Showing papers on "Ingroups and outgroups published in 2017"
TL;DR: It is proposed that ingroup identification, ingroup norms and goals, and collective efficacy determine environmental appraisals as well as both private and public sphere environmental action.
Abstract: Large-scale environmental crises are genuinely collective phenomena: they usually result from collective, rather than personal, behavior and how they are cognitively represented and appraised is determined by collectively shared interpretations (e.g., differing across ideological groups) and based on concern for collectives (e.g., humankind, future generations) rather than for individuals. Nevertheless, pro-environmental action has been primarily investigated as a personal decision-making process. We complement this research with a social identity perspective on pro-environmental action. Social identity is the human capacity to define the self in terms of "We" instead of "I," enabling people to think and act as collectives, which should be crucial given personal insufficiency to appraise and effectively respond to environmental crises. We propose a Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (SIMPEA) of how social identity processes affect both appraisal of and behavioral responses to large-scale environmental crises. We review related and pertinent research providing initial evidence for the role of 4 social identity processes hypothesized in SIMPEA. Specifically, we propose that ingroup identification, ingroup norms and goals, and collective efficacy determine environmental appraisals as well as both private and public sphere environmental action. These processes are driven by personal and collective emotions and motivations that arise from environmental appraisal and operate on both a deliberate and automatic processing level. Finally, we discuss SIMPEA's implications for the research agenda in environmental and social psychology and for interventions fostering pro-environmental action. (PsycINFO Database Record
247 citations
TL;DR: Investigation of the effects of negative as well as positive intergroup contact found that only negative contact predicted LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students’ collective action intentions longitudinally while only positive contact predicted heterosexual/cisgender students' LGBT activism.
Abstract: Previous research has shown that (a) positive intergroup contact with an advantaged group can discourage collective action among disadvantaged-group members and (b) positive intergroup contact can encourage advantaged-group members to take action on behalf of disadvantaged outgroups. Two studies investigated the effects of negative as well as positive intergroup contact. Study 1 (n = 482) found that negative but not positive contact with heterosexual people was associated with sexual-minority students’ engagement in collective action (via group identification and perceived discrimination). Among heterosexual students, positive and negative contacts were associated with, respectively, more and less LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) activism. Study 2 (N = 1,469) found that only negative contact (via perceived discrimination) predicted LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students’ collective action intentions longitudinally while only positive contact predicted heterosexual/cisgender students’ LGBT activism. Implications for the relationship between intergroup contact, collective action, and social change are discussed.
133 citations
TL;DR: Five experiments provide converging evidence that highlighting shared experiences of discrimination can improve intergroup outcomes between stigmatized groups across dimensions of social identity.
Abstract: Intergroup relations research has largely focused on relations between members of dominant groups and members of disadvantaged groups. The small body of work examining intraminority intergroup relations, or relations between members of different disadvantaged groups, reveals that salient experiences of ingroup discrimination promote positive relations between groups that share a dimension of identity (e.g., 2 different racial minority groups) and negative relations between groups that do not share a dimension of identity (e.g., a racial minority group and a sexual minority group). In the present work, we propose that shared experiences of discrimination between groups that do not share an identity dimension can be used as a lever to facilitate positive intraminority intergroup relations. Five experiments examining relations among 4 different disadvantaged groups supported this hypothesis. Both blatant (Experiments 1 and 3) and subtle (Experiments 2, 3, and 4) connections to shared experiences of discrimination, or inducing a similarity-seeking mindset in the context of discrimination faced by one's ingroup (Experiment 5), increased support for policies benefiting the outgroup (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and reduced intergroup bias (Experiments 3, 4, and 5). Taken together, these experiments provide converging evidence that highlighting shared experiences of discrimination can improve intergroup outcomes between stigmatized groups across dimensions of social identity. Implications of these findings for intraminority intergroup relations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record
115 citations
TL;DR: It is found that people are motivated to trust and cooperate more with their ingroup, than harm the outgroup, and reputational concerns play a decisive role for promoting trust and cooperation universally across societies.
