In-group favoritism in the minimal group setting was hypothesized to be a function of 2 processes: a tendency to base in-group judgments on the self (self-anchoring) and a tendency to assume 1 group to be opposite of the other (differentiation). In the first 3 experiments, in which the order of rating the self and target group was varied, was categorized and uncategorized participants were given trait information about 1 group and were asked to estimate the level of those traits in the other group. In-group judges tended to base group ratings on the self, whereas out-group and uncategorized judges inferred the 2 groups to be opposite of one another. Experiment 4 attempted to directly assess the direction of inference between self and in-group by giving feedback about self or in-group on unfamiliar dimensions and found that participants were more willing to generalize from self to in-group than from in-group to self.

This study was conducted to test whether group identification (importance of the group to the individual) covaried with individual-group similarity on problem behavior; and whether group identification moderated peer group influence on the individual's development of delinquent behavior across a 1-year period. The level of reciprocated nominations within the individual's self-nominated group was controlled for in all analyses. Participants were 190 sixth and seventh graders (during the first year of the study) from the north of Italy. Level of reciprocated nominations within the group, but not identification, was found to covary with individual-group behavioral similarity (group behavior interacted with reciprocity of group nominations in predicting individual behavior). Group identification, but not reciprocated nominations, was found to moderate peer group influence on the individual's change in delinquent behavior, across 1 year. The individual's peer status within the classroom, level of reciprocated nominations, and gender all were related to the individual's level of group identification. Results are discussed in terms of understanding peer group influence on the individual.

The present work looks at the self-stereotyping process and reveals its underlying cognitive structure. When this process occurs, it is necessarily the result of an overlap between the representation of the ingroup and that of the self. Two studies measured this overlap and showed that it was higher on stereotype-relevant than on stereotype-irrelevant traits, it involved both positive and negative stereotypical traits, and it implied a deduction-to-the-self process of ingroup stereotypical dimensions. Moreover, the status of one's social group was found to be a key variable in this process, showing that self-stereotyping is limited to low-status group members. Indeed, results of Study 2 showed that the overlap between the self and the ingroup for high-status group members was the result of an induction-to-the-ingroup process of personal characteristics. Implications for research on people's self-construal are discussed.

Self-stereotyping is a process by which people who belong to a stigmatised social group tend to describe themselves more with both positive and negative stereotypical personality traits compared to traits that are irrelevant to the ingroup stereotype. A study is presented that shows how self-stereotyping serves to maintain psychological well-being among Southern Italian participants who suffer from an historical social stigma. Following the rejection-identification model (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999), perceptions of prejudice are directly negatively linked with well-being, but are compensated for via increased identification with the minority group that has a positive impact on psychological well-being. In the present study we propose that the compensatory role of ingroup identification on well-being is completely mediated by minority members' tendency to self-stereotype. A structural equation analysis provided support for this hypothesis. The present results highlight the importance of the self-stereotyping process in maintaining psychological well-being for members of low-status groups.L'auto stéréotypie est un processus par lequel des individus appartenant à un groupe social stigmatisé tendent à se décrire plus avec des traits de personnalité stéréotypés positifs et négatifs qu'avec des traits ne correspondant pas au stéréotype de l'in group. La présente étude montre comment l'auto stéréotype sert à maintenir un bien-être psychologique chez des sujets italiens du sud qui souffrent d'un stigmate social historique. Selon le modèle de l'identificationrejet (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999), certaines perceptions du préjugé sont directement et négativement liées au bien-être mais sont compensées par une identification accrue au groupe minoritaire qui a un impact positif sur le bien-être psychologique. Dans la présente étude nous proposons l'hypothèse suivante: le rôle compensatoire de l'identification à l'in group sur le bien-être est complètement lié à la tendance à l'auto-stéréotype des membres du groupe minoritaire. L'utilisation du modèle d'équation structurelle confirme cette hypothèse. Les résultats soulignent l'importance du processus d'auto-stéréotype dans le maintien du bien-être psychologique des membres de groupe de faible statut.

Women are surprisingly underrepresented in the chess world, representing less that 5% of registered tournament players worldwide and only 1% of the world's grand masters. In this paper it is argued that gender stereotypes are mainly responsible for the underperformance of women in chess. Forty-two male-female pairs, matched for ability, played two chess games via Internet. When players were unaware of the sex of opponent (control condition), females played approximately as well as males. When the gender stereotype was activated (experimental condition), women showed a drastic performance drop, but only when they were aware that they were playing against a male opponent. When they (falsely) believed to be playing against a woman, they performed as well as their male opponents. In addition, our findings suggest that women show lower chess-specific self-esteem and a weaker promotion focus, which are predictive of poorer chess performance. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Chess is not only one of the oldest games but it is also, by many, considered the ultimate intellectual sport. Although chess is an intellectual pursuit not requiring physical strength, women are generally considered inferior and they represent less than 5% of registered tournament players worldwide. Currently, the best female player, Judit Polgar, is placed in position 17 of the FIDE ranking (Federation Internationale des Echecs, 2006) and she is also the only woman among the top 100 players of the world. Thus, women seem to be underrepresented as well as underperforming. 1 Why should this be the case? A first step to understand gender differences in chess is to ask what characteristics are predictive of success and whether these characteristics are less common in females. We will only consider general cognitive and motivational factors here and ignore the specific tactical and strategic skills that develop as a function of chess training, including the striking ability of expert chess players to quickly capture the gist of highly complex chess positions (de Groot & Gobet, 1996; Ross, 2006).European Journal of Social Psychology Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 231-245 (2008) Charness and Gerchak (1996) have argued that women's underrepresentation among top ranks is simply a function of relative participation rates, since extreme scores tend to increase disproportionally as population size increases.