Duan Jipeng, Hu Yinfeng, Zhou Wenying, Ye Qingqing, Zhao Ting, Yin Jun
Department of Psychology, Ningbo University, No. 616 Fenghua Rd., Ningbo, 315211, China.
Center of Group Behavior and Social Psychological Service, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2025 Aug 26;10(1):56. doi: 10.1186/s41235-025-00666-x.
People tend to generalize the actions of known group members to new ones when they are both members of the same group. This study was conducted to investigate how the prevalence of specific actions among multiple individuals determines action generalization within social groups. We propose that people rely on the belief that group members work toward a shared goal (i.e., shared-goal belief) to guide action generalization. Consequently, the extent of action generalization may not consistently increase with the sampled prevalence of group members performing the same goal-directed action, resulting in a deviation from graded action generalization (i.e., nongraded action generalization). Experiment 1 revealed that the more participants believed that group members pursued a shared goal, the greater the likelihood that nongraded action generalization would occur. In Experiment 2, experimental manipulation weakened the strength of the shared-goal belief and led to a graded pattern of action generalization with accumulated evidence of action prevalence. These findings suggest that a shared-goal belief within groups significantly shapes action generalization beyond the mere influence of sampled action prevalence. Social groups not only provide a framework for selecting evidence for action generalization but also shape prior beliefs that influence our expectations of others' actions.
当人们属于同一群体时，往往会将已知群体成员的行为推广到新成员身上。本研究旨在探讨多个个体中特定行为的普遍性如何决定社会群体中的行为推广。我们提出，人们依靠群体成员朝着共同目标努力的信念（即共同目标信念）来指导行为推广。因此，行为推广的程度可能不会随着执行相同目标导向行为的群体成员抽样普遍性而持续增加，从而导致偏离分级行为推广（即非分级行为推广）。实验1表明，参与者越相信群体成员追求共同目标，非分级行为推广发生的可能性就越大。在实验2中，实验操纵削弱了共同目标信念的强度，并导致了随着行为普遍性的累积证据而呈现出的分级行为推广模式。这些发现表明，群体中的共同目标信念显著地塑造了行为推广，而不仅仅是抽样行为普遍性的影响。社会群体不仅为选择行为推广的证据提供了框架，还塑造了影响我们对他人行为期望的先验信念。
