Infants' biased individuation of in-group members

Adi Zehavi Fogiel, Jonas Hermes, Hannes Rakoczy, Gil Diesendruck

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Adults tend to construe members of their group as “unique individuals” more than members of other groups. This study investigated whether infants exhibit this tendency, even in regard to unfamiliar arbitrary groups. Ninety-six White 1-year-olds were assigned to an Ingroup, Outgroup, or No-Group condition, based on whether or not they shared two preferences (food and shirt color) with women appearing on video sequences. In the critical trial, infants saw two women (Ingroup, Outgroup, or No-Group) – one at a time – appearing from behind a curtain. The curtain opened to reveal only one woman. Infants in the Ingroup condition looked longer at this display than infants in the other two conditions. This suggests that infants in the Ingroup condition had a stronger expectation than those in the other two conditions that there would be two women behind the curtain. In other words, infants individuated in-group members more than out-group members.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105561
JournalCognition
Volume239
Early online date14 Jul 2023
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Funding

We would like to thank all infants who participated as well as their parents. We also like to thank Roni Tibon, Odelya Lifshits, Tamar Dolman, Elinor Sarfati, Moria Markovich, Yarden Elias, and Nurit Amar, for helping recruit and test the infants. This joint research project was financially supported by the State of Lower-Saxony, Hannover, Germany. The work of Adi Zehavi Fogiel was further supported by a Bar-Ilan University President's Fellowship. The funders were not involved in any substantive way in the project or the publication process.

FundersFunder number
State of Lower-Saxony

    Keywords

    • Group membership
    • Individuation
    • Infants
    • Intergroup bias

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