Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1997, Vol. 73. No. 4, 719-732 Copyright 1997 by the American Psychological Association. Inc. 0022-3514/97/S3.00 Development of New Group Members' In-Group and Out-Group Stereotypes: Changes in Perceived Group Variability and Ethnocentrism Carey S. Ryan and Laura M. Bogart University of Pittsburgh Changes in new members' in-group and out-group stereotypes were examined, distinguishing among three stereotype components: stereotypicality, dispersion, and ethnocentrism. Pledges in 4 sororities judged their in-group and out-groups 4 times during their 8-month induction. Overall, out-groups were judged more stereotypically than in-groups at every wave. Although out-groups were initially perceived as more dispersed than in-groups, decreased out-group dispersion resulted in a shift toward out-group homogeneity. Ethnocentrism was present at every wave but decreased because of decreased in-group positivity. The authors discuss implications of these results for existing explanations of stereotype development. It is suggested that other aspects of group socialization (R. L. Moreland & J. M. Levine, 1982) are needed to explain fully the development of intergroup perceptions for new group members. Social scientists have produced an impressive literature aimed at understanding the complex processes involved in social stereotyping. One of the clearest findings to emerge is that group membership strongly influences our perceptions of social groups. Many studies have shown, for example, that individuals perceive their own group as more variable (Jones, Wood, & Quattrone, 1981; Linville, Fischer, & Salovey, 1989; Park & Judd, 1990; Park & Rothbart, 1982; Park, Ryan, & Judd, 1992) and more positive (Brewer, 1979; Tajtel, 1969) than an out- group. These in-group-out-group differences, known as out- group homogeneity and ethnocentrism, have stimulated a great deal of research conducted in an attempt to understand why such differences occur. In almost all of this work, researchers have examined percep- tions of intact social groups, such as men and women (Linville et al., 1989; Park & Judd, 1990; Park & Rothbart, 1982), hypo- thetical social groups described by information that is manipu- lated by the researcher, and "minimal groups" created in a laboratory setting (Judd & Park, 1988). In these studies, group membership has been treated as a static variable in which the in-group is compared with the out-group. Some studies have focused more generally on the way people process information Carey S. Ryan and Laura M. Bogart, Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh. Laura M. Bogart is now at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Center for AIDS Intervention Research, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant R03MH535O9-O1. We wish to thank Kerry Daley for help in conducting this research and Deanna Angello, Tracy Cassidy, Rowland Ho, Dan Kleinschmidt, and Sandra Mostard for help with data collection and coding. We are also grateful to Charles Judd, Richard Moreland, John Levine, and Bernadette Park for their support and helpful advice. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Carey S. Ryan, Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260. Electronic mail may be sent via the Internet to cry an @ vms .cis. pitt.edu. about social groups and have therefore not included group mem- bership as a factor. Nevertheless, the theory that motivates this research typically assumes that group membership influences perceptions of groups because people process information dif- ferently depending on whether they belong to the group. For example, people are likely to think about an in-group, as op- posed to an out-group, in terms of meaningful subgroups, caus- ing them to perceive greater variability among in-group members (Park et al., 1992). In short, although group membership is a prominent feature in the stereotyping literature, researchers have rarely gone beyond the relatively simple conceptualization of group membership as in-group versus out-group (cf. Brown & Wootton-Millward, 1993; Moreland, 1985). The purpose of the research reported here was to examine how change in group membership status, specifically, from new group member to fully accepted group member, influences per- ceptions of in-groups and out-groups. Following Moreland and Levine (1982; Levine & Moreland, 1994), we reasoned that an individual's relationship to an in-group changes over time as he or she moves through various phases of group membership. According to Moreland and Levine, there are five phases of group membership: investigation, socialization, maintenance, resocialization, and remembrance. Of particular relevance to the present research is the socialization phase. The socialization phase begins when an individual enters a group and continues until he or she is accepted as a full member. During this phase, new members encounter a great deal of new information about their in-group and out-groups, as senior members attempt to transmit the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs that they believe new members must have. New members tend to be highly moti- vated to acquire this information, because they are striving to win acceptance from the group. Given the nature of the social- ization phase and the fact that group membership can strongly influence perceptions of groups, stereotypes seem likely to un- dergo a great deal of change during this period. But this has rarely been examined. Indeed, to our knowledge, our study is the only detailed longitudinal study of the development of in- 719 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.