Abstract: International challenges such as climate change, poverty, and intergroup conflict require countries to cooperate to solve these complex problems. However, the political tide in many countries has shifted inward, with skepticism and reluctance to cooperate with other countries. Thus, cross-societal investigations are needed to test theory about trust and cooperation within and between groups. We conducted an experimental study in 17 countries designed to test several theories that explain why, who, and where people trust and cooperate more with ingroup members, compared with outgroup members. The experiment involved several interactions in the trust game, either as a trustor or trustee. We manipulated partner group membership in the trust game (ingroup, outgroup, or unknown) and if their reputation was at stake during the interaction. In addition to the standard finding that participants trust and cooperate more with ingroup than outgroup members, we obtained findings that reputational concerns play a decisive role for promoting trust and cooperation universally across societies. Furthermore, men discriminated more in favor of their ingroup than women. Individual differences in cooperative preferences, as measured by social value orientation, predicted cooperation with both ingroup and outgroup members. Finally, we did not find support for three theories about the cross-societal conditions that influence the degree of ingroup favoritism observed across societies (e.g., material security, religiosity, and pathogen stress). We discuss the implications for promoting cooperation within and between countries.
102 citations
TL;DR: The authors provide a framework to understand and synthesize the processes of person construal with the processes involved in intergroup relations, and explore the implications of the activation of these constructs for a range of social judgments including emotion identification, empathy, and intergroup behaviors.
Abstract: The primary aim of this chapter is to provide a framework to understand and synthesize the processes of person construal—early perceptions that lead to initial ingroup/outgroup categorizations—with the processes involved in intergroup relations. To this end, we review research examining the initial perception and categorization of ingroup and outgroup members and its downstream consequences. We first discuss bottom-up processes in person construal based on visual features (e.g., facial prototypicality and bodily cues), and then discuss how top-down factors (e.g., beliefs, stereotypes) may influence these processes. Next, we examine how the initial categorization of targets as ingroup or outgroup members influences identification, stereotyping, and group-based evaluations, and the relations between these constructs. We also explore the implications of the activation of these constructs for a range of social judgments including emotion identification, empathy, and intergroup behaviors. Finally, we describe a variety of well established and more recent strategies to reduce intergroup bias that target the activation of category-based knowledge, including intergroup contact, approach orientations, evaluative conditioning, and perspective taking.
101 citations
TL;DR: Infants view helping as expected among individuals from the same group, but as optional otherwise, which demonstrates that from an early age, an abstract expectation of ingroup support contributes to ingroup favoritism in human interactions.
Abstract: One pervasive facet of human interactions is the tendency to favor ingroups over outgroups. Remarkably, this tendency has been observed even when individuals are assigned to minimal groups based on arbitrary markers. Why is mere categorization into a minimal group sufficient to elicit some degree of ingroup favoritism? We consider several accounts that have been proposed in answer to this question and then test one particular account, which holds that ingroup favoritism reflects in part an abstract and early-emerging sociomoral expectation of ingroup support. In violation-of-expectation experiments with 17-mo-old infants, unfamiliar women were first identified (using novel labels) as belonging to the same group, to different groups, or to unspecified groups. Next, one woman needed instrumental assistance to achieve her goal, and another woman either provided the necessary assistance (help event) or chose not to do so (ignore event). When the two women belonged to the same group, infants looked significantly longer if shown the ignore as opposed to the help event; when the two women belonged to different groups or to unspecified groups, however, infants looked equally at the two events. Together, these results indicate that infants view helping as expected among individuals from the same group, but as optional otherwise. As such, the results demonstrate that from an early age, an abstract expectation of ingroup support contributes to ingroup favoritism in human interactions.
101 citations
Dissertation•
28 Feb 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored how rigid the above exemplary alterities were by gathering data on the perceptions of their boundaries as reflected in electronic archives covering 16 years of newspaper reporting in the UK (1995-2010) and then subjecting this data to both a quantitative and qualitative analysis, measuring the fluctuation of ambiguity tolerance.
