Effects of diversity versus segregation on automatic approach and avoidance behavior towards own and other ethnic groups

Abstract

We present the results of a study in which we measured automatic intergroup behavior and evaluations in ethnic majority and minority group members. We focus our attention on the level of segregation and diversity of immediate life contexts as indicators of outgroup exposure. Specifically, Dutch ethnic minority and majority students enrolled at ethnically segregated and diverse schools completed a measure of automatic approach and avoidance behavior and reported explicit intergroup attitudes. The research is framed into prevailing theories in the field: Social Identity Theory and System Justification Theory. Results of our study suggest that segregation of minority group members' immediate life context may be an important moderator of evaluations as well as approach and avoidance behavior toward ingroup and outgroup. In particular, minority members in segregated schools showed an approach bias towards their ingroup, whereas minority members in diverse schools showed an approach bias towards the majority outgroup.

Toward the use of approach/avoidance tendencies as attitude measures: Individual‐ and group‐level variability of the ingroup bias

“…In the case of our present focus on approach/avoidance tasks as indirect attitude measures, this result is to be linked with two recent experiments published after we conducted our research. A first experiment compared students from segregated versus non‐segregated schools by using the Manikin task (Degner et al, ). In this experiment, minority students from segregated schools (i.e., from schools with a majority of students from immigration background) displayed a pro‐ingroup compatibility effect, whereas minority students from non‐segregated schools (i.e., from schools with a majority of white students) displayed a pro‐outgroup compatibility effect.…”

“…We were also interested in whether this variability was linked with self‐reported prejudice toward the outgroup (here, North African individuals). To our knowledge, two studies were able to show a link between intergroup approach/avoidance effects and self‐reported prejudice (Clow & Olson, ; Degner et al, ), but such a link is not always observed (Neumann et al, ).…”

“…By using a modified keyboard, Paladino and Castelli () showed several approach/avoidance intergroup effects, with participants—only members of the dominant group (i.e., groups associated with greater social value, such as white people in most Western societies)—being faster in the compatible setting (i.e., approach ingroup stimuli and avoid outgroup stimuli by moving one's hand toward vs. away from the screen to push keyboard buttons) as compared to the incompatible setting where the approach/avoidance instructions were reversed (see also Bianchi, Carnaghi, & Shamloo, ; Castelli, Zogmaister, Smith, & Arcuri, ; Clow & Olson, ; Degner, Essien, & Reichardt, ; Neumann, Hülsenbeck, & Seibt, ; Vaes et al, ). So far, however, these approach/avoidance measures have not often been expressly used as attitude measures.…”

“…In this last experiment, however, groups were fictitious and therefore not subject to a potential influence of cultural knowledge. Overall, at the time we conducted this research, no previous experiments using real social groups had assessed, using approach/avoidance measures, what we defined as individual‐ and group‐level variability (but see Bianchi et al, ; Degner et al, ). Specifically, no experiment tested (a) whether the pro‐ingroup approach/avoidance compatibility effect is variable across individuals and (b) whether a pro‐ingroup effect occurs in a full ingroup–outgroup design (i.e., with both dominant and non‐dominant social groups producing evaluations of the two groups; Judd & Park, ).…”

Group evaluations as self‐group distancing: Ingroup typicality moderates evaluative intergroup bias in stigmatized groups

“…Findings regarding stigmatized group members' intergroup evaluations on implicit measures vary greatly, and different studies have documented ingroup favoritism, outgroup favoritism, or no group preferences (Axt, Ebersole, & Nosek, 2014;Degner, Essien, & Reichardt, 2016;Essien et al, 2020;Rae, Newheiser, & Olson, 2015;Rudman et al, 2002). Thus far, these variations in intergroup evaluations have not been exhaustively explained.…”