ABSTRACT
Assimilation and contrast are pervasive phenomena in social perception,social judgment, and social behavior. For example, Western religionsespouse a common humanity-an assimilative vision. Racism and xenophobia, however, seem to stem in part from the tendency to perceive members of other groups as more different from ourselves than they are in reality-a contrastive outcome. Many real-life examples and empirical demonstrations of assimilation and contrast are described in this volume. Although contrast and assimilation were first investigated by psychological researchers of sensation and perception in the 19th century, they have been a continual source of theoretical and empirical interest to psychologists since that time. One of the fundamental contributions of the social sciences has been its recognition, appreciation, and delineation of the important role of context. In recent years, the study of assimilation and contrast has been especially active among social psychologists (Biernat, 2005).