Abstract: We often pigeonhole our surroundings into dualistic categories, e.g., nature/culture. Perhaps evolutionary forces favoured dichotomous brains, or dualistic categories may be only social constructs. These lines of thought led to my research question(s): Do juxtaposed mechanisms of dichotomous black-and-white (essentialist) cognitive patterns exist; and, if so, how do such mechanisms affect cultural and scientific concepts of reality? My thesis focusses on four classic modes of othering (Human–Animal, Human–Machine, Male–Female, Heterosexual–Homosexual) oft-cited in biological anthropological studies, aiming to reconstruct the developmental forces that can bring about, stabilise or modify such binaries. My thesis therefore also is situated in discourses of sociology, psychology, animal studies, AI theory and gender/sexuality studies. I explored how rigid – respectively, fluid – the above exemplary alterities were by gathering data on the perceptions of their boundaries as reflected in electronic archives covering 16 years of newspaper reporting in the UK (1995–2010) and then subjecting this data to both a quantitative and qualitative analysis, measuring the fluctuation of ambiguity tolerance. My results strongly indicate similar temporal patterns of ambiguity tolerance across three out of four dichotomies – including a distinct “millennial effect” of intolerance – and a remarkably stable Male–Female dichotomy. This suggests firstly that received understandings of concrete descriptions in evolutionary theory such as “human”, “animal”, “species”, “tool (machine)”, “homosexual” and “heterosexual” may function as cultural concepts considered to be natural kinds, but also are temporally malleable in both popular and academic discourse; and, secondly, that we may have natal (arguably plastic) gender schemata. I show quantitatively and qualitatively that essentialist thinking – as expressed by ambiguity (in)tolerance in socially empowered individuals – functions as an infrahumanisation mechanism to protect one’s perceived ingroup, be that humans, males or heterosexuals. I argue instead for an ultrahumanisation that may allow for less anthropocentrism, less androcentrism and less heterocentrism.
80 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors conducted between-subject experiments in large samples of adult residents of the USA (N=1615) and India (n=1969) and found that the behavioral immune system simply motivates the avoidance of any infected individual regardless of their group membership.
76 citations
TL;DR: The findings extend previous research highlighting the benefits of social identity on teammate behavior and team performance and demonstrate how social identity may contribute to PYD through sport.
Abstract: An emerging area of research has focused on understanding how the group dynamics of a sport team influence positive youth development (PYD). The identities that youth form through their membership in sport teams (i.e., social identities) have been found to influence teammate behavior and team performance. Yet, minimal work exists on social identity and PYD in youth sport. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between social identity and PYD in sport. Method: Youth engaged in recreational sport (N = 219; Mage = 11.61 years, SD = 1.39 years) completed measures of social identity and PYD in sport. The social identity measure assessed 3 dimensions including ingroup ties (IGT; perceptions of similarity, bonding, belongingness), cognitive centrality (importance of being a team member), and ingroup affect (IGA; feelings associated with group membership). A regression analysis was performed separately for 4 PYD outcomes (personal and social skills, goal setting, initiative...
72 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the alignment of multiple issue attitudes along the traditional ideological spectrum helps explain the asymmetrical rise in negative political affect and suggest that crosscutting issue preferences could help attenuate political hostility and reiterate the need to reconsider the role of issuebased reasoning in polarized America.
Abstract: The American public remains largely moderate on many issues, but incivility and hostility are rife in American politics. In this paper, I argue that the alignment of multiple issue attitudes along the traditional ideological spectrum helps explain the asymmetrical rise in negative political affect. I introduce belief congruence theory as a supplemental theoretical framework to social identity theory. Cross-sectional data reveal a significant association between issue alignment and negative out-party affect that is neither mediated nor moderated by partisan identity. A first-difference approach using two panel studies then addresses potential heterogeneity bias by testing a change-on-change model within individuals. Both panels, which are from different time periods, covering different issues, reveal significant associations between issue alignment and outgroup dislike. In contrast, partisan identity was only significantly associated with ingroup affect. This work suggests that cross-cutting issue preferences could help attenuate political hostility and reiterate the need to reconsider the role of issue-based reasoning in polarized America.
71 citations
TL;DR: This paper developed an integrative Attitudes Toward Roma Scale (ATRS) based on existing measures and theoretical assumptions about prejudice toward Roma people and found that intergroup contact with Roma people is associated with more negative attitudes and prejudice is mostly expressed in blatantly negative ways, made possible by social contexts that approve of these beliefs.
