In-Group Favouritism can be used to Get Even as well as to Get Ahead

Social identity theory is a major mainstream theory of intergroup relations (Tajfel and Turner, 1979). At its heart lies the assumption that social groups fight and compete with one another in order to attain positive distinctiveness from one another. In other words, group members are motivated to favor their own group (the in-group) and derogate other groups (out-groups) along specific intergroup comparison dimensions in order to increase or maintain their group's relative social status. High in-group status and positive in-group distinctiveness enable in-group members to achieve or maintain a positive social identity and concomitant positive self-esteem (Rubin and Hewstone, 1998, 2004). So, for example, sports fans support their team and derogate the other team in the hope that their team will beat the other group so that they can then bask in the reflected glory of their team's success.

Oxford United Fans Celebrating at a 2011 Game

There is a lot of evidence in support of the social identity explanation of in-group favoritism. However, my colleagues (Constantina Badea and Jolanda Jetten) and I have recently questioned whether beating the out-group is the only motive for in-group favoritism. We assumed that, in the specific case of low status groups, in-group favoritism may be used to make the in-group equal to the out-group, and not necessarily better than the out-group. In this case, in-group favoritism is used to achieve intergroup fairness rather than positive in-group distinctiveness. To give a real world example, gay men and women may favor their low status group not because they want to outdo straight men and women but because they seek equality with straight people in having the right to marry their partners. In this case, in-group favoritism is enacted with the aim of achieving intergroup equality rather than high in-group status or positive distinctiveness.

An Equal Love Rally in Melbourne, Australia

To clarify our assumptions, we distinguished between two types of in-group favoritism that might be used by low status groups: competitive favoritism and compensatory favoritism.

1. Low status groups can use competitive favoritism to compete with high status out-groups in order to achieve positive in-group distinctiveness.
2. Low status groups can use compensatory favoritism to compensate for their low status and achieve intergroup fairness.

To test these predictions, we asked 139 psychology undergraduates to take part in a social group resource distribution task. Participants were given an identification number ranging from 1 to 50 and then randomly assigned to two arbitrary groups called the “Red Group” and the “Green Group.” They then allocated points to people from their group and the other group. They were told to think of the points as "points in a game," where the more points a person or group gets, the better. Crucially, the members of one group always started this points allocation task with two more points than the members of the other group. So, in the context of our admittedly artificial laboratory situation, we had an intergroup status hierarchy, with a high status group starting off with more points than a low status group.

Participants used a series of point allocation tables like the one below to award points to group members. In each table, they had to circle one of the four columns listed under the heading “My Allocation to Each Person.” Some of the choices in these columns compensated the low status group member for their initial two-point disadvantage. For example, if a member of the Red Group circled the 3/5 choice in the table, then their fellow low status Red Group member would end up with the same number of points (6 starting points + 5 allocated points = 11 points in total) as the high status Green Group member (8 starting points + 3 allocated points = 11 points in total). Other choices in the tables allowed low status group members to get more points than the high status group member. For example, the 2/6 choice meant that the Red group member ended up with more points (6 + 6 = 12) than the Green group member (8 + 2 = 10).

Using this novel approach, we found that participants in the low status group were significantly more likely than participants in the high status group to choose the competitive in-group favoritism option (e.g., the 2/6 choice in the above table). So, we replicated the classic, competitive favoritism effect that is predicted by social identity theory.

However, we also found that participants in the low status group selected the compensatory favoritism option (e.g., the 3/5 choice in the table) significantly more than chance. Here, awarding more points to the in-group than to the out-group had the effect of compensating the in-group for its initial points disadvantage and leading to intergroup fairness.  Hence, the compensatory favoritism choice enabled the low status in-group to do as well as the high status out-group in terms of its points allocations but not necessarily better than the out-group.

Social identity theory has touted social competition as the key driver of social change (Tajfel and Turner, 1979). Our research suggests that, in the context of unequal intergroup status relations, social compensation can also provided a pathway to social change. Specifically, low status groups can use in-group favouritism to change the intergroup hierarchy by getting even with the high status group, rather than by surpassing it in status.

For further information, please see the following journal article:

Rubin, M., Badea, C., and Jetten, J. (2014). Low status groups show in-group favoritism to compensate for their low status and to compete for higher status. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations DOI: 10.1177/1368430213514122

For a self-archived version of this article, please see here.

