Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T21:22:38.393Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - Self as Sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2010

By
Joachim I. Krueger ,
Melissa Acevedo  and
Jordan M. Robbins
Edited by
Klaus Fiedler  and
Peter Juslin
Joachim I. Krueger
Affiliation:
Brown University
Melissa Acevedo
Affiliation:
Brown University
Jordan M. Robbins
Affiliation:
Brown University
Klaus Fiedler
Affiliation:
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany
Peter Juslin
Affiliation:
Umeå Universitet, Sweden
Get access

Summary

The popular imagination owes many stimulating images to the science fiction series Star Trek. Among the more disturbing ones are the Borg, an alien life form operating “under a collective consciousness, whereby the thoughts of each drone are interconnected with all others in what is referred to as the' Hive Mind,' eliminating any sense of individuality.” The image of the Borg evokes familiar human concerns. For decades, sociologists and social psychologists sought to understand the psychology of the masses or crowds. Crowds came to be feared both for what they could do to others (e.g., lynch them) and for what they could do to the people within them (e.g., lead them toward self-destruction). Members of crowds were thought to be depersonalized as a result of the homogenization of their thoughts and behaviors (Le Bon, 1895).

In modern parlance, the idea that crowds have minds of their own is an argument regarding an emergent property. Emergent properties are irreducible; they cannot be understood with reference to the properties of their constituent elements. Social scientists studying crowds would be wasting their time trying to understand the behavior of the collective from the behavior of a sample of individuals. Nonetheless, this is what F. H. Allport (1924) proposed. He suggested that the analysis of collective behavior should begin with an analysis of individual behavior because “the individual in the crowd behaves just like he would behave alone, only more so” (p. 295, emphasis in the original).

