Self‐esteem and intergroup discrimination in the minimal group paradigm

Abstract

Social identity theory assigns self‐esteem a central motivational role in intergroup discrimination. There are two corollaries: (1) successful discrimination elevates self‐esteem, and (2) depressed self‐esteem motivates discrimination. Previous research yields contradictory findings which may partly be attributable to failure to conduct appropriate tests of the hypotheses. The present experiment tests both corollaries under conditions designed to overcome some of these limitations. Social categorization and prior transitory self‐esteem were manipulated in a 2 (group/individual) x 2 (success/failure) minimal group study. Additional control subjects run simultaneously with experimental subjects provided pre‐test self‐esteem measures to compare with experimental subjects' post‐test self‐esteem. Corollary 2 was upheld: lower self‐esteem subjects who were explicitly categorized discriminated significantly more than subjects in other conditions. Corollary 1 was not upheld: greater discrimination was not associated with higher post‐test or greater increase in self‐esteem. Some implications of these findings for the self‐esteem hypothesis in social identity theory are suggested.