Strength of Social Cues in Online Impression Formation

Abstract

The social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) predicts individuals in depersonalized settings associate with those with whom they share a salient social identity and disassociate from others. We challenge the strict ingroup/outgroup bifurcation used in prior research and posit that ingroup perceptions differ across distinct (i.e., moderate and extreme) outgroups. A 2 (high cues vs. low cues) × 3 (ingroup, moderate outgroup, extreme outgroup affiliation) experiment utilized 128 subjects to examine how members of an ingroup view individuals belonging to various outgroups. Findings expand SIDE research by addressing the interaction between the valence of social cues to a social group and the strength of those cues. The interaction demonstrates that ingroup members with stronger social cues are more socially identifiable than ingroup members who provided few cues to their ingroup membership, while extreme outgroup members who minimize cues to their identity are more socially identifiable to ingroup members than outgroup members who provide numerous cues.