Friend or Foe, Champ or Chump? Social Conformity and Superiority Goals Activate Warmth-Versus Competence-Based Social Categorization Schemas

Evaluations of individuals and social groups refer to two basic dimensions of social judgment: warmth and competence. Although previous research has explored the antecedents and consequences of these evaluations, there is a lack of understanding of the conditions under which warmth and competence information is used for social categorization in the first place. The present research developed a novel measure of individuals’ tendencies to categorize persons in terms of competence versus warmth and tested whether these tendencies are predicted by chronic (Study 1, N = 301) and experimentally induced (Study 2, N = 69) social conformity and superiority goals. Social conformity goals predicted greater relative use of warmth information, while superiority goals predicted greater relative use of competence information in categorizing persons. These findings attest to the relevance of chronic as well as contextually induced goals at an early stage of social information processing related to social categorization.