The Roles of Entitativity and Essentiality in Judgments of Collective Responsibility

Two studies investigated the roles of entitativity and essentiality in judgments of collective responsibility. Analyses focused on four group types (i.e. intimacy groups, task groups, social categories, and loose associations). Repeated measures analyses revealed that intimacy groups and task groups were rated highest in entitativity while intimacy groups and social categories were rated highest in essentiality. Correlational analyses revealed that entitativity played a more central role in judgments of collective responsibility for all four group types. However, tests of interaction effects revealed that essentiality moderated the effect of entitativity on blame judgments. Implications of the role of collective responsibility in intergroup relations are discussed.

[1]  B. Lickel,et al.  Varieties of groups and the perception of group entitativity. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[2]  Anthony S. Bryk,et al.  Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods , 1992 .

[3]  M. Taylor,et al.  The development of children's beliefs about social and biological aspects of gender differences. , 1996, Child development.

[4]  Larry E. Toothaker,et al.  Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions , 1991 .

[5]  N. Haslam,et al.  Essentialist beliefs about social categories. , 2000, The British journal of social psychology.

[6]  T. Shultz,et al.  Assigning vicarious responsibility , 1987 .

[7]  V. Hamilton,et al.  Who is responsible? Toward a social psychology of responsibility attribution. , 1978 .

[8]  C. Dweck,et al.  Implicit Theories and Their Role in Judgments and Reactions: A Word From Two Perspectives , 1995 .

[9]  Yuk Fai Cheong,et al.  HLM 6: Hierarchical Linear and Nonlinear Modeling , 2000 .

[10]  N. Haslam,et al.  Are essentialist beliefs associated with prejudice? , 2002, The British journal of social psychology.

[11]  A. Manstead,et al.  Guilty by Association: When One's Group Has a Negative History , 1998 .

[12]  M. Brewer,et al.  Who is this "We"? Levels of collective identity and self representations. , 1996 .

[13]  M. Rothbart,et al.  Category labels and social reality: Do we view social categories as natural kinds? , 1992 .

[14]  L. Doob.  The psychology of social norms. , 1937 .

[15]  Alan Page Fiske,et al.  Structures Of Social Life , 1990 .

[16]  Daniel J Bauer,et al.  Probing Interactions in Fixed and Multilevel Regression: Inferential and Graphical Techniques , 2005, Multivariate behavioral research.

[17]  V. Yzerbyt,et al.  Subjective essentialism and the emergence of stereotypes , 2002 .

[18]  N. Haslam,et al.  Thirsty for H2O? Multiple essences and psychological essentialism , 2003 .

[19]  Jolanda Jetten,et al.  Guilty by Association : When One ' s Group Has a Negative History , 2001 .

[20]  Steven J Sherman,et al.  The spontaneous use of a group typology as an organizing principle in memory. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[21]  J Tudor-Hart,et al.  On the nature of prejudice. , 1961, The Eugenics review.

[22]  S. Asch.  Opinions and Social Pressure , 1955, Nature.

[23]  Gün R. Semin,et al.  Language, interaction and social cognition , 1992 .

[24]  D. Hamilton,et al.  Perceiving the Groupness of Groups: Entitativity, Homogeneity, Essentialism, and Stereotypes. , 2004 .

[25]  B. Lickel,et al.  Elements of a Lay Theory of Groups: Types of Groups, Relational Styles, and the Perception of Group Entitativity , 2001 .

[26]  Toni Schmader,et al.  Vicarious Shame and Guilt , 2005 .

[27]  S. Moscovici,et al.  The group as a polarizer of attitudes. , 1969 .

[28]  Lowell Gaertner,et al.  Perceived ingroup entitativity and intergroup bias: an interconnection of self and others , 1998 .

[29]  B. Malt,et al.  Category Coherence in Cross-Cultural Perspective , 1995, Cognitive Psychology.

[30]  R. Cialdini.  Influence: Science and Practice , 1984 .

[31]  E. S. Knowles,et al.  Group size and the extension of social space boundaries. , 1976 .

[32]  S. Gelman,et al.  What young children think about the relationship between language variation and social difference. , 1997 .

[33]  Jennifer L. Welbourne.  The Impact of Perceived Entitivity on Inconsistency Resolution for Groups and Individuals , 1999 .

[34]  A. D. Jones,et al.  Obedience to Authority , 1974 .

[35]  V. Yzerbyt,et al.  The highs and lows of group homogeneity , 1998, Behavioural Processes.

[36]  V. Yzerbyt,et al.  Stereotypes as explanations: A subjective essentialistic view of group perception. , 1997 .

[37]  C. McGarty,et al.  Determinants of perceived consistency: the relationship between group entitativity and the meaningfulness of categories. , 1995, The British journal of social psychology.

[38]  R. Spears,et al.  Stereotypes as explanations : the formation of meaningful beliefs about social groups , 2002 .

[39]  V. Hamilton,et al.  Distributing Responsibility for Wrongdoing Inside Corporate Hierarchies: Public Judgments in Three Societies , 1996, Law & Social Inquiry.

[40]  Abraham M. Rutchick,et al.  Intuitive theories of group types and relational principles , 2006 .

[41]  H. Kelley,et al.  Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change , 1982 .

[42]  Lawrence A. Hirschfeld,et al.  Do children have a theory of race? , 1995, Cognition.

[43]  Naomi Ellemers,et al.  The social psychology of stereotyping and group life , 1998 .

[44]  D L Medin,et al.  Concepts and conceptual structure. , 1989, The American psychologist.

[45]  D. Hamilton,et al.  Target entitativity: implications for information processing about individual and group targets. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[46]  Olivier Corneille,et al.  The psychology of group perception : perceived variability, entitativity, and essentialism , 2004 .

[47]  Freda Kemp.  Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 2003 .

[48]  S. Gelman,et al.  Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity In Cognition And Culture , 1994 .

[49]  V. Yzerbyt,et al.  The Interplay of Subjective Essentialism and Entitativity in the Formation of Stereotypes , 2001 .

[50]  Scott Atran,et al.  Mapping the mind: Core domains versus scientific theories: Evidence from systematics and Itza-Maya folkbiology , 1994 .

[51]  C. Dweck,et al.  Implicit theories and conceptions of morality , 1997 .

[52]  B. Lickel,et al.  A Case of Collective Responsibility: Who Else Was to Blame for the Columbine High School Shootings? , 2003, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[53]  D. Campbell.  Common fate, similarity, and other indices of the status of aggregates of persons as social entities , 2007 .

[54]  C. Chiu,et al.  The Contribution of the Lay Theories Approach to the Study of Groups , 2001 .