Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 41 (2005) 567–573 www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp 0022-1031/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2004.11.003 The fundamentality of group principles and perceived group entitativity  Fabio Sani ¤ , John Todman, Judith Lunn Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK Received 8 October 2004; revised 28 October 2004 Available online 23 May 2005 Abstract We argue that the level of consensus about a set of social identity principles, and their perceived fundamentality, can inXuence the degree to which members perceive their group as an entity. This idea was explored through an experiment in which participants judged the entitativity of speciWc (in)groups on the basis of the distribution of the opinions held by their members about three iden- tity-related principles that participants had previously rated for fundamentality. The results demonstrated that the more fundamen- tal a principle was judged to be in comparison to other principles, the more important consensus about that principle was for producing group entitativity, relative to consensus about other principles.  2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Consensus; Entitativity; Group uniformity; Homogeneity; Principles; Social identity People often conceive groups as uniWed wholes, or entities. But as Campbell (1958) argued, groups are fuzz- ier and less discrete than other entities, such as stones or rats, so their degree of perceived ‘entitativity’ may vary. A social group’s perceived entitativity has important implications for such issues as stereotyping and inter- group relations (Hamilton, Sherman, & Castelli, 2002). Crawford, Sherman, and Hamilton (2002), for example, found that perceived entitativity facilitates the transfer of a group stereotype across all group members. Because the consequences of perceived group entitativity are important, various researchers have explored its ante- cedents. Campbell (1958) was the Wrst to consider the cues that lead people to perceive entitativity in social groups. He suggested that a collection of individuals seems more like an entity when these individuals are close together, resemble one another, move together, and form a contin- uous, coherent Wgure. Since Campbell’s pioneering anal- ysis, a longer list of factors that may inXuence perceived entitativity has been produced. For instance, Brewer and Harasty (1996) argued that when social groups are rep- resented as prototypes in memory, their perceived entit- ativity is high, but when groups are represented as exemplars in memory, their perceived entitativity is low. Brewer and Harasty also stressed the importance of a perceiver’s momentary goals and mood states for per- ceived entitativity. Hamilton, Sherman, and Lickel (1998) focused on the degree to which a group is inter- nally organized, with a hierarchical structure, and has members who diVer in their leadership, power, status, and responsibility. Finally, Yzerbyt, Rocher, and Scha- dron (1997), argued that the more a group is ‘essential- ized’ (has deep, inherent properties shared by its members), the more entitative it seems. We agree that these and other antecedents are impor- tant. But in accordance with Sherman, Hamilton, and Lewis (1999), we believe that social identity processes  We are grateful to Richard Moreland for his helpful editorial com- ments, and to Deborah Newton for her assistance in conducting the pi- lot studies. We would also thank Russell Spears and Craig McGarty for thoughtful theoretical discussions. * Corresponding author. Fax: +44 0 1382 229993. E-mail address: f.sani@dundee.ac.uk (F. Sani).