Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Experimental Social Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp Polarization and positivity effects: Divergent roles of group entitativity in warmth and competence judgments Jianning Dang, Li Liu ⁎ , Deyun Ren, Qian Su Beijing Key Lab of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Entitativity Warmth Competence Polarization Positivity ABSTRACT Previous studies have obtained mixed results regarding the influence of entitativity on group judgments. The present research aimed to make sense of the inconsistent results by examining the effect of entitativity on warmth and on competence, inspired by Fiske's seminal work suggesting that group judgments are made in terms of two fundamental dimensions. In Study 1, the target group was a novel group; its entitativity was manipulated by an instruction set regarding common goals and interdependence of group members. We described the target group as positive/negative on a warmth (Study 1a) or competence (Study 1b) dimension with segments of behavior statements. In Study 2, we selected four kinds of real social groups as target groups based on the stereotypes that people had held toward them. The entitativity of these four groups was manipulated by pictures depicting the similarity and interdependence of the group members. In both studies, participants rated the target groups in terms of warmth and competence. The results revealed that entitativity exerted a polarization effect on warmth and a positivity effect on competence judgments. The implications about entitativity and formation of and changes in impressions about groups are discussed. 1. Introduction Recently, Kim Jong-un's nuclear weapons program made North Korea and its relations with the rest world the focus of global attention once again. North Korea seems highly united, due to its extraordinary state of cohesion among the military and among the elite, regime stability (Kim, 2009), and strict constraints on foreign policies (Yee, 2008). As in the field of social psychology, internal unity and an impermeable national boundary are indicators of entitativity (Campbell, 1958; Crump, Hamilton, Sherman, Lickel, & Thakkar, 2010; Hamilton & Sherman, 1996); North Korea can therefore be seen as a highly entitative country. Are high en- titativity nations perceived as favorable or not? The answer is uncertain. If they gather national strength to do things for peaceful purposes (e.g., carrying on economic aid for other countries), they will be seen as kind. However, if they pose a threat to other countries (e.g., working on a nu- clear weapons program), they will be considered extremely malicious. Furthermore, whether or not they want to promote or destroy world peace, their strong national cohesion makes it easier for them to carry out their plans. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively examine the effect of entitativity on group judgments to understand people's percep- tions of entitative groups. Previous studies on this issue have been inconclusive. Some researchers (Castano, Sacchi, & Gries, 2003; Thakkar, 2001) found a polarization effect of entitativity on people's perceptions of groups; specifically that positive traits are perceived as more positive and ne- gative traits are perceived as more negative. Others, however, have demonstrated a positivity effect of entitativity on group perception; in other words, both positive and negative traits are perceived as more positive (Callahan & Ledgerwood, 2016). We assume that this incon- sistency arose because these studies focused on different aspects of group perception. Inspired by Fiske et al.'s seminal work suggesting that groups are mainly judged along the two fundamental dimensions of warmth and competence (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002), the present research aimed to make sense of the seemingly incompatible results by simultaneously examining the effect of entitativity on warmth and competence judgments. 1.1. Entitativity and its effect on group perception The concept of entitativity was first proposed by Campbell (1958) to integrate several group cues such as common fate, similarity, proximity, and completed boundary. It indicates the extent to which an aggregate is ‘groupy’ and perceived as an entity. Entitativity determines whether a group has real existence and is meaningful (Crump et al., 2010). Groups http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.09.003 Received 23 April 2017; Received in revised form 26 August 2017; Accepted 6 September 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, 19 Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing 100875, China. E-mail addresses: aspirinleo@163.com (J. Dang), l.liu@bnu.edu.cn (L. Liu), maojingrendeyun@163.com (D. Ren), causuqian@126.com (Q. Su). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 74 (2018) 74–84 0022-1031/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. MARK