“I'm not in the best educational establishment, so what?” Effects of membership in more or less prestigious educational establishments on intergroup perceptions

Abstract

The present study tests the assumption that the stable vs. unstable character of the structural relationship between groups influences the type of bias to which differentiation may lead, and affects the likelihood of identification with one's ingroup. Study 1 was conducted in Canada with university students and Study 2 in two French highschools; they both measured the impact of membership in a prestigious vs. a non-prestigious group on intergroup perceptions. In the Canadian sample, the structural relationship between groups was unstable, in a way that status asymmetry due to prestige differences might in time be eased out to the advantage of the less prestigious group. In the French study, the structural relationship was stable and not likely to evolve. As predicted, data from both samples' prestigious groups demonstrate a clear ingroup bias. Students from the less prestigious Canadian university situated in an ascending movement did not judge their competencies as lower than those of the prestigious university students, and further expressed the wish to enrol their children in their own university rather than the prestigious university. As expected, data collected from French high school students in the less prestigious study programme demonstrate a clear outgroup bias. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, in Canada, the prestigious university students identify less strongly with their ingroup than the less prestigious university students. This effect may be interpreted as participants distancing themselves from their ingroup prototype and it was also observed in the students of the prestigious study programme in the French high schools.