Campbell’s original entitativity theory focused only on perceptual stimulus cues.

Evidence

Entitativity and the Evaluation of In-Groups and Out-Groups The focus of Campbell’s (1958) analysis was on antecedents to perceiving entitativity—the stimulus cues that might be used to infer that a collection of people constitutes a group. As we discussed, much of the research stimulated by this analysis has investigated the largely cognitive antecedents of and information-processing mechanisms underlying such judgments. Brewer and Harasty (1996) observed that motivational variables may play an important role in driving perceptions of entitativity. In the years since their chapter, several lines of work have provided support for their observation. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 249

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the scope of Campbell’s original 1958 entitativity concept as stimulus-cue based, before motivational variables were added.