Chester A. Insko

Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior

Contents: C. Sedikides, J. Schopler, C.A. InskoIntroduction. Part I:Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior: Conceptual Issues. M. Schaller, M.C. Rosell, C.H. Asp, Parsimony and Pluralism in the Psychological Study of Intergroup Processes. D. Wilder, A.F. Simon, Categorical and Dynamic Groups: Implications for Social Perception and Intergroup Behavior. Part II:Interindividual Versus Intergroup Cognition and Behavior. D.L. Hamilton, S.J. Sherman, B. Lickel, Perceiving Social Groups: The Importance of the Entitativity Continuum. C.A. Insko, J. Schopler, Differential Distrust of Groups and Individuals. C.A. Insko, J. Schopler, C. Sedikides, Personal Control, Entitativity, and Evolution. Part III:Processes Affecting Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior: Perceptual and Judgmental Processes. P.W. Linville, G.W. Fischer, Group Variability and Covariation: Effects on Intergroup Judgment and Behavior. M. Biernat, T.K. Vescio, M. Manis, Judging and Behaving Toward Members of Stereotyped Groups: A Shifting Standards Perspective. B. Wittenbrink, B. Park, C.M. Judd, The Role of Stereotypic Knowledge in the Construal of Person Models. Part IV:Processes Affecting Intergroup Cognition and Behavior: Motivational and Social Processes. T. Clare, S.T. Fiske, A Systemic View of Behavioral Confirmation: Counterpoint to the Individualist View. R.M. Kramer, D.M. Messick, Getting By With a Little Help From Our Enemies: Collective Paranoia and Its Role in Intergroup Relations. B. Simon, Individuals, Groups, and Social Change: On the Relationship Between Individual and Collective Self-Interpretations and Collective Action. J.M. Levine, R.L. Moreland, C.S. Ryan, Group Socialization in Intergroup Relations. Part V:On the Reduction of Unwanted Intergroup Cognition and Behavior. G.V. Bodenhausen, C.N. Macrae, J. Garst, Stereotypes in Thought and Deed: Social-Cognitive Origins of Intergroup Discrimination. J.F. Dovidio, S.L. Gaertner, A.M. Isen, M. Rust, P. Guerra, Positive Affect, Cognition, and the Reduction of Intergroup Bias. M. Hewstone, C.G. Lord, Changing Intergroup Cognitions and Intergroup Behavior: The Role of Typicality. N. Miller, L.M. Urban, E.J. Vanman, A Theoretical Analysis of Crossed Social Categorization Effects. Part VI:Concluding Commentary. D.M. Mackie, E.R. Smith, Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior: Crossing the Boundaries.

Beyond the group mind: a quantitative review of the interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect.

This quantitative review of 130 comparisons of interindividual and intergroup interactions in the context of mixed-motive situations reveals that intergroup interactions are generally more competitive than interindividual interactions. The authors identify 4 moderators of this interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect, each based on the theoretical perspective that the discontinuity effect flows from greater fear and greed in intergroup relative to interindividual interactions. Results reveal that each moderator shares a unique association with the magnitude of the discontinuity effect. The discontinuity effect is larger when (a) participants interact with an opponent whose behavior is unconstrained by the experimenter or constrained by the experimenter to be cooperative rather than constrained by the experimenter to be reciprocal, (b) group members make a group decision rather than individual decisions, (c) unconstrained communication between participants is present rather than absent, and (d) conflict of interest is severe rather than mild.

Introducing the GASP Scale: A New Measure of Guilt and Shame Proneness

Although scholars agree that moral emotions are critical for deterring unethical and antisocial behavior, there is disagreement about how 2 prototypical moral emotions--guilt and shame--should be defined, differentiated, and measured. We addressed these issues by developing a new assessment--the Guilt and Shame Proneness scale (GASP)--that measures individual differences in the propensity to experience guilt and shame across a range of personal transgressions. The GASP contains 2 guilt subscales that assess negative behavior-evaluations and repair action tendencies following private transgressions and 2 shame subscales that assess negative self-evaluations (NSEs) and withdrawal action tendencies following publically exposed transgressions. Both guilt subscales were highly correlated with one another and negatively correlated with unethical decision making. Although both shame subscales were associated with relatively poor psychological functioning (e.g., neuroticism, personal distress, low self-esteem), they were only weakly correlated with one another, and their relationships with unethical decision making diverged. Whereas shame-NSE constrained unethical decision making, shame-withdraw did not. Our findings suggest that differentiating the tendency to make NSEs following publically exposed transgressions from the tendency to hide or withdraw from public view is critically important for understanding and measuring dispositional shame proneness. The GASPs ability to distinguish these 2 classes of responses represents an important advantage of the scale over existing assessments. Although further validation research is required, the present studies are promising in that they suggest the GASP has the potential to be an important measurement tool for detecting individuals susceptible to corruption and unethical behavior.

