Group entitativity and group perception: Associations between physical features and psychological judgment

Two experiments tested whether the perceived entitativity of groups (i.e., cohesiveness) influences judgments about those groups, in terms of both the ir observable physical properties and underlying psychological traits. Enti tativity was manipulated with groups whose members were similar or dissimil ar in skin color. Experiment 1 demonstrated that beliefs about entitativity elicited more accurate judgments of skin color for entitative than nonenti tative social groups, although memory for individual members of entitative groups was relatively impoverished. Experiment 2 revealed that entitative g roups were Viewed as not only physically similar but also psychologically h omogeneous and elicited strong negative trait and behavioral judgments. Tog ether, these findings suggest that physical properties (e.g., similarity) c an create perceptions of psychological "groupness" that have important cons equences for group perception.