Relative Gratification and Outgroup Prejudice: Further Tests On A New Dimension of Comparison

Juliette Gatto,Serge Guimond,Michaël Dambrun

doi:10.2174/1874350101811010001

Abstract

Background:Recent studies have shown that the opposite of Relative Deprivation, Relative Gratification (RG), also leads to negative intergroup attitudes. In previous investigations, RG was manipulated in terms of positive economic expectations.Aims:The aim of the present research was to examine whether the effect of RG is limited to an economic dimension or if it reflects a more general process that is observable in different domains of comparison. In the first experiment, we choose to gratify – or not – psychology students on a new dimension with an important social value: their intellectual abilities.Conclusion:As expected, participants of the RG condition expressed a significantly higher level of prejudice towards low status outgroups than participants of the control group. In the second study, we found support for a model in which ethnic identification and group-based dominance mediated the relationship between intelligence based RG and prejudice toward low status ethnic outgroups.

Highlights

Understanding intergroup tensions and the factors that contribute to prejudice is a fundamental problem that has attracted the attention of social psychologists for many years
An analysis of variance revealed that the participants in the Relative Gratification (RG) condition were more likely to agree that the abilities of psychology students were higher than those of law students (M = 3.26) relative to the participants in the control condition (M = 2.56; F (1, 58) = 4, p = .05, η2 = .064)
Confirming the effectiveness of our manipulation, participants in the RG condition were more likely to agree that the abilities of psychology students were higher than those of law students compare to the control condition

Summary

Introduction

Understanding intergroup tensions and the factors that contribute to prejudice is a fundamental problem that has attracted the attention of social psychologists for many years. After decades of research revealing that Relative Deprivation (RD) is a central variable in the explanation of intergroup prejudice [1] recent research suggest that the opposite of RD, the relatively ignored Relative Gratification (RG), is an important determinant of prejudice [2]. Together, these two perspectives suggest a V-curve relationship in which both RD and RG are associated with greater prejudice (i.e. the V-curve Hypothesis [3],). RG was manipulated in terms of positive economic expectations

Results

Discussion

Conclusion