Social context effects on social information processing

Abstract

Discussed are social contextual factors that affect the way people process information concerning members of ingroup and outgroup. The specific focus of the paper is on ingroup-outgroup asymmetries in level of abstraction (personal versus social level of categorization) and on the effect of intra- versus intergroup context on the perceptual and memory organization of social information. In addition, the role of ingroup-outgroup status differentials with regard to these phenomena will be addressed. Experimental data are presented and discussed.