Striving for group agency: threat to personal control increases the attractiveness of agentic groups.

Janine Stollberg,Anna Bäcker,Immo Fritsche

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00649

Abstract

When their sense of personal control is threatened people try to restore perceived control through the social self. We propose that it is the perceived agency of ingroups that provides the self with a sense of control. In three experiments, we for the first time tested the hypothesis that threat to personal control increases the attractiveness of being part or joining those groups that are perceived as coherent entities engaging in coordinated group goal pursuit (agentic groups) but not of those groups whose agency is perceived to be low. Consistent with this hypothesis we found in Study 1 (N = 93) that threat to personal control increased ingroup identification only with task groups, but not with less agentic types of ingroups that were made salient simultaneously. Furthermore, personal control threat increased a sense of collective control and support within the task group, mediated through task-group identification (indirect effects). Turning to groups people are not (yet) part of, Study 2 (N = 47) showed that personal control threat increased relative attractiveness ratings of small groups as possible future ingroups only when the relative agency of small groups was perceived to be high. Perceived group homogeneity or social power did not moderate the effect. Study 3 (N = 78) replicated the moderating role of perceived group agency for attractiveness ratings of entitative groups, whereas perceived group status did not moderate the effect. These findings extend previous research on group-based control, showing that perceived agency accounts for group-based responses to threatened control.

Highlights

Both possible processes express their motivation to uniquely associate the self with an ingroup, whose primary purpose is the active pursuit of a shared goal, as well as the perception to achieve the goal through joint effort, and agency (Spencer-Rodgers et al, 2007)
This supports our contention that only membership in entitative groups that at the same time is characterized by agency can restore feelings of perceived control through the collective self
Previous studies found increased support of other ingroups, such as nations, following threat to control (Fritsche et al, 2013). This could be explained by the fact that in all of these studies only one ingroup was salient to participants and only one option for experiencing collective control, whereas in the current study participants could choose that ingroup that appeared to be most appropriate for reestablishing a sense of control

Summary

Introduction

The link between group membership and need satisfaction has been delineated for different motives, like self-esteem (Tajfel and Turner, 1979; Rubin and Hewstone, 1998), belongingness (Baumeister and Leary, 1995; Hornsey and Jetten, 2004), self-concept certainty (Jetten et al, 2004; Hogg, 2007), symbolic immortality (Greenberg et al, 1986; Castano et al, 2002), and, more recently, for personal control (Fritsche et al, 2013). The need for control has been counted among the most basic human motives (Fiske, 2003; Pittman and Zeigler, 2007) only recently empirical research has begun to systematically test how group membership may satisfy the need for control (Fritsche et al, 2008, 2011, 2013). People need a general sense of control (White, 1959), they want to experience themselves as autonomous agents who are capable to exert influence on important aspects of their environment.

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Conclusion