In a Dutch interview in 2007, a journalist questioned the former CEO of ABN AMRO for receiving 26 million euros while the bank was taken over by a consortium bank. In the video of this interview, it can be observed that the former CEO had a very defensive response when being accused of acting disloyally towards his former colleagues at ABN. Moreover, he repeatedly referred to agreements that had been made about these types of payments in the financial world during a takeover. According to his group, receiving that much money did not correspond to violating any norms. However, the media and the general public saw this as a moral scandal. In the current article, we will present research findings indicating that a more successful strategy for the journalist (being an outsider) might have been to criticize the former CEO's competencies as a banker, rather than questioning his integrity. This might have stimulated a more open-minded discussion on how things can be changed in the future, rather than the defensive responses from the former CEO dominating the conversation. | Criticism from an ingroup versus outgroup sourceThe degree of the banker's defensive reaction might have been influenced by the journalist not being a banker himself. Whereas criticism from our ingroups (e.g., fellow bankers; Tajfel & Turner, 1979) is seen as helpful for the self and the ingroup, criticism from outgroups (e.g.,

No abstract

No abstract