Departmental Colloquium: Gil Diesendruck (Bar-Ilan University)

An early emerging group-bias in the construal of others

Human history has been plagued by violent inter-group conflicts. Such conflicts are commonly associated with attitudinal group biases – particularly, a tendency to favor “ingroups” over “outgroups” – manifest in adults and children. In this talk, I will present evidence on an early emerging conceptual group bias that arguably gives rise to such discriminatory attitudes. In particular, I will present developmental studies showing that whereas ingroup members tend to be construed as individuals, outgroup members are construed as category exemplars. I will further argue that this conceptual bias does not derive exclusively from cognitive-perceptual processes, but moreover from motivational ones.