title: Asymmetrical social mach bands: exaggeration of social identities on the more esteemed side of group borders.
abstract: Perceptual processes generally enhance borders, because of their high information value. Mach bands are an example in vision. In the social world, borders are also of special significance; one side of a border is generally more esteemed or valued than the other. We claim that entities (individuals, groups) that are just over the border on the positive side tend to exaggerate their membership on the positive side (asymmetrical social Mach bands). We demonstrate this by showing that (a) master's-degree universities use the word university to describe themselves more than major graduate universities do, (b) small international airports use the word international to describe themselves more than major airports do, and (c) University of Pennsylvania students, who are affiliated with a "marginal" Ivy League school, use the word Ivy to describe their school more than Harvard students do.
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania rozin@psych.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rozin
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Sydney E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Hana F
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Zickgraf
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Flora
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D059028:Airports; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D012933:Social Identification; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities
keywords: borders; enhancement; groups; open data; social