Embarrassment arises when we reveal an apparent flaw of the self in front of others, for instance, in a faux pas situation. An audience is crucial for embarrassment, but the group membership of the audience has not yet been studied. According to the social identity approach, we assign more importance to evaluations by ingroup than by outgroup members, particularly when we identify highly, and the outgroup is of lower status. A pilot study (N = 30) showed that embarrassment correlated positively with group membership of the audience and with identification. Studies 1 to 3 presented participants with several faux pas scenarios. In Study 1 (between-participants design; N = 75), participants reported higher embarrassment in ingroup (Norwegian) and equal-status outgroup (Swedish) conditions than in a lower-status outgroup condition (Polish). In Study 2 (within-participants design; N = 135), participants reported higher embarrassment when they imagined the audience to be other Scots (ingroup) than Americans or Poles (outgroups), particularly when they perceived the outgroup to be lower in status. In Study 3 (between-participants design; N = 59), high identifiers but not low identifiers showed the expected ingroup-outgroup audience effect. Implications for intergroup relations are discussed. Key Message: Embarrassment following faux pas situations depends on the group membership of the audience, relative status of the audience and ingroup identification.
The various group and category memberships that we hold are at the heart of who we are. They have been shown to affect our thoughts, emotions, behavior, and social relations in a variety of social contexts, and have more recently been linked to our mental and physical well-being. Questions remain, however, over the dynamics between different group memberships and the ways in which we cognitively and emotionally acquire these. In particular, current assessment methods are missing that can be applied to naturally occurring data, such as online interactions, to better understand the dynamics and impact of group memberships in naturalistic settings. To provide researchers with a method for assessing specific group memberships of interest, we have developed ASIA (Automated Social Identity Assessment), an analytical protocol that uses linguistic style indicators in text to infer which group membership is salient in a given moment, accompanied by an in-depth open-source Jupyter Notebook tutorial (https://github.com/Identity-lab/Tutorial-on-salient-social-Identity-detection-model). Here, we first discuss the challenges in the study of salient group memberships, and how ASIA can address some of these. We then demonstrate how our analytical protocol can be used to create a method for assessing which of two specific group memberships—parents and feminists—is salient using online forum data, and how the quality (validity) of the measurement and its interpretation can be tested using two further corpora as well as an experimental study. We conclude by discussing future developments in the field.
Intergroup contact encompasses a wide range of contact situations. Yet, how 'contact' is conceptualized by those involved has rarely been examined. We argue that understanding the range of subjective definitions of contact is important for intergroup contact measurement and wider impact work. In Study 1, 17 participants completed a 3-day diary and a semi-structured interview about their experiences of contact with other nationalities. We examined the threshold at which encounters are subjectively defined as intergroup contact. Results showed that subjective definitions of intergroup contact were disparate and diverse, particularly when contact was fleeting or online. In Study 2, we asked a British sample (N = 498) to rate the extent to which 67 different contact scenarios with non-British people represented 'intergroup contact'. Findings show that contact situations which diverge from positive, verbal, face-to-face encounters, such as negative contact or online contact, were less likely to be understood as contact, with strong variation in ratings. The extent to which situations were seen as contact was positively correlated with the amount of self-reported intergroup contact. Together, these findings demonstrate the need to recognize and account for the variability in subjective definitions of contact, which ultimately shape self-reports of intergroup contact. Everyday interactions with people of diverse ethnic, cultural, and social backgrounds are an increasingly common part of our daily lives (
This study tests the relative predictive power of Allport’s contact conditions in reducing intergroup bias with a multilevel model. In addition, it is argued that a fourth contact condition, cooperation, mediates the relationships between the first three contact conditions (authority support, equal status, goal interdependence) and intergroup bias, rather than being an independent predictor. A multilevel model with N = 266 individuals within k = 48 work groups in a larger mail order company shows that equal status and goal interdependence negatively predict intergroup bias, with goal interdependence as the stronger predictor. These effects are partially mediated by cooperation. However, while authority support is predictive of intergroup cooperation, no relationship with intergroup bias emerged. Theoretical and practical implications of the relative predictive power of contact conditions and the mediation by cooperation are discussed.
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