Perceived Group Variability and the Salience of Personal and Social Identity

In this chapter the relation between personal and social identity salience and perceived group variability is analysed. The hypothesis is proposed that the out-group homogeneity effect occurs mainly when personal identity is salient. The studies concerning perceived variability present in the literature are divided using three orthogonal criteria: (a) the level of individuation within the context; (b) the types of group, natural or non-natural; (c) the relative size of the groups. The review of the literature confirms the hypothesis proposed and allows us to consider ingroup and outgroup homogeneity effects as two distinct phenomena, rather than two faces of the same coin.