Positive Ingroup Research Articles

Do Positive and Negative Intergroup Contact Create Shifts in Ingroup and Outgroup Attitudes Over Time: A Three‐Wave Longitudinal Study Testing Alternative Mediation Models

ABSTRACTThe current study investigated how contact experiences may be associated with attitudes towards the ingroup and the outgroup using a three‐wave longitudinal study. We assessed Turkish native children's contact with Syrian refugees (N = 487, Mage = 10.60, SDage = 0.90) and explored relationships between initial contact and later ingroup and outgroup attitudes testing alternative mediation models. We also examined whether negative contact with outgroup members may directly or indirectly predict more positive ingroup attitudes. Findings demonstrated that positive contact was associated with both reduced ingroup positivity and increased outgroup positivity over time. However, unlike the traditionally suggested mediational pathway in contact‐deprovincialization literature, initial positive contact (T1) was associated with less positive ingroup attitudes (T3) through more positive outgroup attitudes at T2. There was no evidence for the role of negative intergroup contact on ingroup or outgroup attitudes. Findings are discussed within the broader scope of contact theory and the recently growing deprovincialization literature. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Trends and topics: Characterizing echo chambers’ topological stability and in-group attitudes

Nowadays, online debates focusing on a wide spectrum of topics are often characterized by clashes of polarized communities, each fiercely supporting a specific stance. Such debates are sometimes fueled by the presence of echo chambers, insulated systems whose users’ opinions are exacerbated due to the effect of repetition and by the active exclusion of opposite views. This paper offers a framework to explore how echo chambers evolve through time, considering their users’ interaction patterns and the content/attitude they convey while addressing specific controversial issues. The framework is then tested on three Reddit case studies focused on sociopolitical issues (gun control, American politics, and minority discrimination) during the first two years and a half of Donald Trump’s presidency and on an X/Twitter dataset involving BLM discussion tied to the EURO 2020 football championship. Analytical results unveil that polarized users will likely keep their affiliation to echo chambers in time. Moreover, we observed that the attitudes conveyed by Reddit users who joined risky epistemic enclaves are characterized by a slight inclination toward a more negative or neutral attitude when discussing particularly sensitive issues (e.g., fascism, school shootings, or police violence) while X/Twitter ones often tend to express more positive feelings w.r.t. those involved into less polarized communities.

Children’s perceptions of race and ethnicity in media: a 25-year update to children now

ABSTRACT In 1998, Children Now surveyed 1,200 U.S. 10- to 17-year-olds about TV racial depictions, finding white children reported the most visibility. As a 25-year update, we surveyed 834 U.S. 10- to 17-year-olds: Asian/Asian American (n = 177), Black (n = 206), Hispanic (n = 150), Indigenous/Native American (n = 86), and white (n = 215). More youth now say it’s important to see their race in media, but fewer report seeing their group, with Hispanic and Asian youth reporting the lowest frequencies. Overall, youth perceived disparities: 93% said there were ‘enough’ white characters; fewer said there were enough Black (54%), Hispanic (43%), Asian (32%), and Indigenous (19%) characters. Perceptions of qualities varied, with Indigenous characters scoring lowest in positive qualities and Black and Hispanic characters highest in negative qualities. Indigenous, Hispanic, and Asian/Asian American youth perceived fewer positive ingroup representations than white and Black youth. Implications for media message design and the theory of invisibility are discussed.

A psycholinguistic study of intergroup bias and its cultural propagation.

Intergroup bias is the tendency for people to inflate positive regard for their in-group and derogate the out-group. Across two online experiments (N = 922) this study revisits the methodological premises of research on language as a window into intergroup bias. Experiment 1 examined (i) whether the valence (positivity) of language production differs when communicating about an in- vs. out-group, and (ii) whether the extent of this bias is influenced by the positivity of input descriptors that were initially presented to participants as examples of how an in-group or out-group characterize themselves. Experiment 2 used the linear diffusion chain method to examine how biases are transmitted through cultural generations. Valence of verbal descriptions were quantified using ratings obtained from a large-scale psycholinguistic database. The findings from Experiment 1 indicated a bias towards employing positive language in describing the in-group (exhibiting in-group favoritism), particularly in cases where the input descriptors were negative. However, there was weak evidence for increased negativity aimed at the out-group (i.e., out-group derogation). The findings from Experiment 2 demonstrated that in-group positivity bias propagated across cultural generations at a higher rate than out-group derogation. The results shed light on the formation and cultural transmission of intergroup bias.

