CROSS CATEGORIZATION EFFECTS IN WORK SETTINGS

Abstract

In research on cross categorization effects, two models have been proposed. One is the additive model which prescribes only the two main effect of social categorizations. The other is the nonadditive model which prescribes interaction between the given social categorizations. Several studies supported the additive model. In my study, 56 Chinese final year undergraduates worked on two tasks. In Task I, they judged their attraction toward several two-person groups formed by race and gender of each person. Task II solicited difference in preference between the two persons, each described by race and gender. Each task was completed two times to analyze the data at the level of the individual participants. Social identity theory predicts that people prefer their in-group to the out-group. This prediction held with the race category but not with the gender category. Men preferred out-group woman to man, women liked both gender equally. Data analyzed at the group level supported the additive model for Task I but not for Task IL Individual participant analyses further indicated that some obeyed the additive model but others followed the nonadditive model. Most of them were, however, inconsistent across tasks in using the model. However, the majority relied on only one social category of race in making their decision. This supports the notion of people being "cognitive miser." The inconsistency across tasks is indicative of the ''top of the head" phenomenon which implies that we form impression of others on the basis of what is most salient in a given context. I conclude that race is used uniformly by men and women but gender is used differently by men and women while choosing their colleagues