CORRELATED VERSUS UNCORRELATED SOCIAL CATEGORIZATIONS - THE EFFECT ONINTERGROUP BIAS

Previous research has shown that independent cross-cutting social cate gories reduce discrimination between groups. However, the effect of co rrelated cross-cutting categories on intergroup relations has not been studied. Female college students who were categorized into two groups on the basis of an art preference task and a dot estimation task were told that there was either no correlation, a moderate correlation, or a high correlation between the two categorizations. On two generalize d measures of bias, subjects exhibited more intergroup bias as the deg ree of correlation between categorizations increased. Furthermore, in the high-correlation condition, subjects exhibited just as much bias a gainst the partial out-group as against the total out-group. A situati onally specific measure of bias failed to yield the same pattern of re sults. Overall, the results suggest that the degree of correlation bet ween cross-cutting categorizations has an important impact on intergro up bias.