The effects of global versus local processing styles on ingroup favouritism

Abstract

As an individual recognises him or herself as a member of a certain social group, social

categorisation takes place. It is the cognitive processes where ‘I’ becomes ‘we’ and other

people in the society are labelled as either ‘us’ or ‘them’. Social categorisation in turn

facilitates comparisons between in- and outgroups. When individuals make comparison

between social groups, they tend to differentiate ingroup members from those of

outgroup. However, it is suggested that mindsets, or information processing styles can

influence how people compare between stimuli. Participants primed with global

processing style were expected to show a reduced differentiation between in- and

outgroup members, which would in turn lead to an overall attenuated ingroup favouritism

as compared with participants who were primed with local processing style. However,

participants primed with local processing style were expected to show an enhanced

differentiation effect, which would in turn lead to an overall more pronounced ingroup

favouritism as compared with participants primed with global processing style. The

experiment results disagreed with what was predicted. Possible reasons for the

incongruence as well as implications of the present study are discussed.