFFECTS OF GROUP MEMBERSHIP AND SOCIAL-CONTEXT ON INFORMATION ORGANIZATION

Self-categorization theory posits that the perception of group members is flexible and determined by the comparative social context as well as by group membership. Subjects read about either four ingroup or out group target persons in the context of four additional stimulus person s who were members of either the same group as the target persons (int ragroup context) or the other group (intergroup context). Individualiz ed and attribute-wise information organization was assessed on the bas is of information clustering in free recall. As predicted, differentia l processing of ingroup information occurred as a function of the sali ent social context; in an intragroup context, ingroup information was organized significantly more by person than in an intergroup context. Conversely, ingroup information tended to be clustered more by attribu te in an intergroup than in an intragroup context. Clustering of outgr oup information was not sensitive to changes in the social context. Th e results indicate that the perception of group members may be based o n more than group membership alone. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.