TL;DR: This work examines partisan political identities and intergroup factors as predictors of incivility in a newspaper discussion forum and finds that conservatives were less likely to be uncivil and audience members had more extreme evaluations of uncivil comments made by partisans than nonpartisans.
Abstract: Although incivility is an increasing concern among scholars and the public, explanations for this phenomenon sometimes overlook the role of computer-mediated communication. Drawing from the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), we consider incivility as a form of identity performance occurring in the visually anonymous contexts that are typical online. Specifically, we examine partisan political identities and intergroup factors as predictors of incivility in a newspaper discussion forum. Contrary to expectations, conservatives were less likely to be uncivil as the proportion of ingroup members (i.e., other conservatives) in the discussion increased and less sensitive to incivility directed at outgroup members (i.e., liberals) than were nonconservatives. Audience members had more extreme evaluations of uncivil comments made by partisans than nonpartisans.
TL;DR: Findings indicate a key role for the SCC, a region previously implicated in altruistic decisions and group affiliation, in dovetailing altruistic motivations with neural valuation systems in real-life ingroup behaviour.
Abstract: Humans have a strong need to belong to social groups and a natural inclination to benefit ingroup members. Although the psychological mechanisms behind human prosociality have extensively been studied, the specific neural systems bridging group belongingness and altruistic motivation remain to be identified. Here, we used soccer fandom as an ecological framing of group membership to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying ingroup altruistic behaviour in male fans using event-related functional magnetic resonance. We designed an effort measure based on handgrip strength to assess the motivation to earn money (i) for oneself, (ii) for anonymous ingroup fans, or (iii) for a neutral group of anonymous non-fans. While overlapping valuation signals in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) were observed for the three conditions, the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC) exhibited increased functional connectivity with the mOFC as well as stronger hemodynamic responses for ingroup versus outgroup decisions. These findings indicate a key role for the SCC, a region previously implicated in altruistic decisions and group affiliation, in dovetailing altruistic motivations with neural valuation systems in real-life ingroup behaviour.
TL;DR: In this paper, the relation between equality-based respect and global identification in a structural equation model, with pro-environmental intentions and donation behavior as outcome variables, was explored.
Abstract: Global identity reflects social identification with the world and the largest, most inclusive human ingroup and is generally associated with behavior that serves the world and all humans, such as transnational cooperation or proenvironmental engagement. While the outcomes of being globally identified are well-established, the antecedents of global identity are only partially explored. Drawing from research suggesting that respect fosters identification in small groups, we argue that the general experience of being respected as an equal by others increases global identification. In an online study with 469 Germans (students and nonstudents), we tested the relation between equality-based respect and global identification in a structural equation model, with proenvironmental intentions and donation behavior as outcome variables. As expected, equality-based respect, but not other forms of social recognition (need-based care and achievement-based social esteem), predicted global identity while higher global identity, in turn, predicted proenvironmental activism. These effects were substantial beyond known predictors of proenvironmental behavior and thus suggest that equality-based respect represents an important facet of responses to global challenges.
TL;DR: This paper found that both pride and respect are positively related to organizational identification, and organizational identification is positively related with work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and that organizational identification mediates the relationships between antecedents and consequences (work engagement and OCB).
TL;DR: A sense of community among CT believers, a highly differentiated representation of the outgroup, a personal journey of conversion, variegated kinds of political action, and optimistic belief in future change are revealed.