White candidate support continues amidst explicit and implicit white identity cues

ABSTRACT To what extent are appeals to pro-white sentiment effective in American politics? Does it matter if such appeals are implicit or explicit? We investigate the degree to which white Americans are less likely to vote for candidates that use explicit appeals to white identity than they are to those who use more implicit appeals to white identity or to out-group animus. In doing so, we provide a crucial supplement to recent work on this topic, which finds that the implicit/explicit model is becoming less relevant for whites, as well as to research on the increased relevance of white in-group attitudes for white voter behavior. To examine the effect of such white identity appeals, we conduct a survey experiment with a national sample of 2746 white Americans. We find that respondents accept both explicit and implicit white identity appeals at the same rate as out-group appeal. Additionally, we see evidence that those who identify strongly as white are more likely to support candidates who engage in racial messaging. Our findings have broad implications for our evolving understanding of racial appeals in American politics, as well as the role of white identity in contemporary political discourse.

Creating inclusive schools to reduce health and well‐being disparities

AbstractIn the U.S., people with marginalized racial/ethnic, social class, sexual, and gender identities often have worse physical and mental health than people with more privileged identities. This paper reviews psychological research suggesting that inclusive school cultures can improve the health and well‐being of those with marginalized identities. Specifically, we review two examples of sets of ideas and practices in schools that create more supportive environments: (a) ideas and practices that recognize and include diverse identities and (b) ideas and practices that support interdependent ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. We also speculate about the psychological and behavioral mechanisms by which each protects health and well‐being, including reducing discrimination, increasing school belonging, strengthening positive ingroup identities, and allowing students to access culturally relevant support. We suggest that changing school cultures to make them more inclusive is one way to reduce health and well‐being disparities.

Beyond symbolic: the role of tourism ethnocentrism in domestic travel

ABSTRACT As a positive ingroup bias, tourism ethnocentrism (TE) is considered a symbolic reason for travelling that drives tourists to choose domestic destinations as a way of supporting their country and its tourism industry. To provide an additional perspective on TE, through the lens of cognitive dissonance and rationalization, we studied its relationships with other factors that could affect tourists’ decision to travel domestically. The study was conducted in Serbia and used structural equation modelling to test these relationships. Our findings indicate that tourism xenophilia and tourism thalassophilia, defined as a preference for seaside summer holidays, do not affect TE and have only a limited negative impact on willingness to travel domestically. Constraints for travelling abroad and increased destination awareness as a consequence of the pandemic positively affect TE, thus questioning its purely symbolic nature and indicating that levels of TE in tourists could change due to external factors.

Social identity threat across group status: Links to psychological well-being and intergroup bias through collective narcissism and ingroup satisfaction.

Through two correlational studies (Study 1: Turkish majority, Kurdish minority; Study 2: White British majority; Black minority), we examined the implications of social identity threat for majority and minority ethnic group members' psychological well-being and intergroup bias, using a social identity framework that incorporates the recently highlighted distinction between narcissistic and non-narcissistic positive evaluation of the ingroup (i.e., collective narcissism and ingroup satisfaction, respectively). Online questionnaires were completed by 397 Turkish nationals (265 ethnic Turks and 132 ethnic Kurds, Mage = 32.81, SD = 11.67) in Study 1 and 351 British individuals (163 White and 188 Black British; Mage = 31.47, SD = 10.84) in Study 2. Social identity threat was consistently associated with collective narcissism among all ethnic groups, whereas it was either unrelated or related negatively to ingroup satisfaction. Collective narcissism was positively associated with intergroup bias among both majority and minority groups. Unexpectedly, ingroup satisfaction was also related to greater bias particularly among majority members. In all groups, ingroup satisfaction (but not collective narcissism) was directly associated with greater psychological well-being. Findings highlight the importance of exploring the narcissistic component of positive ingroup evaluation to provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between social identity threat and personal well-being, as well as intergroup bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Knowledge mapping of relative deprivation theory and its applicability in tourism research

