Social Dominance Orientation Predicts Opposition to Hierarchy-Attenuating Intergroup Apologies.

Abstract

People who value social hierarchy may resist giving intergroup apologies because such apologies may attenuate the very hierarchies that these people value. We tested this claim across four studies (total N = 541) by examining associations between social dominance orientation (SDO)-a measure of preference for social hierarchy-and support for intergroup apologies. We found that higher SDO scores, and specifically the antiegalitarianism subdimension (social dominance orientation-egalitarianism [SDO-E]), predicted less apology support among U.S. residents in both domestic (Study 1) and international (Study 2) contexts. In Study 3, we found that the effect generalizes to an Australian cultural context. In Study 4, we demonstrated that the negative effect of SDO-E can extend to third-party contexts and is only observed when apologizing would be hierarchy attenuating. These studies show that the desire to maintain social hierarchies is an important driver of opposition to hierarchy-attenuating intergroup apologies.