title: When I's meet: sharing subjective experience with someone from the outgroup.
abstract: Believing one shares a subjective experience with another (i.e., I-sharing) fosters connections among strangers and alters perceptions of the ingroup and outgroup. In this article, the authors ask whether I-sharing also fosters liking for members of a salient outgroup. Study 1 establishes that I-sharing promotes liking for the other sex, even among people with salient social identities. Study 2 shows that I-sharing promotes liking for a member of the sexual orientation outgroup, whether it occurs before or after group memberships get revealed. Study 3 focuses on salient race categories and looks at the effects of I-sharing versus value-sharing as a function of shared group membership. For those high in existential isolation, I-sharing trumps value-sharing, regardless of the I-sharer's social identity. I-sharing may offer a way of improving attitudes toward outgroup members that still enables people to embrace their differing social identities.
authors.affiliation: The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA. epinel@uvm.edu
authors.forename: Elizabeth C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Pinel
authors.forename: Anson E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Long
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000523:psychology*; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D012933:Social Identification