The instrumental use of group prototypicality judgments

Abstract

Of bikers, teachers and Germans: Groups’ diverging views about their prototypicality. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 385–400] have shown that ingroup members often tend to judge the ingroup as more prototypical of the superordinate group than other subgroups. In this paper, we argue that, in addition to the motivational processes that have been posited to explain this phenomenon, prototypicality judgments may vary according to instrumental considerations. In particular, those who believe their ingroup interest to be undermined by remaining part of the common group will downplay ingroup’s prototypicality as a way to sustain their separatist position. In a first study (N = 63), we found that Scottish respondents who support Scottish independence judged the Scots to be less prototypical of Britain than the English, as compared with Scots who do not support independence. In a second study (N = 191), we manipulated the rhetorical context within which prototypicality judgments were made. Results showed that the pattern found in study 1 only applied when the issue of independence was made salient. When the issue of the importance of Scottish history in Britain was made salient, the opposite pattern appeared, i.e. supporters of independence judged the Scots more prototypical than the English compared to non-supporters. These results were also interpreted in instrumental terms. [author's abstract

Intergroup evaluations, group indispensability and prototypicality judgments: A study in Mauritius

“…It is therefore in the interest of the Creoles to consider themselves as the "true Mauritians" of the island (Miles, 1999). This interpretation is in agreement with experimental research that shows that prototypical judgments vary according to instrumental considerations (Sindic & Reicher, 2008).…”

Complex inclusive categories of positive and negative valence and prototypicality claims in asymmetric intergroup relations

“…Moreover, in line with Sindic and Reicher (2008) one might argue that projection varies according to group interests: Claiming non-prototypicality of negative inclusive categories may provide group members with a better strategic position in the relevant social context (e.g., the job market).…”

“…Because of their social relevance, public prototypicality claims also depend on political objectives, that is, on the function that high or low relative prototypicality of a certain group has in a specific political context (e.g., in contexts involving separatist tendencies; Sindic & Reicher, 2008).…”

Complexity of Superordinate Self‐Categories and Ingroup Projection

“…These two predictors will be discussed in more detail in the following pages. Before that, it should also be mentioned that recently, more general conditions of information processing (Machunsky & Meiser, 2009, Rosa & Waldzus, 2009), more specific strategic group goals (Sindic & Reicher, 2008), and intergroup threat (Finley, 2006;Ullrich et al, 2006) have been studied as predictors for ingroup projection as well, but they will not be discussed further in this chapter.…”

“…East Germans agreed that West Germans are more prototypical Germans than themselves . Scottish participants who had separatist political goals saw the Scottish as less prototypic than the English for Britain when the independence of Scotland was made salient (Sindic & Reicher, 2008). There are several explanations for such low prototypicality of some groups.…”