And the Winners Are...All the Same! Why Winning Groups Are Stereotyped

In some recent research, my colleagues and I investigated whether people stereotype winning groups more than losing groups. In other words, do people perceive the members of winning groups to be more similar to one another than the members of losing groups? Traditionally, social psychologists have assumed that it is low status groups, low power groups, and minority groups that bear the brunt of stereotyping with more positive, high status, high power, majority groups being considered as unique individuals. In our research, we challenged this prevailing view. We predicted that, in the context of a competition between groups, winning groups would be stereotyped more than losing groups because people have an implicit understanding that uniformity, group cohesiveness, and co-ordination are associated with better group performance.

To test our prediction, we asked 175 research participants to view the photographs of four women who were ostensibly part of a team of fashion designers. We told half of our participants that the team had won a fashion design competition and the other half that the team had lost the competition. We then asked participants to indicate how much they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements that related to the similarity between the fashion designers (e.g., “Generally, the fashion designers...are similar to each other”).

Our statistical analyses showed that participants who were told that the fashion design team had won the competition rated the four women as being significantly more similar to one another (i.e., more homogeneous) than participants who were told that the team had lost. To check that this finding generalized to other groups, we performed a second study that referred to architects who took part in a building design competition. We obtained similar results: Participants rated the members of the winning group as being more similar to one another than the members of the losing group. In addition, they perceived the winning group to be more cohesive, agreeing more strongly with statements such as  “I think that the...architects worked well together”.

These results suggest that it is not just low status groups, low power groups, and minority groups that can face high levels of stereotyping. In the context of an intergroup competition, winning groups also appear to be stereotyped. Our use of fashion designers and architects as target groups, make our results all the more interesting. People in these professions tend to do well if they generate distinctive and unique ideas. But even they need to put aside their individuality and pull together as a coherent team in order to win a competition – or at least that’s the way our research participants appeared to interpret things.

We’ve shown that people perceive winning groups to be more homogeneous than losing groups. But an interesting question for future research is whether people perceive homogeneous groups to be more like winners than heterogeneous groups. Military forces often put on public displays in which they demonstrate the uniformity, homogeneity, cohesiveness, and co-ordination of their soldiers. It’s possible that these displays are functional because people, including opposing military forces, perceive homogeneous groups to be potential winners of any military action.

For more information about this research, please see the following journal article:

Badea, C., Brauer, M., & Rubin, M. (2012). The Effects of Winning and Losing on Perceived Group Variability Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.006

High Status Groups are the Most Prototypical

Imagine an average, typical person walking down the street. Imagine them speaking on their mobile phone as they walk and waving to a friend who rides past on a bike.

Well done! Good imagining!! Now, what is the gender of your imaginary person? Were you thinking of a man or a woman? My guess is that it is a man rather than a woman! Why? Well, there is some evidence that people tend to perceive men as having a higher status than women and, in a recent research study, I found that people tend to perceive high status groups as being more typical of their overarching categories (in this case “people”) than low status groups.

In my study, I asked 139 undergraduates students to consider six novel, lab-based social groups that were named using colours: Yellow, Blue, Red, White, Orange, and Green. Students were told that the Yellow and Blue groups had a high social status, the Red and White groups had an average status, and the Orange and Green groups had a low status. The students then rated which of the groups they thought were the most typical (“representative” and “good examples”) of the six groups. Participants rated the two high status groups to be significantly more typical than the two low status groups. I believe that this difference occurred because participants placed a positive value on the overarching category of “research study groups”, and they perceived the Yellow and Blue groups to be the most representative of this category because these high status groups possessed the most positive features. In general then, I’m suggesting that the more positive a social group is perceived to be, the more representative it is perceived to be of positively-valued superordinate categories.

So, when asked to think about a typical person, you might think of a man rather than a woman because men tend to be perceived as having a higher status than women and, consequently, they are perceived to be more typical than women of the positively-valued superordinate category of “people”.

For more information about this research study, please see: Rubin, M. (2012). Group Status is Related to Group Prototypicality in the Absence of Social Identity Concerns The Journal of Social Psychology, 152 (3), 386-389 DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2011.614648