Asymmetrical evaluation of ingroup versus outgroup members: a look from an information integration perspective

In evaluating ingroup versus outgroup members two types of information can be used: ‘Categorizing information’ related to the target's group membership and ‘individuating information’ related to pieces of information specific to the target to be judged. Information integration theory (IIT, Anderson, 1981) is applied as a formal tool for predicting the judgement resulting from these different pieces of information. It is further assumed that due to a general positivity bias in evaluating own affairs judges tend to evaluate ingroup members more positively than outgroup members. By applying IIT ingroup favouritism on the level of individual targets can be predicted. More importantly, an interaction concerning an asymmetrical impact of ingroup versus outgroup membership information dependent on the individuating information's valence can be predicted: the enhancement of ingroup members should be stronger for negative individuating information, whereas the devaluation of outgroup members should be stronger for positive individuating information. Further a negative correlation between intragroup differentiation and intergroup differentiation on the level of individual judgements is assumed. In a two (judge's group membership: overestimator versus underestimator) by three (target's group membership information absent; target's group membership information present as either ingroup, or outgroup member) by three (valence of the individuating information: positive, neutral, negative) factorial minimal group design with repeated measures on the last two factors the targets' likability had to be rated. The findings are in accord with predictions. Theoretical conclusions with respect to social judgement—and to intergroup theories as well as with respect to general approaches to context effects in social judgement are discussed.     

Procedural justice and intragroup status: Knowing where we stand in a group enhances reactions to procedures

The current research investigates the role of relative intragroup status as a moderator of people’s reactions to procedural justice. Based on a review of the procedural justice literature, the authors argue that information about intragroup status influences people’s reactions to variations in procedural justice. In correspondence with predictions, two experiments show that reactions of people who have been informed about their intragroup status position (either low, average, or high) are influenced more strongly by voice as opposed to no-voice procedures than people who are not informed about their intragroup status. It is concluded that knowing where we stand in a group enhances reactions to procedural justice.     

Intersectional Consciousness in Collective Victim Beliefs: Perceived Intragroup Differences Among Disadvantaged Groups

Although our experiences are shaped by multiple social identities such as race, class, and gender, most research has focused on single‐identity groups (e.g., race). This includes research on collective victimization, which assumes that violence impacts group members uniformly. Conversely, work on intersectional consciousness examines awareness of how multiple social identities intersect and create within‐group differences. Integrating and expanding the research on intersectional consciousness and on collective victimhood, this article investigates perceived intragroup differences in experiences of victimization stemming from intersecting identities of gender and class among two disadvantaged groups in the understudied context of India. We conducted individual interviews (N = 33) and focus groups (K = 12; N = 66) among Muslims and Dalits (lower‐caste Hindus). Thematic analysis revealed that—even though ingroup cohesion (i.e., intragroup similarity) is often enhanced by external threat— people expressed awareness of intragroup differences in experiences of victimization in three distinct ways: highlighting relative privilege, engaging in competitive victimhood, or describing qualitative differences. We discuss the implications for conflict and solidarity within minority groups in the context of political developments in India, where there have been attempts to polarize intragroup divisions.     

Motivated to confront: How experiencing anger affects anchoring bias

Prior research has asserted that emotions affect anchoring bias in decision making through the emotion's certainty appraisal or through the emotion's action tendencies, but these prior studies investigate the role of each component—appraisal or action tendency—without accounting for potential effects of the other one. The current research investigates whether anger exerts a significant effect on anchoring bias by activating a desire to confront a potential anchor. Importantly, the studies compare the effect of anger versus disgust, emotions that differ in their action tendency but are similar in their certainty appraisal. In Study 1, participants completed an emotion induction task and then a negotiation task where the first offer from the negotiation partner served as a potential anchor. Anger led to more deviation from the anchor compared with disgust or neutral feelings. Subsequent studies provide evidence that the angry participants are less anchored when the anchor value comes from a more confrontable source (someone else vs. themselves in Study 2 and an out‐group member vs. an in‐group member in Study 3).     

