Failure as an asset for high-status persons – Relative group performance and attributed occupational success

Reinhard, Marc‐André; Stahlberg, Dagmar; Messner, Matthias

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2007.07.006

Cited by 17 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…It can be understood as a kind of truism in social psychology that individual success serves these goals much better than individual failure. However, as we have shown here, personal failures in self-relevant domains do not invaribly cause a drop in state self-esteem, just as failure does not invariably cause negative evaluations by others (see Reinhard et al, 2008). People who received negative feedback about their abilities in the domain of innovative thinking evaluated themselves fairly positively if they were led to believe that their performance was highly prototypical of their high social status ingroup.…”

Section: When and Why Failing Feels Goodmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…Therefore, the final question to be addressed here is this: Why do we think that failure can sometimes enhance prototypicality for a high status group? Prototypicality following personal failure: when failing feels good Reinhard et al (2008) have presented some evidence that failure can become an asset when people are evaluated by others in terms of future career success (Failure-as-an-Asset effect).…”

Section: Self-evaluation Self-esteem and Social Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following this line of reasoning, the prediction that failing sometimes feels good will be based on previous research that has shown that (1) self esteem will be affected not only by individual performance feedback, but also by factors related to group membership or social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1986;Hogg, 2005), with the consequence that (2) individual failure or success may inform people about their ingroup prototypicality (Reinhard, Stahlberg, & Messner, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When failing feels good—Relative prototypicality for a high-status group can counteract ego-threat after individual failure

Reinhard

Stahlberg

Messner

2009

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

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To cite this version:Marc-André Reinhard. When failing feels good -Relative prototypicality for a high-status group can counteract ego-threat after individual failure. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Elsevier, 2009, 45 (4) This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Two studies demonstrate that members of high-status groups (i.e., men and students of business administration) but not members of low-status groups (i.e., women and education students) react with an increase in state self-esteem after an alleged poor performance on a fictitious intelligence test. This Failure-as-an-Asset (FA) effect is only observed when the high-status ingroup (i.e., men) is outperformed by a low-status outgroup (i.e., women). In this case, a poor performance will lead to a strong identification with the ingroup due to high ingroup prototypicality. As predicted, the effects of experiencing success or failure on selfesteem were mediated by identification with the ingroup. ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

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Section: When and Why Failing Feels Goodmentioning

confidence: 54%

Section: Self-evaluation Self-esteem and Social Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When failing feels good—Relative prototypicality for a high-status group can counteract ego-threat after individual failure

Reinhard

Stahlberg

Messner

2009

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

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“…However, under certain circumstances, research evidenced a phenomenon called Failure-as-an-Asset (FA) effect: In a series of studies by Reinhard, Stahlberg, and Messner (2008), participants had to evaluate the occupational success of a male target person (i.e., high-status group member referring to management positions). When participants were told that the male target person scored poorly on a test in which women generally outperform men, this information (failure) rendered the target person as typically masculine, which in turn led to higher attributed occupational success (asset) because men are assumed to be the high-status group according to the think-manager-think-male phenomenon (e.g., Schein, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The attributes belonging to a group are a cognitive representation of the beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and behavior that at the same time describe the similarities of the group members and discriminate them collectively from members of other groups (Hogg, 2006). Based on this, Reinhard et al (2008) argued that perceived prototypicality (i.e., masculinity) of a person regarding her ingroup is the basic mechanism of the FA effect (see also Reinhard, Schindler, Messner, Stahlberg, & Mucha, 2011;Reinhard, Stahlberg, & Messner, 2009;Szücs, Schindler, Reinhard, & Stahlberg, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Advantage of Fitting the Ingroup: Ingroup Prototypicality and Attributed Occupational Success

Reinhard¹,

Schindler

Stahlberg³

et al. 2014

IJPS

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According to social identity theory people are viewed as prototypical of a group to the extent that they possess ingroup characteristics but not outgroup characteristics. Based on this, previous research demonstrated that high-status group members (e.g., in the occupational field: men) may profit from failure in low-status domains, that is, domains in which members of a low-status group (e.g., in the occupational field: women) outperform high-status group members. In this case individual failure of a high-status group member appear highly prototypical for the high-status ingroup and therefore leads to the attribution of future occupational success (so called Failure-as-an-Asset effect). The current work extends this reasoning, by taking into account that perceived prototypicality of an individual group member is assumed to depend on meta-contrast based perception, meaning the ratio of differences between in-and outgroup characteristics and similarities of the ingroup and the respective group member. Therefore, the present study investigated how manipulated differences in ingroup prototypicality (i.e., meta-contrast quotient) of a failing male individual affect attributed occupational success. Thus, we predicted perceived prototypicality to moderate the Failure-as-an-Asset effect. In line with our hypothesis, we found that increased ingroup prototypicality lead to higher attributed occupational success.

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Wirtschaft und Unternehmen: (Abbau von) Geschlechterungleichheiten

Rastetter¹,

Mucha²

2019

Geschlecht Und Gesellschaft

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Failure as an asset for high-status persons – Relative group performance and attributed occupational success

Cited by 17 publications

References 59 publications

When failing feels good—Relative prototypicality for a high-status group can counteract ego-threat after individual failure

When failing feels good—Relative prototypicality for a high-status group can counteract ego-threat after individual failure

The Advantage of Fitting the Ingroup: Ingroup Prototypicality and Attributed Occupational Success

Wirtschaft und Unternehmen: (Abbau von) Geschlechterungleichheiten

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