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Original Article

Cognitive Components of Ingroup Projection

Prototype Projection Contributes to Biased Prototypicality Judgments in Group Perception

Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000156

This research investigated whether relative ingroup prototypicality (i.e., the tendency to perceive one’s own ingroup as more prototypical of a superordinate category than the outgroup) can result from a prototype-based versus exemplar-based mental representation of social categories, rather than from ingroup membership per se as previously suggested by the ingroup projection model. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that a prototype-based group was perceived as more prototypical of a superordinate category than an exemplar-based group supporting the hypothesis that an intergroup context is not necessary for biased prototypicality judgments. Experiment 3 introduced an intergroup context in a minimal-group-like paradigm. The findings demonstrated that both the kind of cognitive representation and motivational processes contribute to biased prototypicality judgments in intergroup settings.

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