Abstract: Conspiracy theories (CTs) are widespread ways by which people make sense of unsettling or disturbing cultural events. Belief in CTs is often connected to problematic consequences, such as decreased engagement with conventional political action or even political extremism, so understanding the psychological and social qualities of CTs belief is important. CTs have often been understood to be “monological”, displaying the tendency for belief in one conspiracy theory to be correlated with belief in (many) others. Explanations of monologicality invoke a nomothetical or “closed” mindset whereby mutually supporting beliefs based on mistrust of official explanations are used to interpret public events as conspiracies, independent of the facts about those events (which they may ignore or deny). But research on monologicality offers little discussion of the content of monological beliefs and reasoning from the standpoint of the CT believers. This is due in part to the “access problem” (Wood & Douglas, 2015): CT believers are averse to being researched because they often distrust researchers and what they appear to represent. We used several strategies to address the access problem, and investigated the symbolic resources underlying CTs by reconstructing a conspiracy worldview - a set of beliefs held by CT believers about important dimensions of ontology, epistemology, and human agency. To do this, we analysed media documents, conducted field observation, and engaged in semi-structured interviews,. We describe six main dimensions of a conspiracy worldview: Views of the nature of reality, the self, the outgroup, the ingroup, action, and the future. We also describe a typology of five types of CT believers, which vary according to their positions on each of these dimensions. Our findings converge with prior explorations of CT beliefs but also revealed novel aspects: A sense of community among CT believers, a highly differentiated representation of the outgroup, a personal journey of conversion, variegated kinds of political action, and optimistic belief in future change. These findings are at odds with the typical image of monological CT believers as paranoid, cynical, anomic and irrational. For many, the CT worldview may rather constitute the ideological underpinning of a nascent pre-figurative social movement.
TL;DR: The climate change problem is often seen as being psychologically distant for people living in the Western world: It is spatially distant, happening to people belonging to outgroups in faraway coun....
Abstract: The climate-change problem is often seen as being psychologically distant for people living in the Western world: It is spatially distant, happening to people belonging to outgroups in faraway coun...
TL;DR: This article found that conservatives' pro-environmental attitudes substantially increased after an appeal to binding and liberty moral concerns, while a second experiment demonstrated the enhanced efficacy of an appeal that affirmed diverse ideological and moral values in the context of a shared concern for the health of the natural environment.
TL;DR: This article studied the third-party punishment game and found that punishers often punish dictators who treat others poorly, especially when better treatment would be expected given ingroup/outgroup composition.
01 Aug 2017
TL;DR: This study puts participants into two competing teams, each consisting of two humans and two robots, to examine how people behave toward others depending on Group (ingroup, outgroup) and Agent (human, robot) variables.
Abstract: When it's between a robot on your team and a human member of a competing team, who will you favor? Past research indicates that people favor and behave more morally toward ingroup than outgroup members. Conversely, people typically indicate that they have more moral responsibilities toward humans than nonhumans. This study puts participants into two competing teams, each consisting of two humans and two robots, to examine how people behave toward others depending on Group (ingroup, outgroup) and Agent (human, robot) variables. Measures of behavioral aggression used in previous studies (i.e., noise blasts) and reported liking and anthropomorphism evaluations of humans and robots indicated that participants favored the ingroup over the outgroup, and humans over robots. Group had a greater effect than Agent, so participants preferred ingroup robots to outgroup humans.
TL;DR: A memory-confusion experiment conducted with two large-scale samples of Americans yielded strong, replicable evidence that healthy out-groups are represented using the same psychological category that is used to represent manifestly infected in-group members, suggesting that the link between out-group prejudice and pathogen concerns is a by-product of general mechanisms for treating any unfamiliar appearance as an infection cue.
Abstract: A range of studies have demonstrated that people implicitly treat out-groups as the carriers of pathogens and that considerable prejudice against out-groups is driven by concerns about pathogens. Yet the psychological categories that are involved and the selection pressures that underlie these categories remain unclear. A common view is that human pathogen-avoidance psychology is specifically adapted to avoid out-groups because of their potentially different pathogens. However, the series of studies reported here shows that there is no dedicated category for reasoning about out-groups in terms of pathogens. Specifically, a memory-confusion experiment conducted with two large-scale samples of Americans (one nationally representative) yielded strong, replicable evidence that healthy out-group members are represented using the same psychological category that is used to represent manifestly infected in-group members. This suggests that the link between out-group prejudice and pathogen concerns is a by-produc...
TL;DR: In this article, the influence of religion and relative status on trust and trustworthiness was examined in Bangladesh and India, and it was found that in both locations individuals with minority status, irrespective of their religion, exhibit positive in-group bias in trust, while individuals with majority status show positive out-group biases in trustworthiness.
Abstract: This paper reports the results from a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted in Bangladesh and India that examines the influence of religion and relative status on trust and trustworthiness. We find that in both locations individuals with minority status, irrespective of their religion, exhibit positive in-group bias in trust, while individuals with majority status show positive out-group bias in trustworthiness. This suggests that behavior is not driven by religious identity per se but is highly influenced by the relative status it generates within the population. Within both groups, heterogeneity with respect to how strongly individuals associate with the group identity affects behavior.
