Prejudice and Intergroup Attributions: The Role of Personalization and Performance Feedback

Abstract

We manipulated personalization and group performance feedback to examine their effects on intergroup attributions and prejudice. Following high or low levels of personalized contact with a typical out-group member, participants learned either that the out-group had generally succeeded or that the in-group had failed at the participant's task. Under high personalization and out-group success, participants exhibited less attributional bias in explaining the success of new out-group job applicants and less prejudice toward them than those under low personalization. By contrast, when one's in-group had failed, we found similar favorability toward in-group and out-group job applicants. Importantly, when ability attributions and friendliness were separately combined with subjective personalization, both combinations mediated the effects of manipulated personalization in reducing prejudice toward new out-group persons.

Cross-Ethnic Self-Disclosure Buffering Negative Impacts of Prejudice on International Students' Psychological and Social Well-Being

“…The personalization model was first formulated by Brewer and Miller (1984) and later elaborated on in other literature (e.g., Ensari & Miller, 2005;Miller, 2002). Brewer and Miller (1984) discussed three types of ingroup contact: the category-based model, the differentiated model, and the personalization model.…”

“…Taken together, it is estimated that the negative impacts of prejudice should be ameliorated if two distinct groups are related to each other in accordance with the personalized model. Such a personalized relation could be achieved through self-disclosure according to the personalization model (Ensari & Miller, 2005;Miller, 2002). Self-disclosure can be defined as any information exchange regarding the self such as the discloser's thoughts, feelings, and experiences (Derlega & Grzelak, 1979).…”

An Examination of Interracial Contact:The Influence of Cross-Race Interpersonal Efficacy and Affect Regulation

“…Such teambased interactions require increased cooperation (Ensari & Miller, 2005). Getting diverse members to cooperate more effectively may greatly depend upon the mitigation of stereotypes that can have an adverse impact on the quality of work interaction (Devine, Plant, Amodio, Harmon-Jones, & Vance, 2002).…”

“…For example, Ensari and Miller (2005) articulated that individuation of group members from larger group categories is a function of personalized contact and high outgroup salience. Pettigrew (1998) focused attention on the structural factors that are believed to accelerate the establishment of effective cross-group relations in contact conditions.…”

“…A major factor guiding much of the research on prejudice is in-group and out-group membership orientation (see Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, & Rust, 1993;Ensari & Miller, 2005;Tam, Hewstone, Harwood, Voci, & Kenworthy, 2006). In interpersonal evaluations, it is common for individuals to form in-group and out-group distinctions based on salient characteristics of individuals and generalized perceptions of the group as a whole (Allport, 1954).…”