Judging others from nationality and race: Are people pragmatic intuitive politicians?

Abstract

In Experiment 1, Chinese and Malays in Singapore (N = 256) judged a stranger described by nationality and race. Consistent with the literature, members of the majority group assimilated the minority groups of their in-group by nationality, a defensive in-group bias. Those from the minority group de-emphasized nationality over race in their evaluations of the stranger, a category dominance effect. Experiment 2 (N = 192) replicated these findings, using a within-participants design. Moreover, participants instructed to act counter to their numerical status (e.g., Malays acting as Chinese in Singapore, Chinese acting as Malays in Singapore) did well in reproducing the hypothesized models. As predicted by the model of pragmatic intuitive politicians, participants of the minority group judged others according to their temporarily activated numerical status. In contrast, those of the majority group continued with their original mindset. Implications for the findings are discussed for the models of crossed categorization effects.