TL;DR: Negative emotions, but also positive, status- and esteem-related emotions (admiration) mediate effects of contact on prejudice, robustly across several different respondent and target groups.
Abstract: Emotions are increasingly being recognised as important aspects of prejudice and intergroup behaviour. Specifically, emotional mediators play a key role in the process by which intergroup contact reduces prejudice towards outgroups. However, which particular emotions are most important for prejudice reduction, as well as the consistency and generality of emotion-prejudice relations across different in-group-out-group relations, remain uncertain. To address these issues, in Study 1 we examined six distinct positive and negative emotions as mediators of the contact-prejudice relations using representative samples of U.S. White, Black, and Asian American respondents (N = 639). Admiration and anger (but not other emotions) were significant mediators of the effects of previous contact on prejudice, consistently across different perceiver and target ethnic groups. Study 2 examined the same relations with student participants and gay men as the out-group. Admiration and disgust mediated the effect of past contact on attitude. The findings confirm that not only negative emotions (anger or disgust, based on the specific types of threat perceived to be posed by an out-group), but also positive, status- and esteem-related emotions (admiration) mediate effects of contact on prejudice, robustly across several different respondent and target groups.
TL;DR: The structure of intergroup trust is clarified using neuroscientific and behavioral methods to suggest that the exertion of control can help recover trust in intergroup settings, offering potential avenues for reducing intergroup failures in trust and the consequences of these failures.
Abstract: Trust and cooperation often break down across group boundaries, contributing to pernicious consequences, from polarized political structures to intractable conflict. As such, addressing such conflicts require first understanding why trust is reduced in intergroup settings. Here, we clarify the structure of intergroup trust using neuroscientific and behavioral methods. We found that trusting ingroup members produced activity in brain areas associated with reward, whereas trusting outgroup members produced activity in areas associated with top-down control. Behaviorally, time pressure-which reduces people's ability to exert control-reduced individuals' trust in outgroup, but not ingroup members. These data suggest that the exertion of control can help recover trust in intergroup settings, offering potential avenues for reducing intergroup failures in trust and the consequences of these failures.
TL;DR: Although the group manipulation successfully induced ingroup bias in participants, neither children’s proposals nor responses were influenced by group membership, suggesting that second-party punishment of fairness norm violations is unbiased early in development and points to the potentially important role of experience with different groups in shaping later emerging bias in norm enforcement.
Abstract: Adults and children show ingroup favoritism in their 3rd-party punishment of cooperative norm violations, suggesting that group loyalty importantly shapes enforcement of cooperation. Ingroup favoritism additionally influences punishment of unfairness in the 2-party ultimatum game, in which people are directly affected by unfair behavior. However, the directionality of this relationship is unclear: In some cases, people are more forgiving of ingroup unfairness, whereas in others they are less forgiving. Here we aim to disambiguate this relationship by studying its origins in development, asking whether ingroup favoritism influences children's offers to others and whether it affects their responses to being treated unfairly. Six- to 10-year-olds played a group-based ultimatum game after being assigned to minimal groups and made proposals to-and responded to offers from-members of their in- and outgroups. We tested children's real bargaining behavior in the absence of deception. Results showed that, regardless of group membership, children's primary concern lay with fairness: Participants regularly offered equal splits and were more likely to reject unfair offers than fair offers. Consistent with past work, older children made more generous proposals than did younger children. Although our group manipulation successfully induced ingroup bias in participants, neither children's proposals nor responses were influenced by group membership. This suggests that second-party punishment of fairness norm violations is unbiased early in development and points to the potentially important role of experience with different groups in shaping later emerging bias in norm enforcement. We discuss implications for theories regarding when and to what extent group bias influences cooperation. (PsycINFO Database Record
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper found that viewing the empathy-arousing film caused greater identification with the outgroup characters, which in turn induced more positive attitudes toward immigration, but only when previous prejudice was low or moderate.
