Urada, Stenstrom, & Miller (2008)

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Purpose/Hypothesis: Four studies tested cross categorization beyond the two-group model in which there were more than 2 target categories. The article focused on situations in which there is a dominant group membership (such as dominant ingroup "I" and outgroup "O") and then incrementally adding less-dominant crossed categories: (1) O, Oi, Oii, Oiii and (2) I, Io, Ioo, Iooo. The purpose of the study was to identify how participants will integrate information stemming from multiple group memberships (algebraic or non-algebraic) and also identify the threshold at which the bias towards the targets switches.

Results: Heuristic, threshold based processing of information was supported over algebraic processing. Participants appeared to divide stimuli into “in-group like” and “out-group like” meta-categories (such as O=Oi<Oii=Oiii=I).

Method:

Discussion: Real-world conflicts typically involve a dominant group membership, thus, when dealing with conflicts involving extremely important out-groups, including conflicts with long or intense histories (e.g. American Blacks and Whites; Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis; Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds), we usually will not be able to readily find or create a single in-group membership that is important enough to counterbalance the destructive effects of the out-group membership. In cases such as these, it is important to know if crossing the out-group with multiple less important in-groups is a useful strategy for reducing bias. If this is the case, then interventions can be developed that make salient or even create multiple in-group memberships over a sufficient duration to allow positive personalized interaction to occur.

Topic(s): dominance, beyond two-group model, how people process multiple group memberships, threshold at which shifts from bias,