Misanthropic Memory for the Behavior of Group Members

Oscar Ybarra, Walter G. Stephan, Linda Schaberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The research reported here examined whether misanthropic memory occurs for groups, that is, whether people best remember negative behaviors of group members that have been dispositionally attributed and positive behaviors that have been situationally attributed. Experiment 1 established a baseline, showing that behaviors that were not associated with attributions displayed an incongruity effect in which behaviors incongruent with prior expectancies were better recalled than were behaviors congruent with prior expectancies. In Experiment 2, attributions were associated with the behaviors used in Experiment 1, resulting in an attenuation of the incongruity effect and the emergence of a strong misanthropy effect. Experiment 3 indicated that misanthropic memory is only found for outgroups and not for ingroups. The implications of the findings for intergroup perception were discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1515-1525
Number of pages11
JournalPersonality and social psychology bulletin
Volume26
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2000
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Psychology

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