The Ingroup as Pars Pro Toto: Projection From the Ingroup Onto the Inclusive Category as a Precursor to Social Discrimination

Abstract

In an approach to intergroup discrimination and tolerance, it is assumed that the outgroup's difference from the ingroup is evaluated with reference to the prototype of the higher-order category that includes both groups. Two correlational studies yielded evidence that (a) group members tend to perceive their ingroup as relatively prototypical for the inclusive category (projection), (b) members highly identified with both ingroup and inclusive category (dual identity) tend to project most, and (c) relative prototypicality is related to negative attitudes toward the outgroup. The latter relation was further specified in Study 3, manipulating the valence of the inclusive category. Projection was related to more negative attitudes toward the outgroup when the inclusive category was primed positively but to more positive attitudes when it was primed negatively. The meaning of dual identities for intergroup relations is discussed.

The instrumental use of group prototypicality judgments

“…Waldzus et al (2003) have found that such evaluations moderate the relationship between identification and RIP and they argue that we should only expect such a relationship to appear when evaluations of the superordinate group are positive (which may be related to, but is not the same as superordinate identification). While we did not explicitly measure these evaluations, it is plausible that evaluations of Britain are related to support for independence.…”

“…We should also note here that Waldzus et al (2003) used a different procedure to test for the effect of dual identification, using as predictor a composite score obtained by multiplying the exponential function of both Scottish and British identification (both variables first standardized) -and without entering Scottish and British identification as possible main effects. The reason they advance for such a procedure is that they do not predict any kind of interaction but a specific pattern whereby both ingroup and superordinate identification need to be high in order to produce an effect, whereas a simple product term could also be significant for other patterns.…”

“…Indeed, in order for the bias to occur, ingroup members need to take the superordinate category as a relevant normative background for their judgments. Overall, then, they predict that high RIP should be related to high levels of dual identification (Waldzus, Mummendey, Wenzel, & Weber, 2003;Wenzel et al, 2003).…”

“…More recently, Mummendey and her colleagues have argued that people tend to be biased towards perceiving ingroups as more prototypical of the superordinate category than other subgroups -i.e. to yield high scores of relative ingroup prototypicality (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999;Waldzus, Mummendey, Wenzel, & Boettcher, 2004;Wenzel, Mummendey, Weber, & Waldzus, 2003).…”

We are human, they are not: Driving forces behind outgroup dehumanisation and the humanisation of the ingroup

“…While the underlying rationale for this hypothesis is consistent with the general tenets of infrahumanisation theory, analogies can be found in the ingroup projection model. Mummendey and Wenzel (1999;Wenzel, Mummendey, Weber, & Waldzus, 2003), for example, state that people tend to project, and consequentially perceive the ingroup and its characteristics as more prototypical of the superordinate category than the outgroup and its characteristics. Waldzus, Mummendey, Wenzel, and Boettcher (2004) have shown that when primary school and high school teachers are confronted, both sets of teachers rate the traits of their own group (vs. those of the outgroup) as being more typical of the superordinate category teachers.…”