Type
Chapter
Information
Information Sampling and Adaptive Cognition , pp. 353 - 378
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acevedo, M., & Krueger, J. I. (unpublished). Differential social projection accounts for ingroup bias in the minimal group paradigm. Brown University
Acevedo, M., & Krueger, J. I. (2004). Two egocentric sources of the decision to vote: The voter's illusion and the belief in personal relevance. Political Psychology, 25, 115–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agostinelli, G., Sherman, S. J., Presson, C. C., & Chassin, L. (1992). Self-protection and self-enhancement biases in estimates of population prevalence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 631–642CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alicke, M. D., & Largo, E. (1995). The role of the self in the false consensus effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 28–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allport, F. H. (1924). The group fallacy in relation to social science. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 19, 60–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allport, F. H. (1962). A structuronomic conception of behavior: Individual and collective. I. Structural theory and the master problem of social psychology. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 64, 3–30CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Allport, G. W. (1950). The nature of personality. Cambridge, MA: Addison-WesleyGoogle Scholar
Ames, D. R. (2004). Inside the Mind Reader's Tool Kit: Projection and Stereotyping in Mental State Inference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 340–353CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Asendorpf, J. B., & Ostendorf, F. (1998). Is self-enhancement healthy? Conceptual, psychometric, and empirical analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 955–966CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Asch, S. E. (1952). Social psychology. New York: Prentice-HallCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. Garden City, NY: DoubledayGoogle Scholar
Biernat, M., Vescio, T. K., & Green, M. L. (1996). Selective self-stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 1194–1209CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 475–482CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, M. B. (1999). The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love or out-group hate?Journal of Social Issues, 55, 429–444CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, M. B., & Weber, J. G. (1994). Self-evaluation effects of interpersonal versus intergroup social comparison. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 268–275CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, R. J., & Turner, J. C. (1981). Interpersonal and intergroup behaviour. In Turner, J. C. & Giles, H. (Eds.), Intergroup behaviour (pp. 33–65). Oxford: BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Cadinu, M. R., & Amicis, L. (1999). The relationship between the self and the ingroup: When having a common conception helps. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 58, 226–232CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cadinu, M. R., & Rothbart, M. (1996). Self-anchoring and differentiation processes in the minimal group setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 661–677CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, F. F., & Kenrick, D. T. (2002). Repulsion or attraction? Group membership and assumed attitude similarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 111–125CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clement, R. W., & Krueger, J. (2000). The primacy of self-referent information in perceptions of social consensus. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 279–299CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clement, R. W., & Krueger, J. (2002). Social categorization moderates social projection. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 219–231CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coats, S., Smith, E. E., Claypool, H. M., & Banner, M. J. (2000). Overlapping mental representations of self and in-group: Reaction time evidence and its relationship with explicit measures of group identification. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 304–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, R. M. (1989). Statistical criteria for establishing a truly false consensus effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, R. M. (1990). The potential nonfalsity of the false consensus effect. In Hogarth, R. M. (Ed.), Insights in decision making: A tribute to Hillel J. Einhorn (pp. 179–199). Chicago: University of Chicago PressGoogle Scholar
Dawes, R. M., McTavish, J., & Shaklee, H. (1977). Behavior, communication, and assumptions about other people's behavior in a commons dilemma situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarde, G. (1895). Les lois de l'imitation; étude sociologique. Paris: AlcanGoogle Scholar
Dunning, D., & Hayes, A. F. (1996). Evidence for egocentric comparison in social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 862–871CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1901). Les règles de la méthode sociologique. Paris: AlcanGoogle Scholar
Elwood, C. A. (1920). An introduction to social psychology. New York: AppletonGoogle Scholar
Engelmann, D., & Strobel, M. (2000). The false consensus effect disappears when representative information and monetary incentives are given. Experimental Economics, 3, 241–260CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiedler, K. (2000). Beware of samples! A cognitive-ecological sampling approach to judgment biases. Psychological Review, 107, 659–676CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forer, B. R. (1949). The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstration of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 44, 118–123CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freud, S. (1921). Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse. Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer VerlagGoogle Scholar
Gaertner, L., & Insko, C. (2000). Intergroup discrimination in the minimal group paradigm: Categorization, reciprocation, or both?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 77–94CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gaertner, S. L., Mann, J., Murrell, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (2001). Reducing intergroup bias: The benefits of recategorization. In Hogg, M. A. & Abrams, D. (Eds.), Intergroup relations: Essential readings (pp. 356–369). Philadelphia: Psychology PressGoogle Scholar
Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (1999). The spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency: Egocentric assessments of how we are seen by others. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 165–168CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslam, S. A., Oakes, P. J., & Turner, J. C. (1996). Social identity, self-categorization, and the perceived homogeneity of ingroups and out-groups: The interaction between social motivation and cognition. In Sorrentino, R. M. & Higgins, E. T. (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition, Vol. 3: The interpersonal context (pp. 182–222). New York: GuilfordGoogle Scholar
Hayek, F. A. v. (1952). The counter revolution in science. Chicago: University of Chicago PressGoogle Scholar
Hewstone, M., Rubin, M., & Willis, H. (2002). Intergroup bias. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 575–604CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hofstätter, P. R. (1957). Gruppendynamik. Die Kritik der Massenpsychologie. Hamburg: RowohltGoogle Scholar
Hogg, M. A., & Abrams, D. (1988). Social identifications: A social psychology of intergroup relations and group processes. London: RoutledgeGoogle Scholar
Hogg, M. A., & Turner, J. C. (1987). Intergroup behaviour, self-stereotyping and the salience of social categories. British Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 325–340CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenny, D. A., & Winquist, L. (2001). The measurement of interpersonal sensitivity: Consideration of design, components, and unit of analysis. In Hall, J. & Bernieri, F. (Eds.), Interpersonal sensitivity: Theory and measurement (pp. 265–302). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
