Out-group Status Research Articles

Increased alertness and moderate ingroup cohesion in bonobos' response to outgroup cues.

In a number of species, including humans, perceived outgroup threat can promote ingroup cohesion. However, the distribution and selection history of this association across species with varied intergroup relations remains unclear. Using a sample of 8 captive groups (N = 43 individuals), we here tested whether bonobos, like chimpanzees, show more affiliative ingroup behaviour following perception of outgroup cues (unfamiliar male long-distance vocalisations). We used comparable methods to our previous study of captive chimpanzees, and found that, although weaker, there was an association for more frequent social grooming in response to the outgroup condition than the control condition, alongside more alert posture and increased self-directed behaviour. This provides preliminary evidence for an ancestral origin to the proximate association between outgroup cues and ingroup cohesion, at least prior to the Pan-Homo split, and suggests the presence of intergroup competition in our last common ancestor.

I'll have what She's having (but not what They're having): The moderating role of group membership in the effect of social norms on food choice in an online environment

The modern food-rich environment has contributed to the rise of unhealthy diets linked to noncommunicable diseases. Previous in-person research has found that the effect of social norms on food intake is greater when set by a perceived in-group member relative to an out-group member. Given recent increased social media use, we investigated whether this effect of group membership extends to food choices and to normative information presented remotely online. Participants (N = 179 female university students, 18–32 years) viewed a Facebook page pertaining to either their university (in-group) or a rival university (out-group). They were presented with either a healthy or an unhealthy norm via a post in which a student discussed their order at a café on the relevant campus. Food choice was assessed through an online menu where participants were asked to order one main, side, and dessert dish. As predicted, participants who viewed the healthy norm ordered a higher percentage of healthy items (especially in the desserts category) relative to those who viewed the unhealthy norm. However, this effect was significant only for those in the in-group condition; there was no such pattern for participants in the out-group condition. These findings provide insight into the role of group membership in the effect of social norms, and have practical implications regarding the design of identity-based social media health campaigns to promote healthier eating behaviours.

Responsibility for impairment shapes the perceived deservingness of welfare claimants with disabilities

AbstractWhen do people support government assistance for people with disabilities? Disability welfare programs account for large shares of national welfare budgets, but little is known about public attitudes toward disabled welfare claimants. Drawing on psychological research in stereotype content, we argue that attitudes toward welfare for people with disabilities are likely to be more conditional than previously acknowledged. In two nationally representative, preregistered survey experiments in Wales (N = 3393) and Scotland (1707), we ask respondents to evaluate the deservingness of a fictitious disabled claimant to government assistance. We manipulate the claimant's outgroup status and the manner in which they acquired their impairment. We find that disabled claimants perceived as even somewhat responsible for their impairments are considered substantially less deserving of government assistance than those perceived not responsible, even when their needs for assistance are identical. Contrary to expectations, we find relatively modest and inconsistent outgroup penalties in perceived deservingness. Finally, we find large heterogeneous treatment effects among respondents holding to more authoritarian social values. These results challenge conventional wisdom regarding the universality of support for disability welfare and help explain why voters may not be inclined to punish politicians who propose cuts to programs for even stereotypically high‐deserving groups.

Preschoolers retain more details from event sequences 1 week following an in-group demonstration

Previous research highlights that the learning processes of preschool-aged children are influenced by the cultural group membership of the information sources. As of yet, however, no study has aimed to explore the influence of cultural group membership on the long-term retention of novel information. In the current study, 4-year-old children observed three event sequences that were demonstrated by either an adult speaking their native language or a foreign language speaker. In Experiment 1, children (N = 56) were allowed to imitate the events immediately. Results showed that the average number of accurately reproduced details (native = 3.26; foreign = 3.11) and the order of event elements (native = 1.69; foreign = 1.49) did not significantly differ in the two conditions. In Experiment 2, children (N = 56) were allowed to imitate only following a 1-week delay. In this case, children retained more details (native = 2.6; foreign = 2.2) and reproduced the order in the event sequences more accurately (native = 1.18; foreign = 0.87) following a native demonstration. The behavior of children in all conditions differed from a baseline group without any instruction (n = 15). These findings show that preschoolers retain more information in the long term when it was demonstrated to them by a member of their own culture. Importantly, they also learn from people belonging to different cultures—as evidenced by both the lack of difference in Experiment 1 and the difference between the out-group condition of Experiment 2 and the baseline.

