Bîrzu, Paul (2026) Bachelor Thesis: Exploring the Effect of Emergency Framing on Perceived Group Entitativity through Common Fate and Observer Gender. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Throughout the history of humanity, groups have remained crucial to our survival and success as a species. Emergency situations, characterised by shared threat and immediacy in response, may heighten observers’ perceptions of common fate in observed groups. Entitativity, or the degree to which a social aggregate is perceived as a coherent group, represents a fundamental dimension of social perception. A related concept from Gestalt psychology is that of common fate, describing the perception that group members’ outcomes are related. Findings on gender differences under stress generally agree that women share a ‘tend-and-befriend’ response, and studies on crowd configurations suggest that women may be more perceptive of outcome interdependency between individuals. This between-subjects experimental study of 69 Groningen students examined whether (i) emergency framing increases observer perceptions of entitativity through enhanced common fate perception, and (ii) whether observer gender moderates the relationship between emergency framing and entitativity. Participants viewed videos of groups navigating obstacles requiring deliberate, coordinated action to clear, accompanied by emergency or non-emergency narration. Results revealed no significant relationship between emergency framing and common fate perception, precluding evidence for mediation. However, common fate significantly predicted entitativity, accounting for 76.9% of variance, substantially exceeding typical effect sizes in social psychology. The hypothesised moderating effect of gender was also not supported, though significant sample imbalance suggests a need for further research with more balanced samples. Taken together, our findings support understanding of the processes underlying group perception while suggesting that shallow contextual framing may be insufficient to alter observer perceptions of interdependence among unfamiliar groups.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Supervisor name: | Willemsen, L.J. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Feb 2026 07:37 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Feb 2026 07:37 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/6135 |
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