Social identity, self-evaluation and in-group bias: the relative importance of particular domains of self-esteem to the in-group.

Abstract

This investigation sought to assess the link between in-group bias and domain-specific self-esteem. Two experiments were carried out. Experiment 1 revealed that social category members (i.e. Christians), manifested an increase in that domain of self-esteem judged to be relatively more important to the in-group (i.e. physical self-esteem), following the display of in-group bias. A second experiment which sought to examine an alternative explanation for these findings, in terms of enhanced social identity salience, produced identical findings. Domains of self-esteem relatively less important to the in-group (i.e. mathematical self-esteem) were unaffected in each experiment. Consistent with recent revisions to the second corollary of the self-esteem hypothesis, Experiment 2 further revealed that category members with low public collective self-esteem (who believed that Christians were evaluated negatively by Atheists) showed more pronounced in-group bias.