They All Look the Same to Me

(But Not When They Are Angry)

Mark Schaller
University of British Columbia
 Quick Overview
• Background on the outgroup homogeneity bias
in recognition memory.
– What it is.
– Why it happens.
– Implications for its disappearance.
• Experiment testing novel hypothesis about a
specific set of circumstances under which the
bias disappears.
– And sometimes even reverses.
• Implications.
Outgroup Homogeneity Bias in
Recognition Memory
• The “They all look the same to me” effect.
• Recognition memory for faces of ethnic ingroup
members is reasonably accurate.
– High accuracy in distinguishing previously-seen
faces from faces encountered for the first time.
• But recognition memory for faces of outgroup
members is typically much worse.
– Much greater tendency for people to mistakenly
believe that they’ve previously seen a particular
outgroup member when, in fact, they haven’t.
 A Robust and Important Effect

• A classic, highly-replicable finding.

– Chance & Goldstein (1996): “Few psychological
findings are so easy to duplicate.”
• Many real-life implications
– Eyewitness testimony, etc.
 Why Does This Bias Occur:
A Functional Perspective
• Recognition requires allocation of attention and
encoding resources to distinctive facial
features.
• These cognitive resources are costly.
• These cognitive resources are allocated
selectively to individuals with greater relevance
to perceivers’ own future outcomes.
• Future outcomes influenced more by ingroup
members than by outgroup members.
Ingroup  “Relevant”  Encode  Accurate
Member Features Recognition

Outgroup  “Irrelevant”  Minimal  Poor

Member Encoding Recognition
 Impact of Facial Expression?
• In prior studies, faces were affectively neutral.
• What if faces are angry?
 Impact of Facial Expression?
• Angry facial expression connotes:
– Clear implications for own outcomes.
– High utility of encoding individuating features.
– Implies: disappearance of usual memory bias.
• The encoding of individuating features is
perhaps especially functional if the angry face
is attached to an outgroup member.
– Fewer “brakes” on intergroup violence.
– Implies: possible reversal of usual memory bias.
Ingroup  “Relevant”  Encode  Accurate
Member Features Recognition

Outgroup  “Relevant!”  Encode  Accurate

Member Features! Recognition!
 An Experimental Test
(Ackerman et al., 2006; Psychological Science)

• Participants: 192 White university students.

• Stimuli: 16 male faces.
– 4 Neutral White; 4 Neutral Black.
– 4 Angry White; 4 Angry Black.
• Recognition memory
– 16 old faces, 16 new faces.
– Signal-detection measure of recognition accuracy
(A’).
Recognition Accuracy for Faces

1.00 Ingroup (White)

Outgroup (Black)

0.90

0.80

0.70

0.60
Neutral Expressions Angry Expressions
Additional Methods and Results
• Two additional manipulations:
– Actual presentation time (½ sec., 1 sec., 4 sec.)
– Distracter image either present or absent when each
target face originally presented.
• Were ample cognitive resources necessary for
increased accuracy in recognizing angry Black
faces?
• No; the opposite was true:
– Reversal of usual bias occurred most strongly under
conditions of least processing time (1/2 sec.
presentation time coupled with distraction).
– Implies highly efficient encoding of individuating
features of angry outgroup faces.
Implications & Future Directions
• Immediate questions for future research:
– Does this effect hold with other ethnic ingroup /
outgroup categories?
– Is this effect specific to angry facial expressions?
• Broader implications:
– A more nuanced perspective on the so-called
outgroup homogeneity bias.
– Implications for eyewitness identification?
– Utility of functional perspective on social cognition.
 Thank You

Collaborators:
Josh Ackerman, Vaughn Becker, Vladas Griskevicius, Doug Kenrick,
Jon Maner, Steve Neuberg, Jenessa Shapiro

Funding:
United States National Institutes of Health

For more information about the research itself:

Ackerman, J. M., Shapiro, J. R., Neuberg, S. L., Kenrick, D. T., Becker,
D. V., Griskevicius, V., Maner, J. K., & Schaller, M. (2006). They all look
the same to me (unless they’re angry): From out-group homogeneity
to out-group heterogeneity. Psychological Science, 17, 836-840.