High-status Group Members Research Articles

Unraveling Image and Justice Concerns: A Social Identity Account on Appraisals and Emotional Drivers of High-Status Transgressor Group Members' Solidarity With Low-Status Groups.

High-status group members typically respond defensively when their ingroup members transgress against low-status groups. However, when they identify highly with transgressor groups, they sometimes also engage in solidarity with victimized low-status groups due to ingroup-focused motives. Yet, the response of low-identified transgressor group members, who can prioritize victims' plight over ingroup interests, remains underexplored. To address this gap, we conducted three preregistered studies (Ntotal = 886) concerning education-based transgressions in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, employing cross-sectional (Study 1) and experimental designs (Studies 2-3). Supporting previous research, we found that high-identifiers engage in nonradical solidarity driven by ingroup image concerns and image-related emotions. Low-identifiers, however, engage in both nonradical and radical solidarity through perceived injustice and justice-related emotions. Our findings provide insights into the roots of high-status group collective action on behalf of low-status groups against intergroup transgressions. Theoretical and societal implications were discussed.

Intergroup competition, group status, and individuals’ cooperation behavior: Evidence from a laboratory experiment

Intergroup competition has been proven to increase ingroup cooperation, but it will also divide individuals into high-status groups and low-status groups, which may lead to group-level conflict and affect cooperation behavior among different status group members. In this paper, we conduct a laboratory experiment to find how group status caused by intergroup competition changes individuals’ cooperation behavior in two representative social dilemma frameworks, the public goods game and the prisoner's dilemma game. Experimental results show that both high-status group members and low-status group members will improve ingroup cooperation, and there exists the framing effect of cooperation which affects different status group members’ decisions under different situations. Specifically, the increase of ingroup cooperation occurs among low-status group members in the public goods game and high-status group members in the prisoner's dilemma game. Besides, we find no evidence of any significant change in outgroup cooperation among different status group members.

“No Seat at the Party”: Mobilizing White Masculinity in the Men’s Rights Movement

ABSTRACT I use the men’s rights movement, an anti-feminist backlash movement consisting largely of straight, white men, to examine how high-status group members develop a collective identity leveraged by right-wing movements. Drawing on 31 interviews with men’s rights activists, I find that masculinity, whiteness, and straightness play crucial roles in motivating identification with the movement. Interviewees believe others see them as privileged and thus immoral because of these identities. This clashes with the way they see themselves, threatens their moral sense of self, and evokes negative emotions. In response, they reconstruct themselves – as straight, white men – as victims, thus developing a sense of “we” and a basis for collective action. In an effort to recoup a sense of moral goodness and build community, they also construct a new collective identity as men’s rights activists, which invests them in organized backlash. This paper develops a theory to explain collective identity formation among high-status group members, and illustrates how the identity work straight, white men undertake in the face of culturally legitimate challenges to their privilege can invest them in organized backlash movements.

System Justification or Social Dominance? A Multilevel Test of the Ideological Motivators of Perceived Discrimination.

Although system-justifying beliefs often mitigate perceptions of discrimination, status-based asymmetries in the ideological motivators of perceived discrimination are unknown. Because the content and societal implications of discrimination claims are status-dependant, social dominance orientation (SDO) should motivate perceptions of (reverse) discrimination among members of high-status groups, whereas system justification should motivate the minimization of perceived discrimination among the disadvantaged. We tested these hypotheses using multilevel regressions among a nationwide random sample of New Zealand Europeans (n = 29,169) and ethnic minorities (n = 5,118). As hypothesized, group-based dominance correlated positively with perceived (reverse) discrimination among ethnic-majority group members, whereas system justification correlated negatively with perceived discrimination among the disadvantaged. Furthermore, the proportion of minorities within the region strengthened the victimizing effects of SDO-Dominance, but not SDO-Egalitarianism, among the advantaged. Together, these results reveal status-based asymmetries in the motives underlying perceptions of discrimination and identify a key contextual moderator of this association.

