Intergroup Attitudes as a Function of Different Dimensions of Group Identification and Perceived Intergroup Conflict

Although projecting one’s own characteristics onto another person is pervasive, “counter-projection,” or seeing the opposite of oneself in others is also sometimes found, with implications for intergroup conflict. After a focused review of previous studies finding counter-projection (often unexpectedly), we map conditions for counter-projection to an individual out-group member. Counter-projection requires identified antagonistic groups, is moderated by in-group identity, and is moderated by which information is assessed in the target person. Using political groups defined by support for former U.S. President Trump, across our Initial Experiment ( N = 725) and Confirmatory Experiment ( N = 618), we found counter-projection to individual political out-group targets for moral beliefs, personality traits, and everyday likes (e.g., preference for dogs vs. cats). Counter-projection was increased by in-group identification and overlapped considerably with “oppositional” out-group stereotypes, but we also found counter-projection independent of out-group stereotypes (degree of overlap with stereotyping depended on the information being projected).

Download Full-text

Intergroup Leadership Across Distinct Subgroups and Identities

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin ◽

10.1177/0146167218757466 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 44 (7) ◽

pp. 1090-1103 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

David E. Rast ◽

Michael A. Hogg ◽

Daan van Knippenberg

Keyword(s):

Collective Identity ◽

Leadership Theory ◽

Intergroup Conflict ◽

Intergroup Attitudes ◽

Relational Identity ◽

Identity Threat ◽

Significant Challenge ◽

The Core ◽

General Proposition

Resolving intergroup conflict is a significant and often arduous leadership challenge, yet existing theory and research rarely, if ever, discuss or examine this situation. Leaders confront a significant challenge when they provide leadership across deep divisions between distinct subgroups defined by self-contained identities—The challenge is to avoid provoking subgroup identity distinctiveness threat. Drawing on intergroup leadership theory, three studies were conducted to test the core hypothesis that, where identity threat exists, leaders promoting an intergroup relational identity will be better evaluated and are more effective than leaders promoting a collective identity; in the absence of threat, leaders promoting a collective identity will prevail. Studies 1 and 2 ( N = 170; N = 120) supported this general proposition. Study 3 ( N = 136) extended these findings, showing that leaders promoting an intergroup relational identity, but not a collective identity, improved intergroup attitudes when participants experienced an identity distinctiveness threat.

Download Full-text

The Effects of Self-Image Threat on the Judgment of Out-Group Targets

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185.64.2.87 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 64 (2) ◽

pp. 87-101 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Arnd Florack ◽

Martin Scarabis ◽

Stefanie Gosejohann

Keyword(s):

Group Identification ◽

Self Esteem ◽

The Self ◽

Negative Evaluation ◽

Intergroup Attitudes ◽

Negative Attitudes ◽

Self Image ◽

Group Target ◽

The Impact ◽

Group Member

The authors argue that individuals may restore their self-esteem by derogating a member of an out-group, but only if they identify with the in-group and hold negative attitudes towards the out-group. In two experiments, the self-image of participants was either enhanced or threatened. Afterwards, participants evaluated an out-group target. The results provided broad support for the assumption that intergroup attitudes and in-group identification moderate the impact of self-image threat on the judgment of an out-group member. Self-image threat led to a more negative evaluation only in participants with negative out-group attitudes. It resulted in a more positive evaluation when participants held positive out-group attitudes and identified less with the in-group.

Download Full-text

Group identification and intergroup attitudes: A longitudinal analysis in South Africa.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ◽

10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.80 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 74 (1) ◽

pp. 80-85 ◽

Cited By ~ 80

Author(s):

John Duckitt ◽

Thobi Mphuthing

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Longitudinal Analysis ◽

Group Identification ◽

Intergroup Attitudes

Download Full-text

Testing the impact and durability of a group malleability intervention in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1706800115 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 115 (4) ◽

pp. 696-701 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Amit Goldenberg ◽

Smadar Cohen-Chen ◽

J. Parker Goyer ◽

Carol S. Dweck ◽

James J. Gross ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conflict Resolution ◽

Perspective Taking ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Intergroup Conflict ◽