Tourism research urgently requires the introduction of new theories to address current issues and challenges. Relative deprivation theory may be the key to effectively explaining the attitudes and behaviours of tourism multistakeholders and resolving tourism conflicts. This study uses CiteSpace to conduct a citation space analysis of relative deprivation theory and draws knowledge mappings to reveal its research foundation, research hotspots, and frontiers to discuss the practical possibility of its application to tourism research. The results show that the research content of relative deprivation theory involves 12 knowledge clusters, including subjective well-being, collective action, socioeconomic inequality, in-group attitudes, and relative deprivation theory, and that its theoretical framework is well suited to the context of tourism research. Tourism-related relative deprivation faces practical challenges and has the potential for theoretical innovation. This study focuses on the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours of stakeholders and anticipates future research on tourism relative deprivation from the three aspects of multi-interest research subjects, multidimensional research contents, and multiperspective theoretical expansion, which indicate future research directions while revealing the possible innovation of relative deprivation theory.

Ingroup Positivity and Outgroup Negativity Jointly Motivate Toddlers’ Social Behavior

Intergroup bias has been a pervasive phenomenon throughout human history, but its psychological underpinnings are still the subject of debate. The present work tests whether intergroup attitudes and behaviors are motivated by ingroup positivity, outgroup negativity, or both, across the first few years of life. In two studies (total N = 128), children were introduced to an ingroup doll and an outgroup doll, and interacted with each one independently in a resource allocation task. Toddlers showed both ingroup positivity and outgroup negativity (Study 1). Preschoolers shifted from this pattern, showing positivity and avoiding negativity toward both ingroup and outgroup members (Study 2). Together, these studies suggest that outgroup negativity plays a stronger role in motivating early intergroup bias than previously thought.

How live Twitter commentaries by professional sports clubs can reveal intergroup dynamics

Social media can both decrease and increase polarization between social groups. Communicative behaviors associated with intergroup conflict are ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation. In the current paper, we propose that bias in social-media use can be assessed by focusing on live Twitter commentaries posted by sports clubs. Specifically, we focus on four bias types: biases in (1) communication volume, (2) balance, (3) fairness, and (4) recipient engagement. We analyzed Twitter commentaries placed by soccer clubs in the Dutch Eredivisie during the 2019/20 season (232 games, Ntweets = 13,789). Results on volume showed that clubs placed more tweets during wins (vs. draws or losses). For balance, we found that teams devoted a larger percentage of their feed to positive ingroup (vs. outgroup) events. For fairness, a larger proportion of positive ingroup (vs. outgroup) events were reported in the Twitter commentaries. Furthermore, fans engaged more with tweets about positive ingroup (vs. outgroup) events. By contrast, we did not find differences for negative ingroup (vs. outgroup) events for balance, fairness, or engagement. Taken together, our results show that sport clubs’ live Twitter commentaries reflect ingroup favoritism, but not outgroup derogation.

Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability in Japanese children

Japan has a large gender gap; thus, this study examined whether Japanese 4- to 7-year-old children exhibit a “brilliance = males” stereotype and whether parental attitudes toward gender roles were related to children’s stereotypes. We also explored whether the children exhibited such stereotypes in response to various stimuli. We showed children photos (Study 1) and stick figures (Study 2) of men, women, boys, and girls, asking them to attribute traits (smart or nice) to each. Study 1 revealed overwhelming in-group positivity in girls, whereas the results for boys were rather mixed. In Study 2, girls generally attributed nice to their own gender compared to boys. However, “brilliance = males” stereotypical responses were observed from 7 years of age, when boys began to be more likely to attribute smartness to their own gender compared to girls. The new data in Study 3 replicated results of Study 1 and parts of the results of Study 2. Moreover, merging the Study 3 data with that of Studies 1 and 2 confirmed their findings. Furthermore, it replicated the “brilliance = males” stereotype among 7-year-olds in the stick figure task. Parental attitudes toward gender roles were unrelated to children’s gender stereotypes. The results indicated that Japanese children may acquire “brilliance = males” stereotypes later than American children (6-years-old). Furthermore, the results were clearer when children were presented with stick figure stimuli.

