The effects of entitativity beliefs on implicit comparisons between group members

The present research indicates that perceivers' beliefs about a group's lev el of entitativity can affect the extent to which group members are implici tly compared with one another To find evidence for these implicit compariso ns, a variation of the Ebbinghaus illusion was used. Experiment 1 demonstra ted that an identical set effaces produced a greater illusion (indicating g reater implicit comparison) when the faces were said to represent fraternit y/sorority members than when the faces were said to rep resent men or women born in the month of May. Experiment 2 replicated these results and also d emonstrated that participants' prior beliefs about how entitative these gro ups are predicted the magnitude of the Ebbinghaus illusion produced. These findings indicate that entitativity beliefs can have implicit effects on ju dgement such that members of highly entitative groups are subject to greate r intragroup comparison than are members of nonentitative groups.