THE PERCEPTION OF AN OUT-GROUP AFTER PROVOCATION BY ONE OF ITS MEMBERS

How provocation by a single out-group member exacerbates perceptions o f out-group dissimilarity was examined. Male American college students provoked by a Latvian college student not only perceived him as dissi milar from their own group of American college students but also perce ived other Latvians (but not Senegalans, an irrelevant out-group) as d issimilar from American college students. Drawing negative inferences about the Latvian provocateur was correlated with perceiving other Lat vians as dissimilar.