Hierarchy profiling: How and why a job's perceived impact on inequality affects racial hiring evaluations

Prior work suggests that high-status group members are favored for hierarchy-maintaining roles, while low-status group members are favored for hierarchy-attenuating ones—but the mechanisms driving this phenomenon are largely unknown. The current work examines this phenomenon in the domain of race, testing three potential mechanisms: role status, representativeness, and hierarchy profiling. According to a role status account, hierarchy-maintaining roles are seen as higher-status than hierarchy-attenuating ones, driving effects. A representativeness account suggests that hierarchy-maintaining roles are seen as including more White (or fewer minority) job-holders than hierarchy-attenuating ones, driving effects. Finally, a hierarchy profiling account suggests that evaluators see the typical hire for hierarchy-maintaining roles as more conservative (or less liberal), driving effects. In three studies, White evaluators rated a White male applicant a better fit for a hierarchy-maintaining role (e.g., CEO of a hedge fund) than a hierarchy-attenuating one (e.g., CEO of a nonprofit). There was, however, no impact of a role's perceived impact on inequality on ratings of Black male or Latino applicant fit (Studies 1–3). This effect persisted regardless of role status (Study 2), negating a role status account. However, a final study supported representativeness and hierarchy profiling accounts. White evaluators rated the typical hire for a hierarchy-maintaining role as more White and conservative, mediating ratings of White applicant fit (Study 3). Three supplemental studies replicated all results. Findings reveal the mechanisms that can hold social hierarchy in place, keeping high-status group members in hierarchy-maintaining roles and low-status group members in hierarchy-attenuating ones.

Mobilized or marginalized? Understanding low-status groups' responses to social justice efforts led by high-status groups.

Members of high-status groups (e.g., men) often lead social justice efforts that seek to benefit low-status groups (e.g., women), but little is known about how observers respond to such instances of visible and influential solidarity. We presented information about a nonprofit organization seeking to address gender (Study 1, N = 198) or racial (Study 2, N = 216) inequality, in which the leadership team was manipulated to include a numerical majority of either high-status group members or low-status group members. Members of low-status groups who read about the majority high-status leadership team reported lower levels of collective action intentions, compared with those who read about the majority low-status leadership team. Mediation analyses (Studies 1 and 2) and an experimental-causal-chain design (Study 3, N = 405) showed that lower collective action intentions in response to the majority high-status leadership team were mediated by participants' perception of a specific problem presented by high-status group leaders (lower awareness of inequality) and lower levels of hope. Study 4 (N = 555) demonstrated that low-status group members responded more negatively to a majority high-status leadership team in an organization seeking to benefit their low-status ingroup (solidarity context), compared with organizations seeking to benefit other groups (nonsolidarity contexts). Results provide the first evidence that the presence of influential high-status group leaders can discourage members of low-status groups from joining a social justice effort that seeks to benefit their ingroup, and that these negative responses extend beyond preferences predicted by frameworks of ingroup bias and role congruity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Motivated Reasoning in Identity Politics: Group Status as a Moderator of Political Motivations

Western democracies are increasingly defined by identity politics, where politics appeals to both political and other social identities. Consequently, political information processing should depend not just on political identity, but also on other identities, such as gender, race, or sexuality. For any given issue, we argue that the extent to which reasoning is motivated by one’s political identity depends on citizens’ group status in other relevant identities, that is, that political identity more strongly motivates high-status group members than low-status group members for issues of identity politics. A survey experiment (N = 1012) concerning a gender quota policy shows that political identity motivates men more strongly than women, leading to political polarization between left-wing and right-wing men, but not women. This suggests that political motivated reasoning should be addressed differently in situations of identity politics, and urges the consideration of group status as a conditional factor of motivated reasoning.