In search of the active ingredient of respect: a closer look at the role of acceptance

The experiment (N = 67) tested whether the effectiveness of intragroup respect can be traced back to the symbolic value of intragroup respect as a sign or message of acceptance. In addition to intragroup respect, intragroup acceptance was manipulated as a second independent variable so that the hypothesized acceptance message of intragroup respect was either confirmed or undermined. Collective identification and willingness to engage in group‐serving behaviour were the main dependent variables. Mediation tests—based on the experimental manipulations as well as additional measurement of the critical variables—provided no evidence that intragroup acceptance is the active ingredient of intragroup respect. Instead, we replicated the respect effects known from the literature and secured further evidence of their internal validity. We also found an effect of intragroup acceptance similar to that of intragroup respect, but the former was mediated by feelings of being liked which played no role in intragroup respect. Theoretical and methodological implications of the results are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subjective Social Standing and Conflict Tactics Among Young Kenyan Men

Efforts to reduce intimate partner violence in sub‐Saharan Africa generally approach the issue through the lens of women's empowerment. These efforts include foci on women's relative power in the relationship, educational background, and earning potential. The social status of men has largely been ignored, reducing the potential to involve them in efforts to demote intimate partner violence. In this study we consider whether a man's perceived social status predicts conflict tactics, and whether these tactics are mediated by loneliness and collective self‐esteem from a community‐based sample in semi‐rural Kenya (n = 263). We find that men who reported lower perceived social status also reported significantly more frequent violent conflicts with their intimate partners. This association was significantly, and completely, mediated by lower collective self‐esteem and higher loneliness. There was no direct association between subjective social status and negotiation‐based conflict tactics, although there was an indirect association. Men with higher perceived social status reported higher collective self‐esteem, and men with higher collective self‐esteem reported more negotiation‐based conflict tactics. These findings inform efforts to reduce intimate partner violence by involving men, showing potential to reduce violence by building self‐esteem among men—particularly those with lower perceived social status.     

On being peripheral: effects of identity insecurity on personal and collective self‐esteem

We examined collective self‐esteem and personal self‐esteem as a function of anticipated changes in one's prototypicality within a valued ingroup. In Study 1 (N = 80), all participants received information that they were currently peripheral group members. Expectations for the future were then manipulated, with some expecting to become more prototypical and others expecting they would be even more peripheral in the future. In addition, the source of future movement (either the group or the self) was varied. It was found that when the group was the source of movement, those who expected to shift to a more prototypical position in the future had higher collective self‐esteem than those who expected to change to an even more peripheral position. In contrast, those who anticipated an even more peripheral position had higher personal self‐esteem than those who expected to become more prototypical in the future. In Study 2 (N = 100), intragroup position at present (peripheral versus prototypical) and future intragroup position (peripheral versus prototypical) were manipulated orthogonally. It was found that future expectations only affected self‐esteem among those with an insecure current identity, but not among those who were currently prototypical of the ingroup. In addition, ingroup favoritism was mediated by self‐esteem changes among those whose identity was insecure. The importance of a dynamic framework for investigating group processes is stressed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Outrage towards whom? Threats to moral group status impede striving to improve via out‐group‐directed outrage

Threats to group status can elicit different responses, ranging from those that motivate striving for improvement to those that motivate defending the threatened social identity. We examine why moral threats to group status may inhibit individuals' striving to improve. Specifically, we predicted that a threat to the group's moral status evokes a defensive emotional focus on the out‐group that impedes individuals' striving to improve. Two studies (N = 76 and N = 90) showed that moral (as opposed to nonmoral) threats elicited more outrage directed at the out‐group and, by trend, less outrage directed at the in‐group. The follow‐up study further demonstrated that moral threat impeded striving for improvement because of the relative focus of outrage on in‐group versus out‐group. Moreover, and consistent with our group‐based analysis, this pattern was most pronounced among strongly identified group members. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of framing groups' shortcomings in moral versus nonmoral terms. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Masculine Ideology,Sexual Communication,and Sexual Self‐Efficacy Among Parenting Adolescent Couples

