THE EFFECT OF COMPARATIVE CONTEXT ON CENTRAL TENDENCY AND VARIABILITYJUDGMENTS AND THE EVALUATION OF GROUP CHARACTERISTICS

A study is reported that examines the effects of comparative context o il central tendency and variability judgements of groups, and the eval uation of group characteristics. The central assumption is that these social judgements are not absolute, bur depend on the social context i n which they are grounded. it is demonstrated that people vary their d escription of the ingroup in terms of central tendency and group varia bility as a function of the possibility of comparing the ingroup favou rably with other groups in the judgemental task. In a similar vein, it is shown that the evaluation of an ingroup characteristic is not fixe d, but depends on its relative favourability within the comparative co ntext. The results of this study clearly demonstrate the importance of comparative context in group perception and are discussed with refere nce to self-categorization theory and alternative models of social jud gement. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.