ONLINE AND MEMORY-BASED PROCESSES IN-GROUP VARIABILITY JUDGMENTS

Are group variability judgments made in an on-line or memory-based fas hion? In a first experiment addressing this question, subjects made ju dgments of a group's variability, a judgment intended to be on-line (l iking), or a judgment intended to be memory-based (religiousness). Var iability judgments were made more slowly than on-line judgments and at the same speed as memory-based judgments. Independently of this effec t, in-group variability was judged more rapidly than out-group variabi lity. In addition to replicating these results, a second experiment us ing a minimal group paradigm demonstrated that the amount of similarit y information recalled predicted both the latency and extremity of var iability judgments. We discuss the implications of our conclusion that variability judgments are predominantly memory-based for models of gr oup variability judgments.