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Five (Plus or Minus One): The point at which an assemblage of individuals is perceived as a single, unified group

Taylor & Francis
The Journal of Social Psychology
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Abstract

At what point is an assemblage of individuals perceived as a single, unified group? And how do demographic characteristics of these individuals influence perceptions of groupness? To answer these questions, we conducted four studies in which participants viewed sets of images that varied in the number of individuals depicted, and then identified the number of persons at which the assemblage was perceived to be a single, unified group. Across four studies, we manipulated the gender and race composition of the persons depicted. The results suggest that five (plus or minus one) people constitutes the point at which a collection of persons is perceived less like separate individuals and more like a single, unified group. However, the demographic complexity of the assemblage also influences perceived groupness. The number of individuals required to be perceived as a unified group is larger for diverse, compared to homogeneous, assemblages of individuals.
... Study 3. Study 1 found an advantage on ingroup inferences when the ingroup and outgroup consisted of two personas each, while Study 2 found no such effect with only one persona per group. This pattern may be related to perceiving the sources as part of groups 51 . To test the robustness of the finding from Study 1, we conducted a pre-registered (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ QMZ32; 28 July 2022) replication study in an independent sample of 68 US-Americans that followed the procedures employed in Study 1 with two improvements. ...
... Our data also showed that no ingroup advantage for inference performance was observed when only one persona per group was used (Study 2). This suggests that this advantage might be dependent on the perception of group 51 . However, this needs to be taken with caution as previously reported mnemonic ingroup advantages have often been found with liked individuals as well 10 . ...
... p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.14). Inferences were less accurate (ABs: t(67) = 8.51, p < 0.001, d = 1.03, 95%CI[0.73, 1.33]; BCs: t(67) = 10.58, ...
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... four or five). However, we are currently investigating how the size and homogeneity aspects of the others influences the consequences of the one-among-others effect described above ( Stocks, López-Pérez & Oceja, 2016). Second, our findings suggest that the willingness to increase the welfare of others regarded as separate individuals could be added to the proposed list of helper's motives. ...
Chapter
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Article
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Chapter
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