Negotiating status hierarchies in middle school inquiry science: implications for marginal non-participation

While previous classroom studies of status hierarchies tell us who has low status and how to increase those learners’ participation in small group contexts via teacher-led interventions, we know little about how one becomes low status, or the role peers play in legitimating or delegitimating inequitable relations. This study used the sociocultural concept of marginal non-participation to describe interactional moves learners use to navigate status hierarchies in an inquiry science context where student authority may permit learners to obstruct peers’ participation. Participants were three collaborative groups of 3–4 learners in 7th grade science classrooms where a series of inquiry curriculum units were being implemented. Interviews were used alongside a microgenetic analysis of video-recorded group work observations to identify interactions that legitimated and delegitimated status hierarchies. Legitimation involved communicating acceptance of differential belonging and competence while delegitimation involved challenging differential reward by fostering widespread participation. Low- and high-status group members were active in both processes. Results suggest that diffuse status characteristics and science capital inform how status hierarchies are negotiated and that learners adapt disciplinary norms for status legitimating and delegitimating ends. Implications for learners’ participation in scientific practices and identification with science are discussed.

Estereotipos y valoración de Grupos Sociales Peruanos en una muestra de Personas de sectores sociales privilegiados de Lima

Background: Peruvian society is characterized by its ethnical, cultural and socioeconomic diversity, which leads to complex intergroup relations. Objective: To contribute to understanding this phenomenon, the present study aims to examine the stereotypical representations and prejudice towards different Peruvian social groups by high-socioeconomic-status group members from Lima. Method: The research used a mixed-method design for complementing two different approaches: a quantitative one, where questionnaires were administered to a sample of 90 participants; and a qualitative one, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants. Results: The results showed that the participants identified high- and low-status groups in the Peruvian society, and hold ambivalent stereotypical representations towards them. The participants identified and valued White Peruvians as high-status group members, who are competent and developed but also corrupt. On the other hand, they identified and valued Amazonian and African Peruvians to a lesser extent, who are considered as low-status, undeveloped but joyful groups. Conclusion: The study emphasizes the importance of social class attributes used in the formation of stereotypical representations and prejudice towards different Peruvian social groups.

Collectivism and Individualism in Status Hierarchies: Socialization and Social Identity Explanations

Social scientists have produced major theoretical and empirical advances documenting the importance of group status in shaping the group members’ perceptions of themselves and of society at large. Evidence is accumulating showing that members of high-status groups favor individualistic and autonomous self-conceptions and worldviews, whereas members of low-status groups turn to more collectivistic and less personalized ones. This paper reports on research that has examined this phenomenon with a focus on social class divisions. It outlines two main explanations that have been developed to account for this self-group discrepancy in status hierarchies. One explanation rests on the long run diverging socialization processes that take place in high and low social classes. A complementary explanation is based on social identity dynamics. It suggests that such orientations result from differing motivations among members of high-status and low-status groups: While the former aim to protect a positive social identity, the latter must cope with a social identity threat.

Only When Others Are Watching: The Contingent Efforts of High Status Group Members

This research examines how an individual’s place in the status hierarchy affects their willingness to expend effort on group tasks, why this occurs, and a contingency governing this relationship. Among firefighter teams (Study 1), MBA student workgroups (Study 2), and undergraduates in the laboratory (Study 3), we find that the relationship between status and effort, through performance expectations, is contingent on the perceived visibility of one’s efforts (i.e., task visibility). When task visibility is high, greater status leads to higher performance expectations. When task visibility is low or absent, this relationship was not present. Overall, our findings help paint a more complete picture of the relationship between status, performance expectations, and effort in workgroups while also furthering our understanding of the psychological experience of status. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3103 . This paper was accepted by Greta Hsu, organizations.

The Perception of Instability and Legitimacy of Status Differences Enhances the Infrahumanization Bias among High Status Groups.

Previous research within the social identity framework has shown that perceptions of legitimacy and stability of status differences interactively determine cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses to intergroup contexts. Whether such perceptions affect subtle forms of prejudice, namely infrahumanisation, is unknown. We examined if the perceptions regarding high status stability and legitimacy are associated to the infrahumanisation bias. We hypothesized that participants perceiving status differences as unstable and legitimate would report higher levels of infrahumanization than those who perceive status differences as stable and/or illegitimate. Participants (N = 439 Italian students enrolled in psychology courses) completed a structured paper-and-pencil questionnaire. We found that participants tended to attribute more negative secondary emotions to their ingroup (Italians) than to the outgroup (immigrants from Africa), indicating the presence of an infrahumanization bias. The results of a moderated regression aimed at predicting infrahumanization showed that high-status group members who perceived status differences as legitimate and unstable reported higher levels of infrahumanization than their counterparts did. The results attest the important and independent role of the perceptions related to the status for the debate on intergroup relations.

