The Outgroup homogeneity bias reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Outgroup homogeneity bias

According to the outgroup homogeneity bias, individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.

Interestingly, this bias was found to be unrelated to the number of group and non-group members individuals knew. You might think that people thought members of their own groups were more varied and different simply because they knew them better, but this is actually not the case. The outgroup homogeneity bias was found between groups such as "men" and "women" whom obviously interact frequently.

The implications of this effect to stereotyping is obvious, and it may be related to confirmation bias.

A similar bias on the individual level is the trait ascription bias.

See also: group-serving bias, list of cognitive biases. Compare to the group attribution error.

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