Projekt

Social psychologists have for long noticed the ease and robustness with which adults develop discriminatory attitudes and behaviors that favor their ?in-group" (those similar to them) and undermine their ?out-group" (those different from them). From a cognitive point of view, one of the key foundations of such inter-group biases is the so-called ?out-group homogeneity effect" ? the tendency to represent in- and out-group members in fundamentally different ways, such that the former are primarily seen as distinct individuals whereas the latter are seen as tokens of a homogeneous type. This effect arguably serves as a catalyst for stereotyping, group-based prejudice, and de-humanization. From an ontogenetic point of view, little is known so far about the developmental origins of these dual representations. Are they a product of social construction and thus emerge over an extended period of time on the basis of socialization processes? Or might they constitute more deeply rooted features of the way we represent the social world, with origins going back to infancy? The goal of the present project is to address this question by investigating the characteristic signatures associated with representations of in- vs. out-group members in infancy. By conducting studies in identical form with infants in Israel and Germany (where culturally, ethnic diversity and segregation is stronger in the former than in the latter), it will be possible, in addition, to address the cross-cultural question whether the nature and degree of such signatures of group representations are influenced by cultural and linguistic experience.

• Prof. Dr. Hannes Rakoczy

  Universität Göttingen
  Fachbereich Psychologie
  Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie
  Abteilung 4 Biologische Entwicklungspsychologie
  Göttingen
  

• Prof. Gil Diesendruck

  Bar Ilan University
  Department Psychology
  Ramat-Gan
  Israel