Maximin principle, emotional aversion, and integrative judgment in the NIMBY context, including social dilemma and moral dilemma: The roles of the amygdala, angular gyrus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex

ABSTRACTPublic facilities that have NIMBY (not in my backyard) structure involve both a social dilemma, in which individuals’ decisions to prevent the worst outcomes for themselves undermine the public interest, and a moral dilemma focused on the majority versus the minority. This study examined the cognitive-neural processes in judging whether to prioritize the site residents or the citizenry as a whole within the context of NIMBY. Our ROIs were the right angular gyrus being related to concern about the worst possible outcomes for others and oneself, the amygdala associating with emotional aversion to prioritizing the majority, and the vmPFC, which integrates the aversion into “all things considered” judgments. As a result of comparing ingroup conditions for which a NIMBY facility may make participants worst-off position and outgroup conditions for which this possibility is denied, the right angular gyrus was activated in both conditions. The amygdala was activated only in the ingroup, and the vmPFC exhibited a stronger tendency in the ingroup. We concluded that the cognitive-neural processes in judgments on NIMBY facilities are common to both decision-making to avoid the worst-off position for others and for oneself and moral judgments between the majority and the minority.

The role of outgroup homogeneity and the neurodynamics of the frontal cortex during beauty comparisons

ABSTRACTThe distance effect states that the closer two compared magnitudes (e.g., two numbers, physical attractiveness in two faces), the more difficult the comparison, and the greater the activity of the frontoparietal control network. However, it is unclear whether this network is also recruited to the same extent when we perform ingroup and outgroup beauty comparisons and whether the activation of these networks is tracked by interindividual variation in the perceptions we hold about an outgroup. We recorded brain activity with fMRI, where participants compared the beauty of two women ostensibly either from their ingroup or from an outgroup. Low-distance conditions produced longer response times than the high-distance conditions, and this was found in both the ingroup and outgroup conditions. However, our neuroimaging analyses revealed that the left IFG/anterior insula showed the classic distance effect only during ingroup processing but not during outgroup processing. Notably, interaction-specific activity within the left IFG/anterior insula was related to perceptions of outgroup homogeneity assessed via a questionnaire. This set of findings reveals the dynamic role of the prefrontal cortex and its interplay with perceptions of outgroup homogeneity in shaping ingroup and outgroup decision-making.

The impact of group identity on experimental markets with externalities

Existing evidence demonstrates that the degree of social homogeneity in a society correlates with various economic indicators. Using experimental techniques, we establish the causal impact of social distance on socially responsible behavior, market prices, market efficiency and income inequality. We develop an experimental market where low-cost production generates a negative externality to a third party, while high-cost production eliminates the externality. We compare behavior in groups varying whether the third party shares a common identity with buyers and sellers (in-group condition) or not (out-group condition). Our findings indicate that socially responsible behavior is generally robust across our treatments. However, boosting group identity improves economic welfare indicators, as it leads to a striking reduction of economic inequality through changes in market price levels and improves market efficiency. Overall, our experiment shows that the social environment of market interactions matters a great deal and has significant implications for the design of institutions.

Group identity modulates bidding behavior in repeated lottery contest: neural signatures from event-related potentials and electroencephalography oscillations.

