Prejudice and Intergroup Attributions: The Role of Personalization and Performance Feedback

Nurcan Ensari (1) , Norman Miller (2)

1 Alliant International University
2 USC - University of Southern California

We manipulated personalization and group performance feedback to examine their effects on intergroup attributions and prejudice. Following high or low levels of personalized contact with a typical out-group member, participants learned either that the out-group had generally succeeded or that the in-group had failed at the participant's task. Under high personalization and out-group success, participants exhibited less attributional bias in explaining the success of new out-group job applicants and less prejudice toward them than those under low personalization. By contrast, when one's in-group had failed, we found similar favorability toward in-group and out-group job applicants. Importantly, when ability attributions and friendliness were separately combined with subjective personalization, both combinations mediated the effects of manipulated personalization in reducing prejudice toward new out-group persons.

Mots clés: attribution; feedback; personalization; prejudice

Nurcan Ensari, Norman Miller. Prejudice and Intergroup Attributions: The Role of Personalization and Performance Feedback. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 2005, 8 (4), pp.391-410. ⟨10.1177/1368430205056467⟩. ⟨hal-00571614⟩