Abstract

This study tested whether a Korean group of darker-skinned members would be perceived as higher in entitativity than a group of lighter-skinned members, and whether relationship between members’ skin tone and entitativity would be serially mediated by perceived socioeconomic status (SES) and perceived collectivism/individualism. We pre-registered the hypotheses, procedures, and measurement and analysis methods of this study. We also report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in the study. Participants were assigned to either the darker-skinned or the lighter-skinned condition, and rated perceived SES and collectivism/individualism of three targets. Next, participants were presented with the group image consisting of the three targets and read the description of the group, and answered to questions on perceived entitativity of the group. The results showed that no significant serial mediation effect of the perceived SES and collectivism/individualism tendency on the relationship between skin tone and entitativity, nor significant effects on any of the five factors of entitativity (common fate, common goals, closeness, impermeability, groupness). In an exploratory analysis, there were significant serial mediation effects on the relationship between participants’ perceiving skin tone lightness of the targets and the five factors of entitativity, in the opposite direction to our expectations: The lighter participants perceived the targets’ skin tone, the higher was targets’ SES and collectivism, and finally, higher collectivism led to higher perceptions of common goals, closeness, and groupness of the group.