Imitating the winner leads to discrimination in spatial prisoner\u2019s dilemma model

The occurrence of discrimination is an important problem in the social and economical sciences. Much of the discrimination observed in empirical studies can be explained by the theory of in-group favouritism, which states that people tend to act more positively towards peers whose appearances are more similar to their own. Some studies, however, find hierarchical structures in inter-group relations, where members of low-status groups also favour the high-status group members. These observations cannot be understood in the light of in-group favouritism. Here we present an agent based model in which evolutionary dynamics can result in a hierarchical discrimination between two groups characterized by a meaningless, but observable binary label. We find that discriminating strategies end up dominating the system when the selection pressure is high, i.e. when agents have a much higher probability of imitating their neighbour with the highest payoff. These findings suggest that the puzzling persistence of hierarchical discrimination may result from the evolutionary dynamics of the social system itself, namely the social imitation dynamics. It also predicts that discrimination will occur more often in highly competitive societies.

Slavery, Reconstruction, and Bureaucratic Capacity in the American South

Conventional political economy models predict taxation will increase when the franchise is expanded to include more low-income voters. We argue that in societies where social status is a cleavage, extensions of the franchise to low-status groups may lead to not only greater redistribution but also policies encouraging social integration. Therefore, elites can use the threat of desegregation to unite both wealthy and poor members of high-status groups against taxes, and weaken the bureaucratic capacity essential for tax collection. We demonstrate this argument by studying the effects of the extension of voting rights to African Americans in the United States at the end of the Civil War. We show that during Reconstruction, under an occupying North, per capita taxation was higher in counties with more former slaves and slaveholdings. After Reconstruction, per capita taxes fell and bureaucratic capacity was weaker where the legacy of slavery was stronger. We find that higher intrawhite economic inequality was associated with lower taxes and lower bureaucratic quality in the post-Reconstruction era in counties with more enslaved people and slaveholdings. These results suggest that Southern elites could successfully build cross-class coalitions against taxation in places where whites were more threatened by desegregation and sought to protect their racial status.

Infrahumanization and Socio-Structural Variables: The Role of Legitimacy, Ingroup Identification, and System Justification Beliefs

As there is a robust tendency to support system-legitimizing beliefs by appealing to stereotypes or ideologies, we examined the role played by the perception of the status quo in relation to the infrahumanization bias. We compared this bias in high versus low-status group members and tested the mediating role of system justification beliefs and ingroup identification. The results of a moderated-mediated regression model (N = 238) showed that the perception of legitimacy of one’s own status had differential effects on the infrahumanization bias: The perception of legitimacy was positively associated with the endorsement of system justification beliefs and negatively associated with ingroup identification among low-status group members, whereas the perception of legitimacy was positively associated with ingroup identification among high-status group members. In both groups, ingroup identification was positively correlated with the tendency to infrahumanize the outgroup, while the endorsement of system justification beliefs was linked to the infrahumanization among low-status group members only. The findings highlight that the Social Identity Theory and the System Justification Theory can be fruitfully combined to explain infrahumanization tendencies.

Two routes toward compensation: An investigation into the mechanisms of compensation for high- and low-status groups

In two experiments, we tested an account of compensation in intergroup perceptions as the manifestation of social creativity and magnanimity strategies for low- and high-status groups, respectively. For low-status groups, compensation would be a way to enhance self-esteem after a negative comparison. In contrast, for high-status groups, compensation would provide a means to appear non-discriminatory, in accordance with contemporary norms. Experiment 1 manipulated participants' need to protect their self-esteem by giving them or not giving them an opportunity to self-affirm. As predicted, this self-affirmation manipulation only affected low-status group members. Specifically, the ability to self-affirm protected their self-esteem from an upward comparison and precluded the emergence of compensation. Experiment 2 manipulated the pressures toward non-discrimination by activating a non-discrimination vs. an honesty norm. As expected, this norm manipulation only affected high-status group members. Compared to the non-discrimination norm, the honesty norm decreased the perceived pressures toward non-discrimination and paved the way to ingroup favoritism on both dimensions rather than compensation. We discuss the role and complementarity of these two routes in producing the compensation pattern.