A contest usually involves expenditures, termed "overbidding," exceeding the theoretical Nash equilibrium. A considerable number of studies have shown that group identity can affect decision-making and competitive behavior, thus providing a new perspective on alleviating the overbidding problem. How group identity influences brain activity when competitors bid in different groups is not yet clear, however. In this study, we implemented group identity manipulation into the lottery contest game and we recorded behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) data at the same time. Two experimental treatments were conducted to study the effect of group identity on bidding behavior. The event-related potentials (ERP) and event-related oscillations (ERO) techniques were utilized to explore brain activity differences caused by participants' different bidding behaviors under in-group and out-group conditions. Behavioral results showed that individual expenditure was significantly lower when bidding with in-group opponents than with out-group opponents. Analyses of EEG results revealed that compared to in-group conditions, greater N2 amplitudes and theta power were found under out-group conditions. To extend previous studies, we performed supplementary analysis to explore whether enhancement of group identity had effects on conflict alleviation. Behavioral results indicated that individual expenditure was significantly lower after enhancing group identity when bidding with in-group, and EEG results showed more negative N2 amplitudes, smaller P3 amplitudes and larger theta power after enhancing group identity. Collectively, these findings indicate that group identity modulated bidding behavior, and they provide insight into a mechanism to de-escalate group conflict by enhancing group identity.

Omertà in intragroup cheating: The role of ingroup identity in dishonesty and whistleblowing

Why are people willing to denounce or, contrarily, to keep silent on others’ misconduct? We hypothesized that people would be more likely to cheat, and consequently less likely to blow the whistle, when among an ingroup (vs. outgroup). In two experiments, participants witnessed a same nationality or a different nationality group member cheating during a group task. Participants either had the opportunity to cheat themselves before witnessing this cheating act (Experiments 1 and 2) or did not have this opportunity (Experiment 2). In the ingroup condition, participants cheated more and denounced others’ cheating less than in the outgroup condition (Experiments 1 and 2). However, when participants were not allowed to cheat themselves, they equally denounced ingroup and outgroup cheaters (Experiment 2). This provides evidence that cheating mediates the group effect on whistleblowing and is reminiscent of omertà, that is, the code of silence among criminals. We provide suggestions for future research.

Spotlight: Graduate Student Organization

Spotlight:Graduate Student Organization Joseph Roskos (bio), Yulia Gilich (bio), David Kocik (bio), Hamidreza Nassiri (bio), and Vuk Vuković (bio) Graduate students sometimes enter academia as starry-eyed scholars, sometimes as skeptics, and sometimes as agents of change, focused on our dreams of a better academy and by extension a better world. Graduate students are indispensable in academia, but since the founding of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies' Graduate Student Organization in 1988, our academic experiences have significantly deteriorated. We are overwhelmingly overworked and underpaid; many of us lack adequate support and mentorship; and gender minorities and people of color are frequent targets of abuse by students, faculty, and staff. Graduate workers around the globe are addressing these issues by organizing protests, going on strike, and fighting to unionize. We advocate for equitable labor practices; highlight intersectional labor concerns; and urge recognition of the valuable intellectual, pedagogical, and organizational labor graduate students perform. As cost of living increases continue to outpace graduate students' funding packages and underemployment in academia worsens, access to graduate-level studies and programs will increasingly become viable only for financially privileged people. University administrators and senior faculty often claim that they know what it is like to be a graduate student. Yet they have failed to ensure that graduate students' stipends and salaries keep up with inflation. Today, financial security for graduate students is wishful thinking. Universities claim that graduate students are in training and they [End Page 4] cannot pay them reasonable salaries. That rationale is spurious. First, such rhetoric encourages graduate students to "power through" years of financial precarity on the premise that, after training is complete, a well-compensated future awaits them. However, becoming a tenured faculty member is increasingly unlikely. As our Northwestern peer Eli Lichtenstein wrote in April 2020, "No, I am not getting a (tenure-track) job. None of us are."1 Second, graduate students who venture into the academic job market are expected to be developing second book projects on top of an already established record of independent teaching, publishing, and presenting research at conferences, which makes us the colleagues of our tenured mentors. Third, adjunct faculty are not trainees; they are accomplished, yet unfairly compensated, scholars and teachers. Like other minoritized students, for international students, graduate school presents additional systemic challenges. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the position of international students within higher education significantly worsened. They are affected by border closures and limited work opportunities and are ineligible for fellowships and government support reserved for US citizens. Many international students cannot access inter-institutional grants due to their visa status, which leaves them behind their peers. Recruiting diverse graduate cohorts—including international students—is insufficient: our institutions must provide adequate support to the students and workers they recruit. Moreover, studies show that American students tend to hold biases against international instructors. While usually considered very knowledgeable, those instructors are rated lower on their teaching abilities due to cultural and communication differences.2 International students' funding often is tied to teaching assistantships, which disadvantages them compared to their US peers and furthers their outgroup status.3 Departments must support their international educators; understand the extra effort they make to earn the trust of their students; and realize biases can worsen based on the instructor's race, ethnicity, or gender.4 We call for a concerted effort to replace such practices and environments with a more just system suited to protect the integrity and quality of education. Departments should understand that such studies point to larger problems [End Page 5] in academia that first include the further marginalization of minoritized academics in an already "hostile" and "contested" environment.5 The application of corporate strategies in higher education, including evaluations, only makes these problems worse, as does a superficial focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops. Representation passes as an easy answer to diversity concerns, rather than making systemic changes challenging the structures that protect gatekeeping and coercion in academia.6 We know that tenured and tenure-track faculty are also overworked by universities, with queer, trans, female, Black, Indigenous, and other faculty of color shouldering a disproportionately large share of service and advising. We see how little...