This study examined the relationship between traditional masculine role norms (status, toughness, anti‐femininity) and psychosocial mechanisms of sexual risk (sexual communication, sexual self‐efficacy) among young, low‐income, and minority parenting couples. Between 2007 and 2011, 296 pregnant adolescent females and their male partners were recruited from urban obstetrics clinics in Connecticut. Data regarding participants' beliefs in masculine role norms, frequency of general sex communication and sexual risk communication, and sexual self‐efficacy were collected via computer‐assisted self‐interviews. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were used to test for actor effects (whether a person's masculine role norms at baseline influence the person's own psychosocial variables at 6‐month follow‐up) and partner effects (whether a partner's masculine role norms at baseline influence an actor's psychosocial variables at 6‐month follow‐up). Results revealed that higher actor status norms were significantly associated with more sexual self‐efficacy, higher actor toughness norms were associated with less sexual self‐efficacy, and higher actor anti‐femininity norms were significantly associated with less general sex communication, sexual risk communication, and sexual self‐efficacy. No partner effects were found. These results indicate a need for redefining masculine role norms through family centered approaches in pregnant or parenting adolescent couples to increase sexual communication and sexual self‐efficacy. Further research is needed to understand partner effects in the context of a relationship and on subsequent sexual risk behavior.     

Gender and Attitudes Towards a Peace Agreement in Situations of Intractable Conflict: The Case of the Jewish-Israeli Society

The question of whether women are more oriented towards peace has been debated in the research literature for several decades but has not been systematically tested in conflict-driven areas. The aim of our article is twofold: (1) to suggest a conceptual framework regarding gender differences in support for peace in intractable conflict and test it in a prominent case study; and (2) to examine whether major events leading to conflict reescalation have differential effects on women and men. Across 145 polls carried out on a monthly basis among nationally representative samples of Jewish-Israelis between 1995 and 2006, we found only marginally higher levels of support for the Oslo Accords among women versus men, while conflict-related worldviews—political ideology and religiosity—had a much larger effect. Furthermore, violent reescalation in the conflict had a stronger effect on reducing men's levels of support for the Oslo Accords than those of women. Robustness analysis of 196 monthly surveys from 2002 until 2018 examining the effect of gender on support for negotiation provided further support for our findings. Overall, our analyses indicate that sex-based differences play a minor role in explaining attitudes towards peace in situations of protracted violent conflicts at different stages, compared to the prominent effects of political ideology and religiosity.     

Score blending: How scale response grouping biases perceived standing

Numerical values—from test scores to credit scores—inform us of our relative standing and can shape our decisions. The values are usually presented in a continuous format (which places scores on a single line) or a grouped format (which separates scores into several score groups). We investigate whether and how the presentation format affects one's perception of their standing in a distribution and subsequent decision making. We show that when values are grouped, individuals merge the values within each group, a phenomenon we term score blending, which leads to an underweighting of intragroup score shifts and an overweighting of intergroup score shifts. Across six studies (N = 2,108) and a variety of paradigms (e.g., test taking and financial decision making), we observe robust effects of score blending, even when score groups are explicitly described as meaningless and generated randomly. The effect persists when the score is merely recalled without the scale present and can bias key decision parameters with behavioral consequences.     

A signal detection analysis of gist-based discrimination of genetic breast cancer risk

Pervasive biases in probability judgment render the probability scale a poor response mode for assessing risk judgments. By applying fuzzy trace theory, we used ordinal gist categories as a response mode, coupled with a signal detection model to assess risk judgments. The signal detection model is an extension of the familiar model used in binary choice paradigms. It provides three measures of discriminability—low versus medium risk, medium versus high risk, and low versus high risk—and two measures of response bias. We used the model to assess the effectiveness of BRCA Gist, an intelligent tutoring system designed to improve women’s judgments and understanding of genetic risk for breast cancer. Participants were randomly assigned to the BRCA Gist intelligent tutoring system, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Web pages, or a control group, and then they rated cases that had been developed using the Pedigree Assessment Tool and also vetted by medical experts. BRCA Gist participants demonstrated increased discriminability for all three risk categories, relative to the control group; the NCI group showed increased discriminability for two of the three levels. This result suggests that BRCA Gist best improved discriminability among genetic risk categories, and both BRCA Gist and the NCI website improved participants’ ability to discriminate, rather than simply shifting their decision criterion. A spreadsheet that fits the model and compares parameters across the conditions can be downloaded from the Behavior Research Methods website and used in any research involving categorical responses.     

Why did you choose that person over me? Ingroup rejection and attributions to discrimination

The present research examined the attributions that people make when an individual rejects a member of his or her own group in favor of a member of an outgroup (i.e., ingroup rejection). Study 1 showed that Latinos rejected by an ingroup member (perpetrator) made more attributions to discrimination than Whites under similar circumstances. Study 2 showed that Latinos made more attributions to discrimination for ingroup rejection when the perpetrator was Latino as compared to when the perpetrator was White, whereas Whites' attributions to discrimination were relatively low regardless of perpetrator's ethnicity. Study 3 showed that priming loyalty norms increased attributions to discrimination among Latinos in response to ingroup rejection, but not in response to outgroup rejection. This research brings a new perspective to discrimination research by focusing on intragroup rejection and nonprototypical cases of discrimination.     

