The Effects Of Group Morality On Impressions Of Individual Group Members

In daily life,it is routine to evaluate groups around oneself and group morality,which means the perception of group in morality layer,plays a crucial role in social interaction.There are rich articles about fundamental dimensions of social perception,but the research on the relationship between individual perception and group perception is relatively rare.Based on classical theories on impression formation,the present study focused on the group morality and intended to examine the effect of group morality on perceivers' evaluative impression of individual group members.Four studies have been conducted.Study 1 included two experiments.The first experiment used questionnaire method,with the independent variable being group morality,which was divided into three levels(i.e.,immoral,moral and neutral),and the dependent variable being the evaluative impressions of a group member based on group information.Results showed that participants had a better global impression of members in a moral group compared to those in a neutral or immoral group.The second experiment further investigated the effect of group morality on the evaluation of group members by others,measured in two fundamental dimensions of impression formation(i.e.,morality and competence).Results showed that members in a moral group were rated as more moral and competent than those in a neutral or immoral group.Study 2 was designed to test the hypothesis that group morality not only affected the global impression of group members but also affected others' judgment of their behavior.Results showed that members in an immoral group got lower ratings for the same positive or negative behavior,compared to members in a moral group or a neutral group.But members in a moral group got higher ratings compared to members in a neutral group only for positive behavior but not for negative behavior.Study 3 focused on the underlying mechanism of the effect of group morality on perceivers' impressions of group members and found that the perception of group entitativity played the mediating role between perceived group morality and evaluative impressions of group members(measured in judgment of their behavior as in the previous study),in that both moral and immoral group information resulted in higher perceived group entitativity and thus affected individuals' evaluation of group members accordingly.Study 4 examined the moderation effect of perspective taking to see if it could help alleviate the impact of group scandal on the profile of individual group members.And results showed that as compared to control condition,participants in the perspective-taking condition were more likely to form a mitigated impression of individual group members both in a moral group and an immoral group.Finally,study contributions,limitations and future directions for research were also discussed.