“Visual Properties and Social Groups”

Laura Perez (Harvard University)

Visual Properties and Social Groups

In the middle of the 1990’s, social psychologists started to examine social perception –i.e., individuals’ perceptions of other individuals– in terms of ‘entitativity’. Entitativity is referred to the degree in which a collection of human individuals is perceived as being bonded together in a cohesive unit. Some social psychologists have been interested in the linkage of social perception with (i) our judgments about the entitativity of groups; (ii) mechanisms of learning and attending to groups; and (iii) the attribution of shared goals and shared traits to groups. Based, partly, on our perceptions of groups, we may predict their behavior well, decide to join or leave a group, and, in general, form perceptual beliefsabout their goals and traits. The problem I tackle here is: what does this literature suggest regarding the nature of our visual experiences about social groups? I focus on the visual properties we see instantiated in groups of individuals to predict their behavior, to join or to leave them, and to form perceptual beliefs about their goals and traits. I will make the case that visual properties related to perceived cohesiveness or unity are seen as being instantiated in social groups.