Dissonance within the social self: exploring the effects of norm conflict between ingroups

Abstract

ABSTRACT Most people are members of different groups. While the norms of these groups can align, they can also be contradicting, leading to dissonance within the social self. This is different from dissonance at the individual level because it is based solely on individuals’ membership in ingroups with conflicting norms. Building on the Social Identity Approach and Cognitive Dissonance Theory, we assume that norm conflict between ingroups increases psychological discomfort, particularly for people who are highly identified with both ingroups. Norm conflict was manipulated by showing participants the results of bogus surveys, indicating that their ingroups agree or disagree (in Experiment 1 on the topic of self-driving cars; in Experiment 2 on how to act in a moral dilemma). We tested several strategies to cope with norm conflict between ingroups, namely, lowering the credibility of the norm conflict information and/or norm prototypicality (Exp. 1 & 2), disidentification (Exp. 1), as well as compartmentalization and the restorative function of agentic groups (Exp. 2). In line with our assumptions, results indicated that norm conflict between ingroups led to increased psychological discomfort in Experiment 1 (N = 870) and Experiment 2 (N = 812). This was not moderated by the two ingroup identification levels. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that lowering perceived prototypicality of the norms was a coping strategy for high identifiers. No effects emerged for other coping strategies. Both experiments show evidence of dissonance within the social self and highlight the necessity for further examinations of its consequences and boundary conditions.