Intergroup Attitudes ◽

Short Term ◽

The Impact

Fostering perceptions of group malleability (teaching people that groups are capable of change and improvement) has been shown to lead to short-term improvements in intergroup attitudes and willingness to make concessions in intractable conflicts. The present study, a field intervention involving 508 Israelis from three locations in Israel, replicated and substantially extended those findings by testing the durability of a group malleability intervention during a 6-month period of frequent violence. Three different 5-hour-long interventions were administered as leadership workshops. The group malleability intervention was compared with a neutral coping intervention and, importantly, with a state-of-the-art perspective-taking intervention. The group malleability intervention proved superior to the coping intervention in improving attitudes, hope, and willingness to make concessions, and maintained this advantage during a 6-month period of intense intergroup conflict. Moreover, it was as good as, and in some respects superior to, the perspective-taking intervention. These findings provide a naturalistic examination of the potential of group malleability interventions to increase openness to conflict resolution.

Download Full-text

INTERGROUP CONTACT AND INGROUP IDENTIFICATION AS PREDICTORS INTERGROUP ATTITUDES AND FORGIVENESS IN THE SERBIAN CONTEXT: THE MODERATING ROLE OF EXPOSURE TO POSITIVE INFORMATION

Primenjena psihologija ◽

10.19090/pp.2017.4.477-497 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 477 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Huseyin Cakal ◽

Nebojša Petrović

Keyword(s):

Social Identity ◽

Intergroup Contact ◽

Group Identification ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Control Group ◽

Intergroup Attitudes ◽

Collective Guilt ◽

Positive Information ◽

Ingroup Identification

Intergroup contact reduces prejudice and improves outgroup attitudes, while a salient social identity might have the opposite effects. Recent research has shown that exposure to positive information about the outgroup could influence such effects of the contact and social identity on the outgroup attitudes. Here we investigate the effects of the contact and social identity on the outgroup attitudes, and forgiveness toward the outgroup of Bosniak Muslims among Serbs (N = 400), by randomly allocating them into control and experimental groups. In the experimental condition, the students were presented with brief biographies of three eminent Bosniak Muslims, in the positive context, after which they collected the survey. In the control group, students were only presented with the survey without the biographies. Subsequent independent samples t-tests showed that the mean values for ingroup identification and intergroup trust were significantly different in the two groups. Specifically, participants who were in the experimental condition, being exposed to the positive information about Bosniak Muslims, reported a higher level of intergroup trust and a lower level of ingroup identification as Serbian. We then performed a multi-group structural equation modeling through which we tested a predictive role of the past contact and in-the group identification on trust and collective guilt in both control and experimental conditions. Across both groups, past contact positively and ingroup identification negatively predicted both intergroup attitudes and forgiveness via trust and collective guilt. Exposure to the positive information about the outgroup moderated the indirect effects of the ingroup identification on the intergroup attitudes via collective guilt.

Download Full-text

Thinking about God Discourages Dehumanization of Religious Outgroups

10.31234/osf.io/dvpn4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Julia Marianne Smith ◽

Michael H. Pasek ◽

ALLON VISHKIN ◽

Kathryn A. Johnson ◽

Crystal Shackleford ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Intergroup Conflict ◽

Intergroup Attitudes ◽

Total N ◽

Belief In God ◽

Moral Attitudes ◽

The Relationship

In this paper we report studies in which we investigated the relationship between religious cognition and dehumanization of religious outgroup members. Dehumanization is a key feature of intergroup conflict, and many argue that belief in moralizing gods promotes a distinctly parochial altruism which excludes or even encourages conflict with non-believers. In six studies, five with American Christians and one with Israeli Jews (total N = 1,548), we find that belief in moralizing gods discourages dehumanization of ethno-religious outgroups. Across studies, participants completed measures of dehumanization from their own perspectives and also from the perspective of God, rating the groups’ humanity as they thought God would rate it or wish for them to rate it. When participants completed measures from both their own and God’s perspectives, they reported believing that, compared with their own views, God would see (or prefer for them to see) outgroup members as more human. Results demonstrate that religious believers attribute universalizing moral attitudes to God, compared to themselves, and document how belief in God can promote more positive intergroup attitudes.

Download Full-text