Black sheep and expectancy violation: integrating two models of social judgment

A study of race-based ingroup and outgroup judgment demonstrates the links between two models of social judgment-the 'black sheep' effect (Marques, Yz erbyt & Leyens, 1988) and expectancy-violation theory (Jussim, Coleman & Le rch, 1987). White participants had a live intel action with a Black or Whit e partner who contributed to a team success or failure at a game. Partner j udgments, perceived expectancy violation, and mood changes indicated a patt ern of ingroup polarization, though the race differential was reliable only when targets performed poorly. Consistent with other research, this patter n was most striking among Whites who were highly identified with their raci al group. We suggest that racial identification activates favorable within- group judgment standards which, when violated, produce mood decrements and negative evaluations. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.