Of Caucasians, Asians, and Giraffes: The Influence of Categorization and Target Valence on Social Projection.

Past research has indicated that social projection is moderated by categorization, with more projection onto ingroups than onto outgroups. However, a few studies have reported elevated levels of projection even onto outgroups. In line with recent evidence, we hypothesized that positive target valence is the key feature of conditions that elicit projection onto outgroups.

Social projection increases for positive targets: ascertaining the effect and exploring its antecedents.

Social projection denotes the attribution of characteristics of the self to others and, therefore, increases perceived self-other similarity. The present research tests the assumption that positive but not negative targets elicit social projection. Earlier research has attributed an effect of target valence to mere consistency principles of judgment and has, thus, questioned projection processes to be the origin of self-other similarity.

Like me or like us: is ingroup projection just social projection?

Research has shown abundant evidence for social projection, that is, the tendency to expect similarity between oneself and others (Krueger, 1998a, 1998b). This effect is stronger when others constitute an ingroup instead of an outgroup (Robbins & Krueger, 2005). A different line of research has shown evidence for ingroup projection, that is, the tendency to use ingroup instead of outgroup features to define an inclusive category (Wenzel, Mummendey, Weber, & Waldzus, 2003).

On the crucial role of mental ingroup representation for ingroup bias and the ingroup prototypicality-ingroup bias link.

Previous research suggested that relative ingroup prototypicality is a basis for ingroup bias. To test the boundary conditions of this phenomenon, we hypothesized that people particularly rely on relative ingroup prototypicality as a basis for ingroup bias if the prototypicality information is derived from a homogeneous and simple ingroup representation. We, therefore, predicted increased ingroup bias together with a stronger relation between prototypicality and ingroup bias if the ingroup is formed of consistent group members only.