Across three studies (N = 607), we examined people’s use of a dichotomizing heuristic—the inference that characteristics belonging to one group do not apply to another group—when making judgments about novel social groups. Participants learned information about one group (e.g., “Zuttles like apples”), and then made inferences about another group (e.g., “Do Twiggums like apples or hate apples?”). Study 1 acted as a proof of concept: Eight-year-olds and adults (but not 5-year-olds) assumed that the two groups would have opposite characteristics. Learning about the group as a generic whole versus as specific individuals boosted the use of the heuristic. Study 2 and Study 3 (sample sizes, methods, and analyses pre-registered), examined whether the presence or absence of several factors affected the activation and scope of the dichotomizing heuristic in adults. Whereas learning about or treating the groups as separate was necessary for activating dichotomous thinking, intergroup conflict and featuring only two (versus many) groups was not required. Moreover, the heuristic occurred when participants made both binary and scaled decisions. Once triggered, adults applied this cognitive shortcut widely—not only to benign (e.g., liking apples) and novel characteristics (e.g., liking modies), but also to evaluative traits signaling the morals or virtues of a social group (e.g., meanness or intelligence). Adults did not, however, extend the heuristic to the edges of improbability: They failed to dichotomize when doing so would attribute highly unusual preferences (e.g., disliking having fun). Taken together, these studies indicate the presence of a dichotomizing heuristic with broad implications for how people make social group inferences.

在三项研究 ( N  = 607) 中，我们检查了人们对二分启发式方法的使用——在对新的社会群体做出判断时，推断属于一个群体的特征不适用于另一群体。参与者学习了一组的信息（例如，“Zuttles like apples”），然后对另一组进行推断（例如，“Twiggums 喜欢苹果还是讨厌苹果？”）。研究 1 作为概念证明：8 岁儿童和成年人（但不是 5 岁儿童）假设这两组具有相反的特征。将群体作为一个通用的整体而不是作为特定的个体来了解促进了启发式方法的使用。研究 2 和研究 3（预先注册的样本量、方法和分析）检查是否存在多种因素会影响成人二分启发式的激活和范围。虽然了解或将群体视为单独的群体对于激活二分法思维是必要的，但群体间冲突和仅以两个（而不是多个）群体为特色则不是必需的。此外，当参与者同时做出二元和缩放决策时，就会发生启发式。一旦被触发，成年人就会广泛应用这种认知捷径——不仅是良性的（例如，喜欢苹果）和新奇的特征（例如，喜欢变态），而且还用于表明社会群体道德或美德的评价特征（例如，卑鄙或智慧） ）。然而，成年人并没有将启发式扩展到不可能的边缘：当这样做会归因于非常不寻常的偏好（例如，不喜欢玩乐）时，他们未能二分法。综合起来，