VALIDATION OF POLEMICAL SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS - INTRODUCING THE INTERGROUP DIFFERENTIATION OF HETEROGENEITY

Three studies explore the intergroup differentiation of heterogeneity as a strategy for validation of polemical social representations. The first study examines this strategy of validation in a context of simpl e intergroup differentiation. In the second study the context is one o f open political conflict The last study, also in a political context, introduces the perceptions of the relations between the groups as an independent variable. The first two studies show that the subjects ado pted a strategy of validating the polemical representations of the ing roup and invalidating the representations of the outgroup consisting o f perceiving the ingroup as psychologically diverse and the outgroup a s psychologically more homogeneous, with values being perceived as equ ally homogeneous in the two groups (study I) or homogeneous in the ing roup and diverse in the outgroup (study 2). In the third study results shaw that a salient perception of positive interdependence between th e groups is accompanied by homogenization of the members of the ingrou p who share the prototypical representations of the ingroup. When ther e is a salient perception of negative interdependence, the members of the ingroup and the outgroup who share the prototypical position of th e ingroup are perceived as heterogeneous. Results ave discussed in the context of social representations theory and social psychology of soc ial validation of knowledge.