In-group Influence Research Articles

A test of the maintenance of the effects of imagined contact framed with supportive social norms as a teacher-led field intervention

As the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers continues to increase, schools continue to become a vital center for children to develop positive intergroup attitudes. Teacher-led activities can become useful tools in sustainable prejudice reduction. A field intervention incorporated normative in-group influence with imagined intergroup contact to reduce children's anti-refugee bias. Ten primary school classes (N = 269, Mage = 10.69 years) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) class norm-framed imagined contact (n = 88), (b) family norm-framed imagined contact (n = 49), (c) religious in-group norm-framed imagined contact (n = 51), or (d) standard (n = 80) imagined contact. Teachers facilitated a series of four imagined contact activities over 4 weeks, with anti-refugee bias measured at baseline and 2 weeks after the final activity. Imagined contact framed in the class context was associated with significantly lower post-intervention contact intentions bias as compared to standard imagined contact. There were no significant effects of family or religion norm framed imagined contact conditions. Findings are discussed in relation to the feasibility of teacher-led school-based interventions and the importance of a supportive normative context in the classroom for anti-refugee bias.

Susceptibility to Ingroup Influence in Adolescents With Intellectual Disability: A Minimal Group Experiment on Social Judgment Making.

Adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) experience challenges and uncertainty when making judgments about other people’s intentions. In an attempt to achieve certainty, they might exhibit judgment tendencies that differ from those of typically developing adolescents. This study investigated social judgment making in adolescents with ID (n = 34, Mage = 14.89 years, SD = 1.41 years) compared with chronological age-matched adolescents without ID (n = 34, Mage = 14.68 years, SD = 1.15 years) and mental age (MA)-matched children (n = 34, Mage = 7.93 years, SD = 0.64 years). Participants used a computer-based task to judge the hostility of persons (fictitious characters). Adolescents with ID were found to make more polarizing judgments (i.e., either positive or negative, as opposed to moderate judgments) and were more likely to be guided by the opinions of a fictitious peer ingroup (minimal group) compared with adolescents without ID. No such differences were found between adolescents with ID and MA-matched children. The results are discussed in terms of scientific and practical implications.

Coupled dynamics of behaviour and disease contagion among antagonistic groups.

Disease transmission and behaviour change are both fundamentally social phenomena. Behaviour change can have profound consequences for disease transmission, and epidemic conditions can favour the more rapid adoption of behavioural innovations. We analyse a simple model of coupled behaviour change and infection in a structured population characterised by homophily and outgroup aversion. Outgroup aversion slows the rate of adoption and can lead to lower rates of adoption in the later-adopting group or even behavioural divergence between groups when outgroup aversion exceeds positive ingroup influence. When disease dynamics are coupled to the behaviour-adoption model, a wide variety of outcomes are possible. Homophily can either increase or decrease the final size of the epidemic depending on its relative strength in the two groups and on R0 for the infection. For example, if the first group is homophilous and the second is not, the second group will have a larger epidemic. Homophily and outgroup aversion can also produce dynamics suggestive of a 'second wave' in the first group that follows the peak of the epidemic in the second group. Our simple model reveals dynamics that are suggestive of the processes currently observed under pandemic conditions in culturally and/or politically polarised populations such as the USA.

Self-categorization of users’ comments and ingroup influence: The moderating role of context-dependent ingroup identification

A web-based experiment (N = 184) examined whether social identity cues embedded in users’ comments elicit ingroup bias. Participants viewed a mock Yelp.com webpage that displayed information about a local business together with four users’ comments. Consistent with self-categorization theory, viewers adopted their ingroup’s comments, but only when they identified highly with their ingroup. Further, a central message that was juxtaposed with users’ comments and shaped their focus, determined the degree of ingroup identification; viewers were more likely to identify with their ingroup when the central message dealt with an outgroup-typed (vs. ingroup-typed) topic. Finally, although an outgroup-typed central message elicited stereotypical beliefs of the outgroup’s expertise, such beliefs failed to predict viewers’ attitudes, thus lending support to the ingroup identification explanation.

Reversing downward performance spirals

Research has typically portrayed downward performance spirals as inevitable following initial failure experiences. On the basis of social identity theorizing, we provide a prescription for reversing these spirals. In two experiments, we manipulated the source of failure feedback between successive trials on a task. Participants in each experiment initially performed the task better in the presence of an ingroup versus an outgroup member. Subsequently, performance worsened only after discouraging feedback from an ingroup member, and improved only after encouraging feedback from an ingroup member. Experiment 2 showed that motivation mediated these effects: Those who became motivated to prove the outgroup wrong and the ingroup right were most likely to recover from earlier poor performance. Therefore, downward performance spirals are not inevitable; they can be reversed by harnessing the uniquely potent combination of ingroup influence and intergroup competition.

Through the Lenses of Culture

This study examines the influence of culture on Chinese consumers’ intentions to purchase Australian products. Data were obtained from an online survey completed by 3,171 respondents across 20 cities in China. Results indicate that ingroup influence, product perception, but not marketing efforts have a significant main effect on purchase intentions. In addition, ingroup influence moderates the effects of product perception and marketing efforts on intentions. When ingroup influence is low, product perception has a greater impact on purchase intention than when ingroup influence is high. Similarly, marketing efforts have a greater impact on purchase intention when ingroup influence is low than when it is high. In addition, self-identity as a consumer of imported products also moderates the strength of association between product perception and purchase intention. When self-identity is low, product perception has a greater impact on purchase intention than when self-identity is high. Implications of the findings for theory and practice, in the context of trade between an individualistic culture like Australia and a collectivistic one like China, are discussed.

Knowing what to think by knowing who you are: Self‐categorization and the nature of norm formation, conformity and group polarization*

We contrast two theoretical approaches to social influence, one stressing interpersonal dependence, conceptualized as normative and informational influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955), and the other stressing group membership, conceptualized as self-categorization and referent informational influence (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherell, 1987). We argue that both social comparisons to reduce uncertainty and the existence of normative pressure to comply depend on perceiving the source of influence as belonging to one's own category. This study tested these two approaches using three influence paradigms. First we demonstrate that, in Sherif's (1936) autokinetic effect paradigm, the impact of confederates on the formation of a norm decreases as their membership of a different category is made more salient to subjects. Second, in the Asch (1956) conformity paradigm, surveillance effectively exerts normative pressure if done by an in-group but not by an out-group. In-group influence decreases and out-group influence increases when subjects respond privately. Self-report data indicate that in-group confederates create more subjective uncertainty than out-group confederates and public responding seems to increase cohesiveness with in-group - but decrease it with out-group - sources of influence. In our third experiment we use the group polarization paradigm (e.g. Burnstein & Vinokur, 1973) to demonstrate that, when categorical differences between two subgroups within a discussion group are made salient, convergence of opinion between the subgroups is inhibited. Taken together the experiments show that self-categorization can be a crucial determining factor in social influence.