Priming attachment and diversity ideologies: Effects on ethnic bias in children's altruistic sharing in a dictator game

Children often show a positive ingroup bias in altruistic behaviors such as sharing. Insight in factors related to ethnic bias in sharing can help towards understanding the origins of inequality in the distribution of resources in society. The present study examined the effect of priming secure attachment (versus positive affect) and multiculturalism (versus color-evasiveness) on ingroup bias in dominant ethnic group children's altruistic sharing. One hundred twenty-five White Dutch children (45 % boys, 55 % girls) between 7 and 11 years old (Mage = 8.47, SDage = 0.87) participated in a Dictator game after being primed. The Dictator game was played against three same-gender children with different ethnic backgrounds (White, Black, Middle Eastern). Results support the idea that priming secure attachment and multiculturalism can decrease ingroup bias in dominant ethnic group children's altruistic sharing, although the effects do not strengthen each other and are effective in situations with different trade-offs and interaction partners. Future research is needed to disentangle the effectiveness of secure attachment and multiculturalism messages in different sharing situations and with interaction partners with different ethnic backgrounds. Results from the present study provide starting points from which to further examine which messages potentially positively impact children's interethnic relations.

Political identity biases Americans' judgments of outgroup emotion

Social group identity plays a central role in political polarization and inter-party conflict. Here, we use ambiguously valenced faces to measure bias in the processing of political ingroup and outgroup faces, while also accounting for inter-party differences in judgments of emotion at baseline. Participants identifying as Democrats and Republicans judged happy, angry, and surprised faces as positive or negative. Whereas happy and angry faces convey positive and negative valence respectively, surprised faces are ambiguous in that they readily convey positive and negative valence. Thus, surprise is a useful tool for characterizing valence bias (i.e., the tendency to judge ambiguous stimuli as negative). Face stimuli were assigned to the participants' political ingroup or outgroup, or a third group with an unspecified affiliation (baseline). We found a significant interaction of facial expression and group membership, such that outgroup faces were judged more negatively than ingroup and baseline, but only for surprise. There was also an interaction of facial expression and political affiliation, with Republicans judging surprise more negatively than Democrats across all group conditions. However, we did not find evidence for party differences in outgroup negativity. Our findings demonstrate the utility of judgments of surprised faces as a measure of intergroup bias, and reinforce the importance of outgroup negativity (relative to ingroup positivity) for explaining inter-party biases.

The developmental trajectories of racial categorization and explicit racial biases in Singapore

The present study investigated the development of racial categorization and explicit racial biases in Singaporean Chinese preschoolers (N = 73). Three- to six-year-olds were found to be generally adept at categorizing novel faces by race and displayed significant improvements in their racial categorization abilities at six years old. Additionally, the strength of children's racial preferences varied along the developmental trajectory. While three- and four-year-olds did not exhibit own-race preferences, five- and six-year-olds preferred to befriend own-race children and preferentially assigned desirable jobs to own-race adults. None of the age groups, however, displayed preferences for either race when assigning undesirable jobs to adults, pointing to an absence of negative outgroup bias from three to six years old. Lastly, children who were better able to categorize novel faces by race also showed stronger tendencies to assign undesirable jobs to other-race adults and thus stronger outgroup negativity. Together, our findings suggest that ingroup positivity precedes outgroup negativity, and that racial categorization plays an important role in the development of negative outgroup bias, hence providing further support for developmental theories on intergroup bias formation.