Individual-Group Discontinuity as a Function of Fear and Greed

Two studies tested the schema-based distrust interpretation of the tendency of intergroup relations to be more noncooperative (or competitive) than interindividual relations. According to this interpretation, anticipated competitiveness rationally leads to noncooperativ eness or defensive withdrawal. Thus, the postulated motivation is fear of the other groups competitive intent. Study 1 was a nonexperimental investigation in which discussion of distrust of another group was assessed and correlated with the number of cooperative choices. As predicted, the greater the within-group discussion of distrust for the other group, the less the number of cooperative choices. Study 2 was an experimental investigation that included as independent variables intergroup versus interindividual relations and PDG matrix versus PDG-Alt matrix (PDG matrix plus a third Alt or withdrawal, choice producing intermediate outcomes regardless of the opponents choice). As predicted, there were more withdrawal choices on the PDG-Alt matrix for groups than for individuals. However, it was still found that on the PDG-Alt matrix (where a safe withdrawal choice is possible), groups competed more than individuals.

The Discontinuity Effect in Interpersonal and Intergroup Relations: Generality and Mediation

In a series of experimental studies we have found that intergroup, compared to interindividual behavior, is more competitive and less cooperative (the discontinuity effect). After discussing the generality of this phenomenon, the possible mechanisms mediating the effect are analyzed. The role of fear and greed, in particular, are evaluated against existing empirical evidence. We also present a preliminary study using two n-person expansions of the Prisoners Dilemma Game, which allow for competition within own-group as well as between groups. The chapter concludes with a consideration of possible ways of reducing discontinuity.

Intergroup discrimination in the minimal group paradigm: categorization, reciprocation, or fear?

H. Tajfels (1970) minimal group paradigm (MGP) research suggests that social categorization is a sufficient antecedent of ingroup-favoring discrimination. Two experiments examined whether discrimination in the MGP arises from categorization or processes of outcome dependence, that is, ingroup reciprocity and outgroup fear. Experiment 1 unconfounded categorization from outcome dependence. Categorized men discriminated only when dependent on others. Categorized women discriminated regardless of the structure of dependence. Experiment 2 examined dependence on the ingroup versus the outgroup as the locus of male-initiated discrimination. Consistently with an ingroup reciprocity effect, men discriminated when dependent on ingroup, but not outgroup, members. Sex differences are discussed in regard to womens heightened ingroup dependence produced by biological or environmental constraints.

Stereotype, Prejudice, and Discrimination: Changing Conceptions in Theory and Research

Readers of the chapters on prejudice and discrimination in the three editions of the Handbook of Social Psychology (Harding, Kutner, Proshansky, & Chein, 1954; Harding, Proshansky, Kutner, & Chein, 1969; Stephan, 1985) will be impressed by the reduction in theoretical perspectives which this area seems to have experienced within the space of less than two decades. While the earlier chapters (Harding et al., 1954, 1969) approached prejudice and stereotypes from multiple theoretical perspectives, covering psychoanalytic, sociological, developmental, and personality-oriented explanations, Stephan’s (1985) chapter focuses only on one perspective, the cognitive approach.

Group Morality and Intergroup Relations: Cross-Cultural and Experimental Evidence

An observational, cross-cultural study and an experimental study assessed behaviors indicative of a moral code that condones, and even values, hostility toward outgroups. The cross-cultural study, which used data from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock & White, 1969), found that for preindustrial societies, as loyalty to the ingroup increased the tendency to value outgroup violence more than ingroup violence increased, as did the tendencies to engage in more external than internal warfare, and enjoy war. The experimental study found that relative to guilt-prone group members who were instructed to remain objective, guilt-prone group members who were instructed to be empathic with their ingroup were more competitive in an intergroup interaction. The findings from these studies suggest that group morality is associated with intergroup conflict.

Individual versus group discontinuity: The role of intergroup contact

Abstract Following earlier demonstrations of more competitiveness between groups than between individuals in the context of a PDG matrix, two additional conditions were studied. These were a group-all condition in which the intergroup contact involved all the members in both groups (rather than just representatives as in the previously studied group-representative condition), and an interdependence condition in which physically separated individuals shared their winnings with the other subjects on the same side of the suite of rooms (rather than neither giving winnings to nor receiving winnings from other such subjects as in the previously studied individuals condition). The results indicated that there was a large overall tendency for the group-representative and group-all conditions to be more competitive than the individuals and interdependence conditions, that the group-representative condition was more competitive than the group-all condition, and that the interdependence condition and individuals condition did not differ. The difference between the group-representative and group-all condition was interpreted as consistent with a prediction that intergroup contact can reduce competitiveness even when there is conflict and the absence of norms requiring cooperative behavior. The lack of difference between the interdependence condition and the individuals condition was interpreted as inconsistent with an altruisticrationalization hypothesis according to which group members rationalize their competitiveness toward the other group as being enacted for the sake of fellow group members.

Aspects of Self-Regulation and Self-Structure as Predictors of Perceived Emotional Distress

Research on the link between the self and emotional distress has produced many measures that have unknown conceptual and empirical interrelations. The authors identified two classes of self-related variables shown previously to be important predictors of emotional distress. The first class, termed self-regulatory variables, included ego-resiliency, ego-control, ego-strength, and hardiness. The second class, termed self-structure variables, included self-complexity, self-discrepancy, self-consistency, self-attitude ambivalence, and role conflict. Using a two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) strategy, the authors examined first the factor structure of this set of measures. Second, they determined that Elasticity and Permeability (two self-regulatory factors) accounted for unique variance in the prediction of perceived emotional distress (Agitation and Dejection), whereas Self-Discrepancy and Self-Complexity (two self-structure factors) did not.