Favouritism as a function of assumed similarity and anticipated interaction

Discussions of intergroup behavior (e.g., Rabbie and Wilkens, 1971; Tajfel, Flament, Billig and Bundy, 1971) have drawn attention to the influence of both assumed similarity and anticipated future interaction between an individual and other members of his group on his tendency to assign more favourable outcomes to members of his own group than to members of another group. This note examines whether similar processes may also affect an individual's tendency to make intragroup discriminations between different members of a group to which he himself does not belong, in a situation where the variables of similarity and anticipated interaction may be treated as independent factors.     

Influence and canonical supremacy: An analysis of how George Herbert Mead demoted Charles Horton Cooley in the sociological canon

This analysis assesses the factors underlying Charles Horton Cooley's place in the sociological canon as they relate to George Herbert Mead's puzzling diatribe—echoed in secondary accounts—against Cooley's social psychology and view of the self published scarcely a year after his death. The illocutionary act of publishing his critique stands as an effort to project the image of Mead's intellectual self and enhance his standing among sociologists within and outside the orbit of the University of Chicago. It expressed Mead's ambivalence toward his precursor Cooley, whose influence he never fully acknowledged. In addition, it typifies the contending fractal distinctions of the scientifically discursive versus literary styles of Mead and Cooley, who both founded the interpretive sociological tradition. The contrasting styles and attitudes toward writing of the two figures are discussed, and their implications for the problems of scale that have stymied the symbolic interactionist tradition are explored.     

Experimentally manipulated high in‐group status can buffer personal self‐esteem against discrimination

We present an experiment in which the relative status of an in‐group and the discriminatory nature of a decision maker's intergroup behaviour (in‐group‐favouring/out‐group‐favouring/even‐handed) were independently manipulated to observe their effects on self‐esteem. Adopting a Social Identity Theory framework, and following from previous empirical work, we predicted that discrimination against one's in‐group would lead to lower self‐esteem among members of a low‐status group but not among members of a high‐status group. This prediction was confirmed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Group-based self-evaluation outside of the laboratory: effects of global versus contextual status

An event-contingent diary methodology was used to study the impact of intergroup and intragroup factors on self-evaluations in naturally occurring groups. Participants reported their contextual group status, group identification, and self-evaluations each time they self-categorized as a group member throughout a 1-week period. Indicators of global group status, interdependence, and permeability of group boundaries also were obtained. Multilevel modeling revealed that contextual status and global status interacted to predict self-evaluations. Contextual status had a stronger relationship with self-evaluations for members of global low-status groups than for members of high-status groups. Analyses of intragroup factors revealed that greater group interdependence but not permeability of group boundaries also was associated with higher self-evaluations. The effects of both contextual status and group interdependence were mediated by group identification.     

Intragroup differentiation in terms of ingroup and outgroup attributes

An experiment (n = 36) was conducted to test the hypothesis that attribute typicality moderates intragroup differentiation. The predicted reversal from perceived relative ingroup homogeneity on typical ingroup attributes to perceived relative outgroup homogeneity on typical outgroup attributes was confirmed for both homogeneity measures (standard deviation and probability of differentiation). But the ingroup homogeneity effects were more reliable than the outgroup homogeneity effects. Relative ingroup size (minority versus majority) was included in the experimental design as a between-subjects factor but did not qualify the reversal of perceived relative homogeneity.     

Attending inside or outside: A Japanese–US comparison of spontaneous memory of group information

A recent review of empirical evidence disconfirmed the widely‐held view that North Americans are less collectivistic than East Asians. However, previous research has proposed that the motivations underlying group behaviours differ across cultures: North Americans are more strongly motivated to acquire and maintain higher in‐group status relative to outgroups, whereas East Asians tend to emphasize maintenance of reciprocal relationships within in‐groups. We tested this hypothesis by examining the pattern of attentional allocation in group situations using a memory task. As predicted, compared to Japanese, memory performance among Americans was biased towards intergroup status difference over intragroup relationship information.