title: Of Caucasians, Asians, and Giraffes: The Influence of Categorization and Target Valence on Social Projection.
abstract: Past research has indicated that social projection is moderated by categorization, with more projection onto ingroups than onto outgroups. However, a few studies have reported elevated levels of projection even onto outgroups. In line with recent evidence, we hypothesized that positive target valence is the key feature of conditions that elicit projection onto outgroups. The present research extends previous findings by testing whether the effect of valence occurs independent of categorization, with increased levels of projection onto positive ingroup and non-ingroup targets alike. We designed two experiments in which target valence was manipulated by means of evaluative conditioning. Category membership was varied by using faces of Caucasians, Asians, and giraffes. The results supported our valence hypothesis. Counter-intuitively, we also found higher levels of projection onto giraffes than onto humans. These findings suggest that current cognition-based models of projection are not sufficient to account for the whole range of projection phenomena.
authors.affiliation: University of Mannheim, Germany machunsky@uni-mannheim.de.
authors.forename: Maya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Machunsky
authors.affiliation: University of Trier, Germany.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Walther
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044466:Asian People; D000068276:Giraffes; D006801:Humans; D011385:Projection; D012933:Social Identification; D044465:White People
keywords: evaluative conditioning; social categorization; social projection; target valence