The effects of intergroup discrimination and social values on level of self-esteem in the minimal group paradigm

The proposition that individuals engage in intergroup discrimination to increase or maintain positive social identity and a high level of self‐esteem has received some empirical support. An attempt was made to extend prior findings by evaluating whether intergroup allocation behaviour consistent wit...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of social psychology 1993-01, Vol.23 (1), p.63-75
Main Authors: Chin, Matthew G., McClintock, Charles G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior. Attitude
Biological and medical sciences
California
College Students
Discrimination
Factors
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Group Dynamics
Intergroup discrimination
Intergroup relations
Membership
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Self Esteem
Selfesteem
Social psychology
Social Values
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The proposition that individuals engage in intergroup discrimination to increase or maintain positive social identity and a high level of self‐esteem has received some empirical support. An attempt was made to extend prior findings by evaluating whether intergroup allocation behaviour consistent with subjects' social values would lead to higher self‐esteem than inconsistent allocation behaviour. More specifically, it was predicted that competitive subjects' self‐esteem will be higher following discriminatory choices than fair choices and prosocial subjects' self‐esteem will be higher following fair choices than discriminatory choices. It was also predicted that after subjects were constrained to make discriminatory choices, competitors' self‐esteem would be higher than prosocials' self‐esteem and after subjects were constrained to make fair choices, prosocials' self‐esteem would be higher than competitors' self‐esteem. Experiment I supported the first of these predictions when a measure of personal self‐esteem was used as a dependent variable. Experiment 2 attempted to extend the generality of the findings of Experiment 1 by defining and measuring self‐esteem in collective terms. The expected prior pattern of results did not occur again. Constraining subjects to make discriminatory choices increased their collective self‐esteem regardless of their social values.
ISSN:0046-2772
1099-0992
DOI:10.1002/ejsp.2420230106