Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of social categorization on impression integration. It is hypothesized that individuals which are identified with ingroup occur perspective reduction because individuals judge given informations with one criteria of the ingroup values, so they can't perceive differently the descriptive meaning and the evaluative meaning. On the other hand, it is hypothesized that individuals which are identified with each individual occur perspective extension because individuals judge given informations with two or multi criteria of in-outgroup values, so they can perceive differently the descriptive meaning and the evaluative meaning. To test this hypothesis, subjects were divided into two groups, categorization and decategorization condition. Subjects in categorization condition were manupulated to identify themselves with gender role by making gender category be salient. In contrast, subjects in decategorization condition were manupulated to identify themselves with each individual by eliminating the boundary of male and female categorys. Subjects was given congruent infomation and incongruuent infomation in evaluative meaning and descriptive meaning of personality traits, respectively, and then subjects judged impression in evaluative demension and descriptive demension, respectively. In results, First, according to congruent information analysis, subjects in categorization condition can not perceive differently the evaluative meaning and the descriptive meaning in impression integration. That is, the subjects integrated impression based on evaluative meaning when rating demension was both evaluative dimension and descriptive dimension. In contrast, subjects in decategorization condition can perceived differently the descriptive meaning and the evaluative meaning in impression integration. That is, the subjects integrated impression based on evaluative meaning when rating dimension was evaluative dimension, and based on descriptive meaning when rating dimension was descriptive dimension. Second, according to incongruent information analysis, subjects in categorization condition integrated impression based on evaluative meaning when personality traits consisted of congruent traits in the evaluative meaning and incongruent traits in the descriptive meaning. In contrast, subjects in decategorization condition integrated impression based on descriptive meaning when personality traits consisted of congruent traits in the descriptive meaning and incongruent traits in the evaluative meaning. Therefore the hypotheses in this study were confirmed by the given experimental data.