Context effects on intergroup discrimination: In‐group bias as a function of experimenter's provenance

Abstract

Two studies investigated the joint effect of in‐group identification and experimenter's membership status on the overt emergence of in‐group bias. In Expt 1, 117 male Belgian undergraduates were asked to describe Belgian vs. North African students of their university. As predicted, the evaluative meaning of the descriptions, as a function of the experimenter's provenance, showed an in‐group bias when the experimenter was an ‘outsider’ as opposed to when he was an ‘insider’. In Expt 2, 50 female undergraduates were first asked to report their identification with each of four groups. Experimenter's Provenance was then manipulated in the same way as in Expt 1 and the subjects were asked to allocate money to the groups. It was predicted and found that subjects would show stronger in‐group bias when comparing an in‐group to an out‐group in the outsider condition than in the insider condition, and that no differences in favouritism would arise when comparisons concerned out‐groups only. The general conclusion of the two experiments is that overt manifestations of in‐group favouritism are an additive function of in‐group identification and search for social coordination with the experimenter on in‐group superiority, the latter aspect being stronger when the experimenter is perceived as an outsider (i.e. someone with whom social coordination is not taken for granted) relative to the subject's real‐life membership category. Some implications are drawn with respect to the minimal group paradigm.

The strategic confirmation of meta‐stereotypes: How group members attempt to tailor an out‐group's representation of themselves

“…To conclude, recent work had already shown that group members strategically manipulate aspects of their social identities when presenting them to an audience. This is true of group attitudes (Reicher & Levine, 1994a, 1994bReicher et al, 1995Reicher et al, , 1998, identi cation (Ellemers, Barreto, & Spears, 1999), in-group bias (Marques, Yzerbyt, & Rijsman, 1988;Noel et al, 1995) and reported level of discrimination towards the out-group (Postmes et al, 1999). Our study suggests that stereotypes should henceforth be added to this list.…”

Who Says We Are Bad People? The Impact of Criticism Source and Attributional Content on Responses to Group-Based Criticism

“…Image concerns are not only revealed through group members' negative reactions to criticisms exposed to an outgroup audience. There is evidence that many aspects of group identity are presented strategically depending on the available audience, including perceptions of discrimination (Postmes, Branscombe, Spears, & Young, 1999), identification with the group (Ellemers, Barreto & Spears, 1999), ingroup bias (Marques, Yzerbyt, & Rijsman, 1988), and group stereotypes (Klein & Azzi, 2001). Moreover, these effects are not limited to self-report measures.…”

Identity-Based Consumer Behavior

“…Third, research has found that identity salience increases in response to a wide variety of stimulus cues including reference group symbols (Smith & Mackie, 1995), symbols relating to out-groups (Forehand, et al, 2002), out-group members themselves (Marques, Yzerbyt, & Rijsman, 1988), and even visual images and words (Hong, Morris, Chiu, & BenetMartínez, 1999).…”