If they rise, will we fall? Social identity uncertainty and preference for collective victimhood rhetoric

AbstractIntergroup status relations are in a constant flux, and groups monitor and pay attention to not only their own status as active and distinctive entities to ensure survival but also monitor the status and vitality of rival outgroups that are viewed as a threat to ingroup status. This study, set within the context of Indian religious intergroup relations, examines whether perceived outgroup vitality and status are associated with uncertainty about the ingroup's future and whether heightened uncertainty is associated with greater preference for leadership rhetoric that highlights ingroup collective victimhood and suffering. Indian Hindu (N = 163) participants recruited through MTurk completed measures of religious identification, outgroup vitality, and future uncertainty and were randomly assigned to read either a victimhood message or a pro‐diversity message by a prospective leader. Uncertainty about the ingroup's future mediated the relationship between outgroup vitality and leader support; leader speech moderated the relationship between uncertainty and leader support, such that under high uncertainty a leader who used victimhood speech was preferred. Implications for the ways in which leaders can gain influence by emphasizing subgroup suffering given the context of existential ingroup uncertainty is discussed.

Perceived Group Identity Alters Task-Unrelated Thought and Attentional Divergence During Conversations.

Task-unrelated thought (TUT) occurs frequently in our daily lives and across a range of tasks, but we know little about how this phenomenon arises during and influences the way we communicate. Conversations also provide a novel opportunity to assess the alignment (or divergence) in TUT during dyadic interactions. We conducted a study to determine: (a) the frequency of TUT during conversation as well as how partners align/diverge in their rates of TUT, (b) the subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and TUT divergence during conversation, and (c) if perceived social group identity impacts TUT and TUT divergence during conversation. We used a minimal groups induction procedure to assign participants (N = 126) to either an ingroup, outgroup, or control condition. We then asked them to converse with one another via a computer-mediated text chat application for 10 min while self-reporting TUTs. On average, participants reported TUT about once every 2 min; however, this rate was lower for participants in the ingroup condition, compared to the control condition. Conversational pairs in the ingroup condition were also aligned more in their rates of TUT compared to the outgroup condition. Finally, we discuss subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and TUT divergence in conversations, such as valence, turn-taking ratios, and topic shifts.

The negative impact of xenophobia on compassion with suffering out-group members is attenuated by trait empathy

Empathy enables human beings to understand and share the internal states of others. Studies show that empathy for pain is higher for in-group compared to out-group members. This might be driven by attitudes and biases towards out-groups. In a between subject design, N = 621 participants filled in questionnaires measuring xenophobia and trait empathy and were presented with photos of suffering individuals either from the in-group or an out-group, which had to be rated with respect to negative affect and the willingness to help the depicted persons. Results do not show more compassion with members of the in-group in general, but a negative effect of xenophobia on state empathy in the out-group condition. Additional moderation analyses show that this effect is less evident in presence of high trait empathy scores. Our results highlight the importance of empathy trainings to attenuate the effects of xenophobic attitudes on social cohabitation in our increasingly polarized and culturally diverse societies.

