Will you remember me? Cultural differences in own-group face recognition biases

•We examine face memory biases with European Canadians (EC) and East Asians (EA).•EC show better memory for minimal ingroup (vs. outgroup) faces.•EC show better memory for same-university (vs. other-university) faces.•EA do not show these two own-group face memory biases.•Cultural differences in the conception of ingroup may explain these results.

East Asians often define their ingroups based on preexisting social relationships (e.g., friends, family), whereas North Americans define their ingroups largely based on broader social categories (e.g., race, nationality; Brewer & Yuki, 2007). In the present research we examined the consequences of this cultural difference for own-group face recognition biases. In Study 1, European Canadians and first-generation East Asian Canadians were assigned to minimal groups. Consistent with previous findings, European Canadians showed superior memory for own-group faces; however, as expected, first-generation East Asian Canadians did not. In Study 2, using university affiliation as the experimentally manipulated social group, European Canadians again showed superior memory for own-group faces, whereas first-generation East Asian Canadians did not. The results are consistent with current theorizing and suggest that the effect of mere social categorization on face recognition is moderated by culture.