UC Santa Barbara

How do people determine what an ingroup looks like? Past research using a minimal group paradigm suggests that people imbue ingroups with physical features that convey desirable attributes. In this research, I used the classic overestimator versus underestimator and Klee versus Kandinsky minimal group paradigms and the reverse correlation method to examine various top-down influences of mere group membership on face representations of ingroup and outgroup, beyond the well-documented ingroup positivity effect. In Study 1a, I show that participants represented ingroup faces more favorably than outgroup faces, but also represented faces of overestimator and underestimator groups differently. In fact, the category label effect was larger than the ingroup positivity effect. In Study 1b, I demonstrate that faces of Klee and Kandinsky groups were also represented differently at the group-level, but not at the participant-level. This lack of category label effect was in turn related to a stronger ingroup positivity effect. In Study 2a and 2b, I show that people were more likely to use their own self-image to mentally represent ingroup faces than outgroup faces. In Study 3a and 3b, I show that self-evaluation was related to the extent to which ingroup positivity bias was expressed in people’s mental representation of ingroup and outgroup faces, more so than group-evaluation, and also provide a potential alternative explanation for the findings from Study 2. Together, this work advances but does not upend understanding of minimal group effects. I robustly replicate the ingroup positivity effect in face representations. At the same time, I demonstrated other top-down influences of such as category labels as well as the self-knowledge play on how people visually represent faces of minimal ingroup and outgroup members.