Inspiration or risk? How social media marketing of plant-based meat affects young people's purchase intention.

As an alternative protein product to animal meat, plant-based meat is considered to play an essential role in improving animal welfare and protecting the environment. However, why do a few consumers choose plant-based meat but others do not? Despite the increasing research on plant-based meat marketing, little is known about the psychological mechanism by which plant-based meat marketing affects consumers’ purchasing decisions. We utilize dual-system theory to understand how social media marketing of plant-based meat influences cognitive fluency, customer inspiration, perceived risk, and purchase intention. Four studies (i.e., Studies 1, 2, 3, and 4) show that social media marketing can increase young people’s purchase intention of plant-based meat more than traditional marketing. In Studies 1 and 2, increased intensity of social media marketing can enhance young people’s cognitive fluency and further promote purchase intention. Study 3 explores how cognitive fluency relates to purchase intention through two psychological mechanisms. We suggest that a higher level of cognitive fluency increases customer inspiration and improves purchase intention. However, a lower level of cognitive fluency reduces purchase intention by increasing perceived risk. Study 4 manipulated members’ in-group or out-group status to show a boundary condition for the effect of brand community identity on purchase intention. These studies provide insight into how brand marketers can use social media to promote consumer inspiration and advertising engagement, how managers can offer fluency-increasing mechanisms to ensure a low level of perceived risk, and how enterprise practitioners may want to consider brand community publicity to attract out-group members.

Pathogen threat and intergroup prejudice using the minimal group paradigm: Evidence from a registered report

Infection by parasites, bacteria, and other microorganisms has been a powerful selection pressure faced by humans and other species. Consequently, avoiding pathogens has played an important role in human evolution and continues to play a role in contemporary social psychological processes. The current research tested the hypothesis that pathogen avoidance promotes intergroup prejudice. Whereas previous tests relied on existing cultural groups, which can conflate outgroup status with pre-existing group stereotypes about disease or geographic variability in pathogen prevalence, the current experiments assessed intergroup bias using a minimal group paradigm. Based on preliminary evidence (Study 1, N = 207, undergraduate students) that experimentally priming pathogen avoidance motivation promoted negativity toward a minimal outgroup, we conducted a Registered Report (Study 2, N = 1339 online participants) to replicate and extend those findings. Our primary hypothesis was that an experimental manipulation of pathogen threat (relative to two control conditions) would produce greater intergroup prejudice (negativity toward the nominal outgroup relative to the nominal ingroup). This hypothesis was not supported in the larger, registered second study. Exploratory analyses provided some evidence for interactions between experimental priming of pathogen threat and individual differences in pathogen disgust, but the interactive pattern differed across the two experiments. Findings call into question the hypothesis that, in the absence of cultural stereotypes, situationally activated pathogen avoidance promotes intergroup prejudice.

Short-Term Training in Mindfulness Predicts Helping Behavior Toward Racial Ingroup and Outgroup Members

A randomized controlled trial tested whether mindfulness training would increase lab-based and in vivo spontaneous helping behaviors toward racial outgroup members. First, across conditions, those scoring higher in baseline trait mindfulness showed higher levels of preintervention lab-based and ecological momentary assessment (EMA)-based helping behavior. Next, short-term (4-day) training in mindfulness, relative to a well-matched sham meditation training, increased interracial helping behavior in a lab-based simulation. Finally, among people scoring lower in a basic form of trait mindfulness at baseline—that is, with greater room for improvement—mindfulness training predicted higher postintervention in vivo helping behavior reported via EMA. However, neither training condition alone attenuated preferential helping toward racial ingroup members. These findings indicate, for the first time, that mindfulness and its training fosters helping behavior toward strangers and acquaintances regardless of their racial ingroup or outgroup status, but preferential helping of racial ingroup members remains.

