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MENTAL MODEL · M4072

Out-group Homogeneity

Out-group Homogeneity
BehaviorHigh supportSocial Psychology
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Updated 2026-08-01

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Also called the out-group homogeneity effect, documented in social psychology from the 1970s onward, with influential work by Patricia Linville and others. People hold more differentiated representations of their own group and more uniform ones of outsiders. Two mechanisms are usually cited: people have more contact and richer information about their own group, and they process out-group faces and behaviours at a more categorical level. The effect feeds stereotyping because a group perceived as uniform seems predictable, and it is strongest where contact is rare and the boundary is salient.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

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- Variance check: Ask how much variation you can actually name among individuals inside the other group. - Contact design: Increase individuating exposure to particular people rather than to appointed representatives. - Counterexample log: Record the specific outsiders who break your generalisation and keep the list visible.

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Knowledge is unevenly distributed. Familiarity with one's own group supplies many distinct examples, so variation is visible and remembered. Outsiders are usually encountered as category members, so the mind stores the category and discards the individual. Categorical processing then compresses differences, and the compressed representation is reused at the next encounter, which appears to confirm it. The loop breaks only when repeated individual contact forces the mind to store exceptions.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneityZH · Explicit
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