We explore whether differences in perceptions of diversity might emanate from the characteristics of perceivers themselves rather than from the characteristics of those observed. Grounding our arguments in self- and social-identity theory, we hypothesize that individuals respond differently to the same diversity stimuli because they differ in their ‘propensity to stereotype’ and ‘diversity experience.’ Since individuals tend to gravitate towards similar others, we also hypothesize that perceived diversity can predict an individual's ‘desire to group’ with others. Over 200 individuals – staff and students – from a university were exposed to diverse stimuli in an online experiment in a bid to test the hypotheses. Structural Equation Modeling of the data generally supported the hypothesized relationships.