“Nobody Really Knows What We Do”: Exploring the Organizational and Occupational Identification of Academic Librarians

ABSTRACT This study investigates the organizational and occupational identification of academic librarians. Results from 21 semi-structured interviews with librarians with instruction roles at an Ivy-league and two state universities reveal that academic librarians identify primarily with their occupation rather than organization. In addition, communication partner as well as two types of identity cues influence participants’ communicative strategies during the process of identification. Consistent with communication accommodation theory, in-group or out-group status is triggered by stereotypes, which affects participants’ accommodation or nonaccommodation decisions. Unlike previous studies, we find that perceived external prestige can serve as a negative cue limiting the amount of identification in a certain context. Other findings and implications are also discussed.

Prevalence and characteristics of childfree adults in Michigan (USA).

Childfree individuals choose not to have children, which makes them a distinctive group from parents who have had children, not-yet-parents who plan to have children, and childless indivduals who would have liked to have children. Most research on parental status and psychosocial characteristics has not effectively distinguished childfree individuals from other non-parents or has relied on non-representative samples. In this study, we use a representative sample of 981 Michigan adults to estimate the prevalence of childfree individuals, to examine how childfree individuals differ from parents and other types of non-parents in life satisfaction, political ideology, and personality, and to examine whether childfree individuals are viewed as an outgroup. We find that over a quarter of Michigan adults identified as childfree. After controlling for demographic characteristics, we find no differences in life satisfaction and limited differences in personality traits between childfree individuals and parents, not-yet-parents, or childless individuals. However, childfree individuals were more liberal than parents, and those who have or want(ed) children felt substantially less warm toward childfree individuals than childfree individuals felt toward each other. Given the prevalence of childfree individuals, the risks of their outgroup status, and their potential role in politics as a uniquely liberal group, it is important for demographic research to distinguish the childfree from others and to better understand these individuals.

How do adolescents perceive Chinese and Romanian immigrants? Testing the extended stereotype content model (¿Cómo perciben los adolescentes a los inmigrantes de origen chino y rumano? Una prueba del modelo extendido del contenido de los estereotipos (MCE))

ABSTRACT This study assessed Spanish adolescents’ (N = 296) stereotypes of morality, sociability and competence and their emotions towards Romanian (n = 147) or Chinese immigrants (n = 149). We also assessed the perceived intergroup competition with these groups and their perceived social status, and we explored the relation of these variables with adolescents’ stereotypes and emotions. As expected, adolescents’ evaluations were influenced by the ethnic origin of the immigrants and their stereotypes regarding each group were ambivalent. Intergroup competition was negatively related to immigrants’ perceived morality and sociability. Outgroup status was positively related to immigrants’ perceived competence. For both groups, stereotypes mediated the effect of socio-structural variables on adolescents’ emotions, but only morality was a consistent mediator in the examined processes. These findings provide information regarding the underlying mechanism of adolescents’ social perception of immigrant outgroups and emphasize the primary role of morality in this process.

Effects of Intergroup Vicarious Ostracism on Individual Prejudicial Attributions and Aggressive Intentions.

This study explores the effects of intergroup vicarious ostracism on individual prejudicial attributions and aggressive intentions. It takes Tibetan and Hui college students in northwestern China as participants. Study 1 and Study 2 explore the difference in observers' prejudicial attributions and aggressive intentions, respectively, when the group members who experienced ostracism (Tibetan college students) observed an in-group member being ostracized by out-group members versus an in-group member being ostracized by in-group members. Results show that those in-group participants, i.e., the Tibetan college students, who observed an in-group member being ostracized by out-group members, showed much higher prejudicial attributions, F(1, 106) = 19.65, p < .001, ηp2 = .156, and aggressive intentions, F(1, 108) = 10.51, p = .002, ηp2 = .089, toward ostracizers than those who observed an in-group member being ostracized by in-group members. In Study 3, Hui college students were recruited as participants to further test the results of Study 1 and Study 2. In addition, we also found that under the out-group conditions, prejudicial attribution mediates the effects of inclusionary status on aggressive intentions (95% bias-corrected confidence interval did not include zero; 95% CI [0.15, 0.69]). This study shows that ostracizers' group membership could affect observers' prejudicial attributions and their aggressive intentions toward the ostracizers.