'The Queen Mother and I': Assimilation, contrast, and attitudes toward social groups

We examined whether social group attitudes are subject to context effects. Tt was hypothesised that manipulating the context in which a group exemplar was rendered accessible would produce different effects when subjects were subsequently asked to evaluate the exemplar's group. In our study, all sub jects first expressed their opinion about the (popular) Queen Mother before indicating their attitude toward the British Royal Family. In the 'non-red undant' condition, the two questions were structured such that rite Queen M other was expected to be included in individuals' representation of the Roy al Family, leading to a high correlation between the two judgements and a f avourable evaluation of the group. Conversely, in the 'redundant' condition , the questions were structured such that the Queen Mother was expected to be expected from individuals' representation of the Royal Family, lending t o a lower correlation between the judgements and a less favourable evaluati on of the group. The results supported the hypothesis, and are consistent w ith the Schwarz and Bless (1992a,b) inclusion/exclusion model of assimilati on and contrast. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.