Out-group homogeneity

The out-group homogeneity effect is one's perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. 'they are alike; we are diverse'. The term 'outgroup homogeneity effect', 'outgroup homogeneity bias' or 'relative outgroup homogeneity' has been explicitly contrasted with 'outgroup homogeneity' in general, the latter referring to perceived outgroup variability unrelated to perceptions of the ingroup. The out-group homogeneity effect is one's perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. 'they are alike; we are diverse'. The term 'outgroup homogeneity effect', 'outgroup homogeneity bias' or 'relative outgroup homogeneity' has been explicitly contrasted with 'outgroup homogeneity' in general, the latter referring to perceived outgroup variability unrelated to perceptions of the ingroup. The out-group homogeneity effect is part of a broader field of research that examines perceived group variability. This area includes in-group homogeneity effects as well as out-group homogeneity effects, and it also deals with perceived group variability effects that are not linked to in-group/out-group membership, such as effects that are related to the power, status, and size of groups. The out-group homogeneity effect has been found using a wide variety of different social groups, from political and racial groups to age and gender groups. The implications of this effect on stereotyping have been noted. Perceivers tend to have impressions about the diversity or variability of group members around those central tendencies or typical attributes of those group members. Thus, outgroup stereotypicality judgments are overestimated, supporting the view that out-group stereotypes are overgeneralizations. The outgroup homogeneity effect is sometimes referred to as 'outgroup homogeneity bias'. Such nomenclature hints at a broader meta-theoretical debate that is present in the field of social psychology. This debate centres on the validity of heightened perceptions of ingroup and outgroup homogeneity, where some researchers view the homogeneity effect as an example of cognitive bias and error, while other researchers view the effect as an example of normal and often adaptive social perception. Another example of this phenomenon comes from a study where researchers asked 90 sorority members to judge the degree of within-group similarity for their own and 2 other groups. It was found that every participant judged their own sorority members to be more dissimilar than the members of the other groups. In an experiment, researchers revealed that people of other races do seem to look more alike than members of one's own race. When white students were shown faces of a few white and a few black individuals, they later more accurately recognized white faces they had seen and often falsely recognized black faces not seen before. The opposite results were found when subjects consisted of black individuals. This bias was found to be unrelated to the number of group and non-group members individuals knew. One might think that people thought members of their own groups were more varied and different simply because they knew them better and thus have more information about ingroups, but this is actually not the case. The out-group homogeneity bias was found between groups such as 'men' and 'women' who obviously interact frequently. Elsewhere, this difference is attributed to differences in how people store or process in-group versus out-group information. However, this concept has been challenged due to some cases in which in-groups view themselves as homogeneous. Researchers have postulated that such an effect is present when viewing a group as homogeneous helps to promote in-group solidarity. Experiments on the topic found that in-group homogeneity is displayed when people who highly identify with a group are presented with stereotypical information about that group.