When ‘Us’ Matters Less: Social Identity Complexity and Reduced Ingroup Favoritism in Stereotyping

How do people’s own identity structures shape the way they stereotype others? Across two preregistered experiments using a free-response stereotyping task and valence analysis, we tested whether social identity complexity (the extent to which individuals view their ingroups as differentiated rather than overlapping) was associated with intergroup bias in spontaneous stereotype valence. Consistent with classic intergroup patterns, participants generated more positive stereotypes for targets who shared more of their social group memberships. Social identity complexity moderated this bias by reducing the positivity of ingroup stereotypes rather than by enhancing evaluations of outgroup targets. To illuminate this process, we examined two potential mechanisms: ingroup attachment and perceived diagnosticity of social categories. Results aligned with an indirect effect through lower ingroup attachment, but not through perceived diagnosticity. These findings show that perceivers’ representations of their own social identities meaningfully shape how they spontaneously stereotype others, primarily by reducing ingroup favoritism.