Abstract: This study is linked to research into narrative persuasion and the techniques used to reduce rejection of stigmatized groups. Upper-secondary school students were assigned to one of two conditions: viewing a film that arouses empathy toward immigrants or seeing a film that underscores positive intergroup contact. One month before viewing the films the participants completed the Modern Racism Scale. After they viewed the films, researchers measured their identification with ingroup and outgroup characters and their attitudes toward immigration. Results showed that viewing the empathy-arousing film caused greater identification with the outgroup characters, which in turn induced more positive attitudes toward immigration, but only when previous prejudice was low or moderate. We discuss findings in the context of narrative persuasion research.
TL;DR: This paper found that past experience with violence can promote altruism toward ingroup and outgroup others irrespective of their nationality or ethnicity, and that violence associates with greater altruism among Liberians outside the refugee crisis, even in diverse communities.
Abstract: This paper considers the legacy of violence on intergroup behavior in diverse, post- conflict context. We argue that violence can increase empathy and thereby motivate altruistic behavior toward ingroup and outgroups alike. We test our argument using data from 64 communities in the Liberia-Cote d’Ivoire border during the 2011 Ivoirian refugee crisis. Specifically, we assess the link between Liberians’ past experience with violence during the 1990-2003 Liberian civil war and their support for refugees. We find that past violence associates with higher levels of hosting ingroup and outgroup refugees — even those co-ethnic to their wartime rivals — and a higher share of refugees with health problems among those hosted. Using a conjoint experiment, we show that violence associates with less bias against outgroup refugees and greater responsiveness to refugee distress. Lastly, we show that violence associates with greater altruism among Liberians outside the refugee crisis, even in diverse communities. Our results suggests that past experience with violence can promote altruism toward ingroup and outgroup others irrespective of their nationality or ethnicity.
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: This article presented a group-level theory of helping and altruism within and across group boundaries and reviewed the empirical evidence in support of its key assumptions, concluding that salient ingroup/outgroup distinctions play a crucial role in moderating the motivational processes underlying helping owing to their effects on self-other similarities.
Abstract: The main objective of our chapter is to present a group-level theory of helping and altruism within and across group boundaries and to review the empirical evidence in support of its key assumptions We derive the basic tenets of this theory from the integration of two social psychological research traditions: research and theory on group processes and intergroup relations and research into helping behaviour and altruism A key proposition of the theoretical account presented in our chapter is that salient ingroup/outgroup distinctions play a crucial role in moderating the motivational processes underlying helping owing to their effects on self–other similarities In a first part, we elaborate on the specific predictions concerning motivational differences in ingroup and outgroup helping It also outlines the subtle ingroup/outgroup biases in helping that might result from these motivational differences Moreover, we propose different factors (in the sense of interventions) that can reduce ingroup/outgroup biases in helping In a second part of the chapter, we present empirical data from a research programme designed to test these propositions Here, we refer to a coordinated series of studies employing a variety of research methodologies (field research, laboratory experiments) and focusing on different intergroup contexts (natural groups, artificial groups), different samples of research participants (community volunteers and students, Westerners and Muslims, helpers and recipients of help), and different forms of helping situations (volunteering versus spontaneous helping) In a final part, we (re-)address the issue of outgroup discrimination in helping, taking a closer look at the subtleties of this phenomenon and its consequences for potential recipients of help
TL;DR: In this article, a framework for understanding hope in contexts of intergroup conflict is presented, and three targets upon which hope appraisals focus in intractable conflict -the conflict, the outgroup, and the ingroup.
Abstract: Hope is a positive emotion that plays a pivotal role in intractable conflicts and conflict resolution processes by inducing conciliatory attitudes for peace. As a catalyser for conflict resolution, it is important to further understand hope in such contexts. In this paper we present a novel framework for understanding hope in contexts of intergroup conflict. Utilizing appraisal theory of emotions and heavily relying on the implicit theories framework, we describe three targets upon which hope appraisals focus in intractable conflict - the conflict, the outgroup, and the ingroup. Next, we describe the importance of developing ways to experimentally induce hope, and utilize the appraisal-target framework to describe and classify existing and potential interventions for inducing hope in intractable conflict resolution.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored why feeling different from the ingroup increases belonging needs and proposed that self-uncertainty results from not feeling prototypical and creates a motivational drive to increase ingroup behaviors.