Social identity, self‐evaluation and in‐group bias: The relative importance of particular domains of self‐esteem to the in‐group

Abstract

This investigation sought to assess the link between in-group bias and domain-specific self-esteem. Two experiments were carried out. Experiment 1 revealed that social category members (i.e. Christians), manifested an increase in that domain of self-esteem judged to be relatively more important to the in-group (i.e. physical self-esteem), following the display of in-group bias. A second experiment which sought to examine an alternative explanation for these findings, in terms of enhanced social identity salience, produced identical findings. Domains of self-esteem relatively less important to the in-group (i.e. mathematical self-esteem) were unaffected in each experiment. Consistent with recent revisions to the second corollary of the self-esteem hypothesis, Experiment 2 further revealed that category members with low public collective self-esteem (who believed that Christians were evaluated negatively by Atheists) showed more pronounced in-group bias.

The Relationships between Motivations of Intergroup Differentiation as a Function of Different Dimensions of Social Identity

“…It is also true that with self-enhancement concerns, people tend to be members of positively evaluated (e.g., higher status) groups rather than negatively evaluated (e.g., lower status) groups (e.g., Reid & Hogg, 2005). Consistently, as mentioned before, researchers reported that self-esteem, at least specific-state-social self-esteem, may be both a cause and a result (more likely) of intergroup differentiation (Abrams & Hogg, 1988;Hunter et al, 2004;Rubin & Hewstone, 1998).…”

“…Thus, it seems possible to suggest that intergroup differentiation may increase, at least, specific-social-state self-esteem and may be motivated by self-enhancement concerns (Abrams & Hogg, 1988;Hunter et al, 2004;Rubin & Hewstone, 1998;Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In other words, it seems arguable that motivated by selfenhancement, in comparative intergroup contexts, people tend to perceive their in-groups more positively than the out-groups as a function of evaluative dimension of social identity.…”

Increases in global and domain specific self-esteem following a 10 day developmental voyage

“…According to social identity theory (SIT, Tajfel and Turner 1979) if participants identify with a particular social category (e.g. the ship's crew) and then internalise this as part of their self-concept, then the group's outcomes can have consequences for each person's self-esteem (see Hunter et al 2004). Moreover on a sailing ship where people have to live and work together in order to complete their various goals (e.g.…”

Personal self‐esteem, collective self‐esteem, and self‐concept clarity as moderators of the impact of perceived consensus on stereotypes

“…They found support for this assumption in the form of greater ingroup enhancement following threat among those with high, but not low, private collective self-esteem. Other research has likewise shown unique effects for the subscales of the CSES (e.g., De Cremer, 2001;Hunter et al, 2004;Long & Spears, 1998;Richeson & Trawalter, 2005).…”