Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

Increased immigration and demographic changes have not only resulted in political pushback, but also in violent attacks against immigrants. Several recent terrorist attacks committed by White supremacists invoke rhetoric around a deliberate attempt to make Whites extinct and replace them with non-Western immigrants. Yet, while it is widely acknowledged among extremism researchers that this perception of orchestrated extinction or replacement has tremendous potential to lead to violent extremism, its consequences have not yet been directly examined. Using the Scandinavian context (e.g., Denmark and Norway), in two correlational studies and one experiment, we provide evidence that this perception is associated with the persecution of Muslims, violent intentions, and Islamophobia. Further, we demonstrate that these associations are mediated by symbolic threats. Conspiracy beliefs that one’s group is being replaced seem to drive hostile intergroup attitudes. We discuss the societal implications of this finding (i.e., generating fear, polarization, and hostile public opinion towards immigrants).

Muslims are consistently the target of dehumanization and hostile policies. Previous research shows that interventions that highlight the hypocrisy wherein people collectively blame entire groups for the heinous acts of individual members of outgroups but not ingroups are effective in reducing animosity towards Muslims. However, these interventions rely on aversive materials (e.g., terrorist acts), which can hinder the scalability of interventions due to individuals’ tendency to resist/avoid challenging and aversive stimuli. In three preregistered studies (combined N = 2,635), we developed and tested a nonaversive, hypocrisy-based intervention that highlights the hypocrisy involved in attributing ingroup members’ prosocial acts to the entire ingroup (i.e., Christians) but not doing the same for outgroup members (i.e., Muslims). Results indicated that this collective praise intervention reliably reduces dehumanization of Muslims, anti-Muslim policy support, and collective blame of Muslims. We argue that the intervention’s use of nonaversive stimuli allows for both practical and scalable applications.

We examined how collective narcissism (a belief in ingroup greatness that is underappreciated by others) versus ingroup identification predicts treatment of ingroup members. Ingroup identification should be associated with favorable treatment of ingroup members. Collective narcissism, however, is more likely to predict using ingroup members for personal gain. In organizations, collective narcissism predicted promoting one’s own (vs. group) goals (prestudy: N = 179), and treating coworkers instrumentally (Study 1: N = 181; and longitudinal Study 2: N = 557). In Study 3 (N = 214, partisan context), the link between collective narcissism and instrumental treatment of ingroup members was mediated by self-serving motives. In the experimental Study 4 (N = 579, workplace teams), the effect of collective narcissism on instrumental treatment was stronger when the target was an ingroup (vs. outgroup) member. Across all studies, ingroup identification was negatively, or nonsignificantly, associated with instrumental treatment. Results suggest that not all forms of ingroup identity might be beneficial for ingroup members.

Evolutionary models and empirical evidence suggest that outgroup threat is one of the strongest factors inducing group cohesion; however, little is known about the process of forming such cohesive groups. We investigated how outgroup threat galvanizes individuals to affiliate with others to form engaged units that are willing to act on behalf of their in-group. A total of 864 participants from six countries were randomly assigned to an outgroup threat, environmental threat, or no-threat condition. We measured the process of group formation through physical proximity and movement mirroring along with activity toward threat resolution, and found that outgroup threat induced activity and heightened mirroring in males. We also observed higher mirroring and proximity in participants who perceived the outgroup threat as a real danger, albeit the latter results were imprecisely estimated. Together, these findings help understand how sharing subtle behavioral cues influences collaborative aggregation of people under threat.

In male-dominated STEM fields, workplace culture is often cited as a factor for women’s attrition. In the present research, we used longitudinal field data to examine how changes in the perceived normative support for gender-inclusive policies and practices over 6 months relate to changes in women’s and men’s experiences of fit and commitment to their organization. Longitudinal analyses of survey data from a sample of 181 engineers revealed that increased perceptions of support for gender-inclusive policies and practices predicted increased organizational commitment only among women, an effect that was mediated by an increase in organizational value fit. Additional analyses suggest that perceptions of change in normative attitudes toward inclusive policies were more predictive of women’s organizational commitment than the awareness that the policies were in place or that one has personally benefitted from them. The implications of an inclusive workplace culture for supporting women’s retention in STEM are discussed.

