Mortality salience and evaluations of in‐group versus out‐group critics: The role of criticism legitimacy and perceived threat

Abstract

Significant terror management research has examined the impact of mortality salience on evaluations toward in-group versus out-group and attitudinally similar versus dissimilar others. However, relatively little research has examined evaluations when group membership is disentangled from attitude similarity. The current research examined the impact of mortality salience on evaluations toward in-group and out-group critics when people are less likely to rely on group membership as a heuristic. In Experiment 1, the results showed that in the control condition, participants rated an in-group member who provided unjustified criticism more positively than an out-group member who provided the same criticism. Under mortality salience, the reverse occurred: An in-group member who provided unjustified criticism was rated more negatively than an out-group member. Experiment 2 showed that under mortality salience, the derogation of an in-group critic who provided unjustified criticism was mediated by perceptions of threat. Implications for reactions to group-directed criticism as well as mortality salience effects are discussed.

The end of immortality - Death dating and defense preprint

“…Our study was the first to show that the mere suggestion of dating an out-group member was enough to threaten participants' self-esteem under conditions of MS, whereas the suggested in-group date reduced DEATH, DATING, AND DEFENSE 18 the need for worldview validation back to the control group level. Therewith, our study extends prior research relying on in-group critique as an interpersonal difference (Khoo et al, 2014;See & Petty, 2006). Noteworthy is that participants did prefer to date the in-group to the out-group member irrespective of condition.…”

“…Participants did not change their evaluation of an in-group source depending on whether this source criticized or praised the university. Extending this line of research, Khoo, Hui, and See (2014) found that in-group participants stating a critique were evaluated more positively when the critique was justified than when it was unjustified.…”

“…The authors in all three studies suggested that intergroup and interpersonal differences are processed differentially, with group membership serving as the initial cue for the processing of another person's attitude (See & Petty, 2006). Groupmembership therewith affected the response toward a critique when it was revealed afterwards (Khoo et al, 2014) and influenced whether interpersonal similarity plays a role in dating intentions (Frischlich et al, 2015). Nonetheless, these studies did not test whether differences on either the intergroup or the interpersonal level, or both would correspond to different levels of threats resulting from these differences under conditions of MS.…”

Effect of Threat and Social Identity on Reactions to Ingroup Criticism: Defensiveness, Openness, and a Remedy

“…Our findings extend past research in theoretically important ways. Whereas past research showed that threat affects people's attitudes toward ingroup critics (Ariyanto et al, 2010;Khoo & See, 2014), we extend it further by showing that threat also renders communications from ingroup members less persuasive and increases people's reluctance to share the critical communication with others in their social network, a key component of democratic engagement.…”

“…Two recent experimental studies, however, suggest that the effect of threat may in fact be to reduce openness to ingroup critics. In one study, Khoo and See (2014) found that mortality salience led people to evaluate group critics who delivered unjustified criticism more negatively when they were ingroup members rather than outgroup members, with the opposite pattern for those in a dental pain condition. This research suggests that threat may reverse the preferential treatment of ingroup critics.…”