Krueger, J. (1998). Enhancement bias in the description of self and others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 505–516CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, J. I. (2003). Return of the ego – self-referent information as a filter for social prediction: Comment on Karniol (2003). Psychological Review, 110, 585–590CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, J., & Clement, R. W. (1994). The truly false consensus effect: An ineradicable and egocentric bias in social perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 596–610CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, J., & Clement, R. W. (1996). Inferring category characteristics from sample characteristics: Inductive reasoning and social projection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125, 52–68CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, J., & Rothbart, M. (1988). Use of categorical and individuating information in making inferences about personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 187–195CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, J., & Stanke, D. (2001). The role of self-referent and other-referent knowledge in perceptions of group characteristics. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 878–888CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulig, J. W. (2000). Effects of forced exposure to a hypothetical population on false consensus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 629–636CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bon, G. (1895). Psychologie des foules. Paris: AlcanGoogle Scholar
Leonardelli, G. J., & Brewer, M. B. (2001). Minority and majority discrimination: When and why?Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 468–485CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linville, P. W., Fischer, G. W., & Salovey, P. (1989). Perceived distributions of the characteristics of in-group and out-group members: Empirical evidence and a computer simulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 165–188CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locksley, A., Borgida, E., Brekke, N., & Hepburn, C. (1980). Sex stereotypes and social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 821–831CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDougall, W. (1920). The group mind, a sketch of the principles of collective psychology, with some attempt to apply them to the interpretation of national life and character. New York: PutnamCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Migdal, M., Hewstone, M., & Mullen, B. (1998). The effects of crossed categorization on intergroup evaluations: A meta-analysis. British Journal of Social Psychology, 37, 303–324CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullen, B., Brown, R., & Smith, C. (1992). Ingroup bias as a function of salience, relevance, and status: An integration. European Journal of Social Psychology, 22, 103–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mussweiler, T. (2003). Comparison processes in social judgment: Mechanisms and consequences. Psychological Review, 110, 472–489CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mussweiler, T., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2002). I know you are, but what am I? Self-evaluative consequences of judging in-group and out-group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 19–32CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Onorato, R. S., & Turner, J. C. (2002). Challenging the primacy of the personal self: The case for depersonalized self-conception. In Kashima, Y., Foddy, M., & Platow, M. J. (Eds.), Self and identity: Personal, social, and symbolic (pp. 145–178). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
Onorato, R. S., & Turner, J. C. (2004). Fluidity of the self-concept: the shift from personal to social identity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 257–278CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otten, S. (2002a). “Me” and “us” or “us” and “them”? – The self as heuristic for defining novel ingroups. In: Stroebe, W. & Hewstone, M. (Eds.), European Review of Social Psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 1–33). Philadelphia: Psychology PressGoogle Scholar
Otten, S. (2002b). I am positive and so are we: The self as a determinant of favoritism toward novel ingroups. In Forgas, J. P. & Williams, K. D. (Eds.), The social self: Cognitive, interpersonal, and intergroup perspectives (pp. 273–291. New York: Psychology PressGoogle Scholar
Otten, S., & Wentura, D. (2001). Self-anchoring and in-group favoritism: An individual profiles analysis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 525–532CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickett, C. L., Bonner, B. L., & Coleman, J. M. (2002). Motivated self-stereotyping: Heightened assimilation and differentiation needs result in increased levels of positive and negative self-stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 543–562CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Popper, K. R. (1957). The poverty of historicism. New York: Harper & RowGoogle Scholar
Rabbie, J. M., & Horwitz, M. (1969). Arousal of ingroup–out-group bias by a chance win or loss. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 269–277CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rabbie, J. M., Schot, J. C., Visser, L. (1989). Social identity theory: A conceptual and empirical critique from the perspective of a behavioral interaction model. European Journal of Social Psychology, 19, 171–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reich, W. (1933). Massenpsychologie des Faschismus. Copenhagen: Verlag für SexualpolitikGoogle Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1951). The rise of scientific philosophy. Berkeley: University of California PressGoogle Scholar
Robbins, J. M., & Krueger, J. I. (unpublished). Social projection among ethnic majorities and minorities. Brown University
Robbins, J. M., & Krueger, J. I. (2005). Social projection to ingroups and outgroups: A review and meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 32–47CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenthal, R., & DiMatteo, M. R. (2001). Meta-analysis: Recent developments in quantitative methods for literature reviews. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 59–82CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Russell, B. (1955). Nightmares of eminent persons. New York: Simon & SchusterGoogle Scholar
Schimel, J., Greenberg, J., & Martens, A. (2003). Evidence that projection of a feared trait can serve a defensive function. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 969–979CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherif, M. (1936). The psychology of social norms. New York: HarperGoogle Scholar
Sighele, S. (1892). La foule criminelle: Essai de psychologie collective. Paris: AlcanGoogle Scholar
Simon, B., Glässner-Bayerl, B., & Stratenwerth, I. (1991). Stereotyping and self-stereotyping in a natural intergroup context: The case of heterosexual and homosexual men. Social Psychology Quarterly, 54, 252–266CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, B., Pantaleo, G., & Mummendey, A. (1995). Unique individual or interchangeable group member? The accentuation of intragroup differences versus similarities as an indicator of the individual self versus the collective self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 106–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, E. R., Coats, S., & Walling, D. (1999). Overlapping mental representations of self, in-group, and partner: Further response time evidence and a connectionist model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 873–882CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, E. R., & Henry, S. (1996). An in-group becomes part of the self: Response time evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 635–642CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spears, R., & Doosje, B., & Ellemers, N. (1997). Self-stereotyping in the face of threats to group status and distinctiveness: The role of group identification. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 538–553CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sumner, W. G. (1906). Folkways. Boston: GinnGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H., Billig, M. G., Bundy, R. P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 1–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Worchel, S. & Austin, W. G. (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Chicago: Nelson-HallGoogle Scholar
Tropp, L. R., & Wright, S. C. (2001). Ingroup identification as the inclusion of ingroup in the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 585–600CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford: BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Turner, J. C., & Onorato, R. S. (1999). Social identity, personality, and the self-concept: A self-categorization perspective. In Tyler, T. R., Kramer, R. M., & John, O. P. (Eds.), The psychology of the social self (pp. 11–46). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
Watkins, J. W. N. (1952). Ideal types and historical explanation. British Journal for the Philosphy of Science, 3, 22–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wundt, W. M. (1920). 1929 Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. Leipzig: EngelmannGoogle Scholar
Yamagishi, T., & Kiyonari, T. (2000). The group as the container of generalized reciprocity. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63, 116–132CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×