The perception of an out-group after provocation by one of its members.

How provocation by a single out-group member exacerbates perceptions of out-group dissimilarity was examined. Male American college students provoked by a Latvian college student not only perceived him as dissimilar from their own group of American college students but also perceived other Latvians (but not Senegalans, an irrelevant out-group) as dissimilar from American college students. Drawing negative inferences about the Latvian provocateur was correlated with perceiving other Latvians as dissimilar.