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.

Boys Don’t Cry, But They Can Be Sensitive! Behavioural Descriptions of Counterstereotypical People Cause Greater Prejudice than Personality Descriptions

Stereotypes are pretty useful things! We use them to help us to understand and respond to people from a large and diverse array of social groups. But how do people feel about individuals who buck the trend and contradict stereotypes? For example, how do people feel about a man who is crying or a woman who is smoking a cigar!

Most evidence shows that people react quite negatively towards counterstereotypical individuals. The typical explanation for this negative bias refers to people’s need to protect and maintain their stereotypes: People are biased against counterstereotypical individuals because they disconfirm stereotypes and threaten people’s need to maintain stable and coherent stereotype systems.

However, recent social psychological research has provided some hope for counterstereotypical people. This new evidence shows that, although counterstereotypical individuals are disliked when they are described using behaviours, they are actually liked when they are described using personality traits. So, for example, although people may dislike “a man who is crying”, they like “a sensitive man”. In both cases, the man is counterstereotypical because he contradicts a gender stereotype. However, in the former case he is described using a behavior (“crying”) and in the latter case he is described using a personality trait (“sensitive”). Notably, this linguistic description effect occurs even when the particular valence of the words that are used (positive/negative) is taken into account.

So, why does this linguistic description effect occur? Well, it’s possible that counterstereotypical individuals are evaluated relatively negatively when they are described using behaviours because this linguistic description promotes a deeper, more systematic processing of the person that highlights their stereotype disconfirmation and, as we know, people don’t like individuals who step out of line with their stereotypes! In contrast, counterstereotypical individuals may be evaluated relatively positively when they are described using personality traits because this linguistic description promotes a more superficial type of processing that highlights individuals’ uniqueness, and people tend to value uniqueness.

How is all this relevant to you? Well, if you stop for a minute and consider your own social categories (i.e., your gender, religion, occupation, age group, political orientation, etc), then I’m sure you’ll find at least one in which your own characteristics contradict your group’s stereotype. Now don’t worry – it's often good to be the black sheep! Throughout the ages, counterstereotypical people have been the agents of beneficial social change. For example, independent women (who were counterstereotypical for their time) spearheaded the Feminist movement. In addition, the diversity embodied by counterstereotypical people brings with it a wealth of positive outcomes in work and organisational contexts. So, you should feel proud if you’re different from the rest of your group. The trick is to get other people to appreciate you for your uniqueness, rather than to denigrate you for your deviance. And describing yourself in terms of personality traits rather than behaviours may provide one way to do this.

For further information, please see the following journal article:

Rubin, M., Paolini, S., & Crisp, R. J. (2013). Linguistic description moderates the evaluations of counterstereotypical people. Social Psychology, 44 (4), 289-298 DOI: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000114

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

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project DP0556908). However, the views expressed above are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council.

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“They’re all the Same!”...But for Several Different Reasons

People often get confused between members of the same social group because “they all look the same!” In a recent review, Constantina Badea and I looked at the various reasons for this group homogeneity effect.

 
One reason is that group members actually do look the same as one another: Try identifying the culprit in a line-up of the Queen’s Guards!

Another reason is that people, especially Westerners, are motivated to perceive people in their own groups as individuals. This perceived in-group heterogeneity lets you express your individuality and distance yourself from your group's negative aspects.

It also matters what kind of group is being judged. There is a tendency to judge people in small groups, low status groups, and low power groups as being relatively similar to one another.

Finally, it matters what dimensions are being used to judge the groups. Group members tend to be rated as being similar to one another when they are judged on stereotypical dimensions as opposed to nonstereotypical or counterstereotypical dimensions (e.g., men judged on the dimension “adventurous” rather than "sensitive").

So, whether or not “they all look the same” depends on their actual variability, whether you are one of them, how numerous and powerful they are, and what kind of dimensions you’re judging them on.

For further information, please see the following journal article: Rubin, M., & Badea, C. (2012). They're All the Same!. . . but for Several Different Reasons: A Review of the Multicausal Nature of Perceived Group Variability Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21 (6), 367-372 DOI: 10.1177/0963721412457363

A self-archived version of this paper is available here.

Please click here for a collection of research papers investigating perceived group variability.

The Disproportionate Influence of Negative Intergroup Encounters on Prejudice

Back in February, I wrote about some research in which my colleagues and I showed that negative experiences with people from other groups are better at drawing attention to the people's group memberships than positive experiences (Paolini, Harwood, & Rubin, 2010). In other words, if you have a negative encounter with someone from another group, then you are more likely to think about their group memberships (e.g., their gender, race, nationality, etc.) than if you have a positive encounter with them. This increased awareness of a person's group memberships following a negative encounter with them is potentially problematic for the goal of reducing intergroup conflict in society because it means that people are naturally biased towards attributing bad things to out-group members' groups and generalizing their negative experiences with one out-group member to all of the other out-group members. Our preliminary evidence provided some support for this assumption, showing that people were more likely to mention a woman's ethnicity when she behaved negatively rather than positively. However, we did not go as far as testing whether this out-group salience effect led to greater prejudice against the out-group.

Now, Fiona Barlow and colleagues have found this missing piece of the puzzle in a series of research studies published this week (Barlow, Paolini, Pedersen, Hornsey, Radke, Harwood, Rubin, & Sibley, 2012). We looked at prejudice against Black Australians, Muslim Australians, and asylum seekers and found that negative experiences with these people were a stronger and more consistent predictor of negative attitudes towards them than positive experiences were of positive attitudes. For example, negative experiences, but not positive experiences, with Black Americans predicted suspicion about Barack Obama’s birthplace, which represents a subtle measure of racism.
  
These results suggest that negative experiences with out-group members are not only more likely than positive experiences to make people think about out-group members' group memberships, but also to influences people's attitudes towards the out-groups. Taken together, these two recent papers suggest that negative experiences with out-group members have a greater potential than positive experiences to influence people's thoughts and feelings about out-groups. This work implies that we should redouble our efforts to encourage positive experiences between members of different groups because this positive intergroup contact is naturally disadvantaged against improving intergroup relations when compared with the more powerful influence of negative intergroup contact.

For further information, please see the following journal article:  Barlow, F., Paolini, S., Pedersen, A., Hornsey, M., Radke, H., Harwood, J., Rubin, M., & Sibley, C. (2012). The Contact Caveat: Negative Contact Predicts Increased Prejudice More Than Positive Contact Predicts Reduced Prejudice Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38 (12), 1629-1643 DOI: 10.1177/0146167212457953