Experiences of pressure to conform in postgraduate medical education

BackgroundPerception of pressure to conform prevents learners from actively participating in educational encounters. We expected that residents would report experiencing different amounts of pressure to conform in a variety of educational settings.MethodsA total of 166 residents completed questionnaires about the frequency of conformity pressure they experience across 14 teaching and clinical settings. We examined many individual characteristics such as their age, sex, international student status, level of education, and tolerance of ambiguity; and situational characteristics such as residency program, type of learning session, status of group members, and type of rotation to determine when conformity pressure is most likely to occur.ResultsThe majority of participants (89.8%) reported pressure to conform at least sometimes in at least one educational or clinical setting. Residents reported higher rates of conformity during informal, rather than formal, teaching sessions, p < .001. Also, pressure was greater when residents interacted with higher status group members, but not with the same or lower level status members, p < .001. Effect sizes were in the moderate range.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that most residents do report feeling pressure to conform in their residency settings. This result is consistent with observations of medical students, nursing students, and clerks conforming in response to inaccurate information within experimental studies. Perception of pressure is associated with the setting rather than the trainee personal characteristics.

Stress and the stability of social systems: A review of neurophysiological research

ABSTRACTCurrent societies are characterised by unprecedented change in demographic, economic and political terms. These changes may be rather stressful, especially for those who have most to lose, that is members of (formerly) high-status groups. In this contribution, we review research on the influence of hierarchy stability on physiological stress, making a distinction between the cardiovascular correlates of negative stress (“threat”) and positive stress (“challenge”). Results from six studies reveal that when hierarchies are stable those low in rank show threat, while when hierarchies are unstable, those high in rank show threat and those low in rank show challenge. These effects occur independently of whether rank is based on power or status, or on interpersonal or inter-group comparisons. Results are discussed in terms of theories on power and identity, and implications for (interventions for) inter-group conflict and health.

Self-Depersonalization and Ingroup Favoritism in Minimal Group Hierarchies

Abstract. Research suggests that members of low-status groups are more likely than members of high-status groups to show self-depersonalization and to favor ingroup members over outgroup members. The present research tests two alternative explanations of this status asymmetry: One explanation is based on the motive for achieving a positive social identity, and the other explanation is based on the willingness to cope with a social identity threat. Three minimal group experiments examine these two explanations. Supporting the identity motive explanation, the findings show that self-depersonalization (Studies 1–3) and ingroup favoritism (Study 3) are less prominent in the high-status group than in the low-status and the status-unspecified groups. Moreover, the results do not support the identity threat explanation because self-depersonalization and ingroup favoritism were not weaker in the low-status group than in the status-unspecified group.

How do you self-categorize? Gender and sexual orientation self-categorization in homosexual/heterosexual men and women

Group status influences individuals' identity. Low-status group members identify with their in-group more strongly than high-status group members. However, previous research has mostly analyzed explicit identification with a single in-group.We examined effects of both double group membership, namely gender and sexual orientation, which are two intersecting categories defining high/low-status groups, and contextual identity prime on both implicit self-categorization and explicit identification. Heterosexual and homosexual men and women (N=296) completed measures of implicit self-categorization and explicit identification with gender and sexual orientation after being primed with gender or sexual orientation. Implicit self-categorization was stronger for low-status than high-status groups: implicit gender self-categorization was higher for women than men, and implicit sexual orientation self-categorization was stronger for homosexual than heterosexual participants. Lesbian participants showed the strongest implicit sexual orientation self-categorization compared to the other three groups. Moreover, homosexual men and women and heterosexual women showed stronger implicit self-categorization with their low- than high-status membership. By contrast, heterosexual men showed equally strong implicit self-categorization with gender and sexual orientation. No differences on explicit identification emerged. Hypotheses on contextual identity primes were only partially confirmed. Findings are discussed in relation to literature about sexual orientation self-categorization and gender stigma.