IC2S2 2026

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1. Kei Ichikawa1, Aoi Naito1,2, Jiayu Chen3 , Kazutoshi Sasahara1 1Institute of Science Tokyo、 2Carnegie Mellon University, 3The University of Tokyo Extended abstract Introduction Method The question of whether social media should allow anonymity has long been debated. Recently, platforms that permit anonymity while still disclosing partial identity cues have been widely adopted. How a meme is interpreted depends heavily on who posted it. How can this ambiguous symbol̶a meme̶shape feelings toward in-group and out-group members? Recruitment 🇺🇸 US: participants born in CA / NY 🇯🇵 JP: participants born in Tokyo / Osaka Initial survey Demographic, self-esteem, group identity, feeling thermometer(FT) toward out-/ingroup, etc RQ1︓How does the presence of a partial identity label influence out/in-group feeling? Image meme shown Between-subjects design(N=75 per condition) • Location disclosure labeled/ Unlabeled • Meme featuring out-group/in-group RQ2 ︓ What types of features influence in/out-group feeling? Exit survey feeling thermometer (FT) toward out-/ingroup, perceived funniness of the meme shown, whether they recognized Exp./Realy meme format, etc Materials • We created “Expectation and Reality” image memes featuring places of birth. (NY/CA/Tokyo/Osaka) • We created two versions of each meme. One with the partial identity label(location disclosure label), the other without. Results • Presence of identity label decreases out-group FT but does not decrease in-group FT • Perceived funniness of the meme shown increase in/out group FT Location disclosure labeled       Identity(label Partial identity label(location disclosure labeled) Featured group(out-group) ( )group Identity label x Featured Location disclosure unlabeled Collective self esteem Perceived funniness Conclusions •Displaying place of birth, which activates out-group awareness, can worsen impressions even between everyday groups that are far less antagonistic than political partisans. •For both in-group and out-group, the perceived funniness of the presented memes contributed to mitigating affective polarization. •The effect of memes on impressions toward in-groups and out-groups showed cross-cultural variation.