This article presents the results of three studies that examine how the perceived opinions of others are related to sexual minorities’ support for social change toward greater equality. Results of two cross-sectional studies (Study 1: N = 1,220; Study 2: N = 904) reveal that perceived intolerance (i.e., perceived intolerant societal norms) is indirectly related to intentions to engage in collective action in both negative and positive ways: the negative effect was mediated by lower perceptions of perceived efficacy; positive effects were mediated by greater anger (about the legal situation and public opinion) and greater perceived need for a movement. Study 3 (N = 408) replicates this conflicting effect with a delayed outcome measure by showing that perceived intolerant norms were indirectly, both negatively and positively, associated with actual collective action engagement. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our expanded social identity model of collective action.

Individuals engage in a variety of behavioral responses to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, from complying with or transgressing against physical distancing regulations, to stockpiling or prosocial behavior. We predicted that particularly descriptive social norms are important in driving pandemic-related behavior as they offer guidelines in times of insecurity and crisis. To investigate this assumption, we conducted a longitudinal survey with two measurement points (n = 1,907) in Germany during the spring of 2020. Results show that descriptive norms (perceived behavior of close others) positively predicted future transgression against distancing regulations, stockpiling, and prosocial behavior over time. In our analysis, we account for previous behavior as well as other potential predictors (subjective threat, personality). In sum, our findings highlight the power of descriptive norms in increasing compliance with pandemic-related regulations and promoting future prosocial behavior.

Research shows that scientists tend to be less religious than the general population, and scientists’ religious affiliation and participation have declined over time (Ecklund & Park, 2009; Ecklund et al., 2008). Given the demographic differences between scientists and the general population, it was predicted that scientists who are religious would be regarded as having a counter-stereotypical combination of social identities. However, across five studies, we found that people’s own religious identities played a moderating role in the perception of a religious scientist. Although atheist participants perceived religious scientists as being more counter-stereotypical than atheist scientists, the same was not consistently found for nonreligious (but not atheist) or religious participants. These findings have important implications for debates around the underrepresentation of religious individuals in science. As religious individuals do not perceive these two identities to be incompatible, it may be stereotypes that others have about religious individuals and the culture of science more generally, rather than self-stereotypes, that are hurdles for religious individuals choosing a scientific career. Future research should take these findings into account and explore other potential barriers that lead to the underrepresentation of religious individuals within STEM fields.

People often believe Black individuals experience less social pain and require less social support to cope with distress than White individuals (e.g., Deska, Kunstman, Lloyd, et al., 2020). However, researchers have not tested whether biases in third-person pain judgments translate to first-person experiences with social pain minimization. For example, do Black individuals feel their social pain is underrecognized to a greater extent than White individuals? The current work tested whether Black individuals felt their social pain was minimized more than White individuals and if the experience of social pain minimization was related to worse mental health and greater life stress. Data from two cross-sectional, correlational studies provide initial support for these predictions (N_total = 1,501). Black participants felt their social pain was minimized more than White participants and this race difference in social pain minimization was associated with worse mental health and greater life stress. These results suggest that Black individuals feel their pain is underrecognized and this experience of social pain minimization is related to worse mental health outcomes.

Leader group prototypicality—the extent to which a leader embodies and represents the group—is a characteristic that typically engenders favorable attitudes toward the leader. The present research examines how leader group prototypicality shapes group member reactions to leaders who commit wrongful acts, that is, transgressions. In three studies, I propose and demonstrate that outsiders’ knowledge of leader transgressions moderates how leader group prototypicality influences group member reactions to transgressing leaders. Specifically, when leaders commit transgressions that are known to outsiders, leader group prototypicality leads to more punitive reactions by eliciting an acute threat to the group image. Furthermore, punitive responses against transgressing leaders driven by group image threat are more pronounced among highly identified group members. The current research shows when and why the oft-observed advantage of leader group prototypicality might be reversed.

Political discourse often seems divided not just by different preferences, but by entirely different representations of the debate. Are partisans able to accurately describe their opponents’ position, or do they instead generate unrepresentative “straw man” arguments? In this research we examined an (incentivized) political imitation game by asking partisans on both sides of the U.S. health care debate to describe the most common arguments for and against ObamaCare. We used natural language-processing algorithms to benchmark the biases and blind spots of our participants. Overall, partisans showed a limited ability to simulate their opponents’ perspective, or to distinguish genuine from imitation arguments. In general, imitations were less extreme than their genuine counterparts. Individual difference analyses suggest that political sophistication only improves the representations of one’s own side but not of an opponent’s side, exacerbating the straw man effect. Our findings suggest that false beliefs about partisan opponents may be pervasive.