Cues of Collective Threat Increase Salience of Positive Ingroup Agency-Related Traits

Abstract. Three studies investigated the influence of collective threat on the importance of agency- and communion-related traits used in ingroup perception. Study 1 ( N = 137) investigated how cues of such threat affect reaction times when individuals are asked to ascribe agentic or communal traits to their ingroup. Study 2 ( N = 96) and Study 3 ( N = 337) examined the role of social identification in response to a collective threat. The results suggest that cues of threat may lead to preferential processing of positive (but not negative) ingroup agency over ingroup communion, the effect particularly likely among highly identified individuals. Perceiving the ingroup as an agentic collective may thus act as a buffer that assists in managing threat-related emotions.

Exploring the solidarity discourse on Islam and Muslims in the Australian press

This paper is an attempt to explore whether and to what extent the Australian newspapers; The Age and The Australian, produced the “solidarity discourse” regarding Islam and Muslims during the time period January 01, 2016 to March 31, 2017. Edward Said’s Orientalism and many other research findings suggest that there is clear evidence of positive in-group (Us/the West/the Occident) and negative out-group (Them/the Islam and Muslims/the East/the Orient) discourse in the representation of Islam and Muslims by global media. However, Jeffery C. Alexander asserts that the media being “communicative institution” of a society plays an important role of “civil repair” by producing a “solidarity discourse”. His civil sphere theory proposes that the media as a “vital centre” highlight and generates common understanding of the solidarity which can resist “non-civil” polarization and radical actions in civil societies. The researcher has employed “Lexicalization” and “Ideological Square” approaches from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paradigm proposed by van Dijk. The findings of this study show that The Age produced the “solidarity discourse” overwhelmingly by emphasizing on “understanding”, “cohesion”, and “we-ness”. On the contrary, the “solidarity discourse” is entirely absent in the editorials of The Australian.

Effects of positive ingroup evaluation

Effects of positive ingroup evaluation

The politics of pronouns: how Trump framed the ingroup in the 2016 presidential election

ABSTRACT Outgroup hostility and racialized language were the most important predictors of support for Trump in the 2016 election season. Some scholarship argues that outgroup hostility outweighs the importance of white ingroup attitudes. Using a mix-methods content analysis of Trump’s campaign speeches, this paper agrees that outgroup hostility was the primary rhetorical device used by Trump in his speeches in both the primary and general elections. This work goes further and examines how Trump’s rhetoric framed and constructed the ingroup using outgroup rhetoric to connect the two. We argue that immigration and refugees, specifically, were used by Trump as part of the identity story he told about the ingroup and what it means to be an ingroup member. Our contribution rests on the correlation between hostile outgroup rhetoric—especially towards immigrants and refugees—to the framing and defining of the ingroup (through first-person plural pronouns). Further, we connect this rhetorical device to questions about what is at stake for the ingroup (i.e., power). We highlight a rhetorical mechanism that helps explain how hostile outgroup rhetoric is linked to ingroup framing, a contribution that adds to the literature on this topic.

Effects of instagram sports posts on the athletic motivation of female elite athletes: Do they inspire or backfire?

The social networking site Instagram provides users with an abundance of photos and information in many domains including sports. The posts are often intended to inspire and motivate users. We argue that the display of success and failure of professional athletes may influence elite athletes’ own sports ambitions. Research has shown that exposure to positive ingroup stereotypes and exposure to negative outgroup stereotypes can increase performance (i.e., the stereotype boost effect and the stereotype lift effect, respectively). Based on this research, we conducted three experiments in two different cultural contexts. In all three experiments, we examined whether Instagram posts that showed either ingroup members’ success or outgroup members’ failure influenced athletic motivation, self-efficacy, and sports-related behavioral intentions of female elite athletes. Experiment 1 (n = 117) was conducted in Germany, whereas Experiments 2 (n = 137) and 3 (n = 143) were conducted in Norway. Results showed that in Germany, participants’ athletic motivation and self-efficacy was highest when they were exposed to failing outgroup members (Exp. 1); however, this was not the case in Norway (Exp. 2). In contrast, only Norwegian participants who were exposed to successful ingroup members reported a significant increase in their athletic motivation, but there were no effects regarding self-efficacy and sports-related behavioral intentions (Exp. 3). Boundary conditions for Instagram’s role in motivating users and reasons for the differences between the two cultural contexts are discussed.