Ingroup favouritism and outgroup favouritism in low status minimal groups: differential responses to status-related and status-unrelated measures

Abstract

To account for the inconsistent findings from previous studies of group status and discrimination, it was hypothesized that low status groups defer to the high status outgroup on measures perceived as related to the status dimension, but favour the ingroup on status-unrelated measures. Subjects randomly assigned to low, equal, or high status minimal groups allocated points to anonymous ingroup and outgroup members using distribution matrices presented as either related or unrelated to the status dimension, and also rated the two groups on traits described as either status-related or status-unrelated. As predicted, low status groups favoured the ingroup more on status-unrelated measures than on status-related measures. Furthermore, while low status groups were less discriminatory than high status groups on status-related matrices, they were no less discriminatory on status-unrelated matrices. In contrast to low status groups, high status groups displayed greater ingroup favouritism when matrices were related to the status dimension than they did when matrices were unrelated. The relatedness manipulation had no significant effect on the discriminatory behaviour of equal status groups. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for research, and relevance to social identity theory. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd