Overlapping mental representations of self, in-group, and partner: Furtherresponse time evidence and a connectionist model

People's reports on their own characteristics are facilitated by matches wi th their relationship partner's or in-group's perceived characteristics and inhibited by mismatches. These results suggest that mental representations of the self, partner and in-groups overlap. A previously untested implicat ion is that judg mental facilitation or inhibition should operate in the re verse direction as well. The authors find that reports on the characteristi cs of a relationship partner or in-group are facilitated or inhibited by ma tches or mismatches with the participant's own characteristics. The size of the effect for the partner is linearly related to perceived relationship c loseness. These findings, in combination with the previous ones, suggest th at representations of self other people, and social groups are constructed on-line rather than being stable static entities, and the authors advance a connectionist model of this construction process.