Entitativity


Entitativity, in social science, is the perception of a as a single entity, distinct from its individual members. Operationally, entitativity can also be defined as perceiving a collection of social targets as possessing unity and coherence. Entitativity is highest for intimacy groups, such as the family, lower for task groups, lower yet for social categories, and lowest for transitory groups, such as people waiting at the same bus stop.
Donald T. Campbell coined the term entitativity in order to explain why some groups are considered real groups while others are thought to be mere aggregates of individuals. He suggested that people rely on certain perceptual cues as they intuitively determine which aggregations of individuals are groups, and which are not.
Additionally, Campbell emphasized three cues that individuals can use to make judgments regarding entitativity: common fate, similarity, and proximity. To illustrate how we make those judgments, consider the example of people sharing a table at a library. They could be friends who are studying together, or they may also be strangers happening to share the same table. If you're wondering whether this is an actual group, you would examine their common fate, similarity, and proximity. Common fate may be something like the group all getting up and leaving together while talking or laughing amongst themselves. Similarity could be as simple as noticing that they are all using the same textbooks or notes, or that they happen to be wearing the same t-shirts to organizations. Finally, their physical proximity to one another would be the final characteristic to judge that you are witnessing individuals with entitativity.
There are two proposed antecedents for the entitativity perception :