Members of conflicting groups experience threats to different identity dimensions, resulting in the need to restore the aspect of identity that was threatened. Do these needs translate into specific goals in social interactions? In the present research, we examined the hypotheses that (1) experiencing one’s ingroup as illegitimately disadvantaged or victimized arouses agentic goals (to act and appear assertive and confident) when interacting with the advantaged or victimizing group, while (2) experiencing one’s ingroup as illegitimately advantaged or perpetrating transgressions arouses communal goals (to act and appear warm and trustworthy) when interacting with the disadvantaged or victimized group. Study 1 (N = 391) generally supported both hypotheses across diverse intergroup contexts involving gender, national/ethnic, and consumer identities. Study 2 (N = 122) replicated this pattern in a context of occupational identities. Study 2 further showed that the effect of ingroup role on agentic and communal intergroup goals was not moderated by participants’ general dispositional preferences for agentic and communal goals in interpersonal interactions, thus demonstrating how ingroup role exerts a distinct and robust influence on goals for interactions with other groups. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
How people want to interact (e.g. acting friendly or acting dominant) with members of other groups may not only be influenced by their personality (i.e., stable preferences for certain kinds of behavior), but also by the social role of their ingroup. Especially when groups are in conflict, their members should be influenced by their group’s role of being either a victim or disadvantaged, or being a perpetrator or illegitimately advantaged when interacting with the respective other group.
With our work, we build on previous research which provided preliminary support for the assumption that group members who feel that their group is treated unfairly or even victimized by another group will try to regain power and control by acting dominantly, whereas group members who feel that their group has harmed another group or enjoys illegitimate advantage will act in friendly ways in order to be accepted by the other group despite their immoral actions or illegitimate advantage. Since previous research tested these assumptions only indirectly or only for very specific situations, we aimed to show that very different groups in very different contexts may pursue similar goals as soon as they feel that their group is either victimized/disadvantaged or perpetrating transgressions/advantaged.
We conducted two online surveys in which participants were reminded of their membership in various real-world groups. Specifically, we referred to situations in which one of participants’ groups was in conflict with another group (e.g. we reminded participants of their German nationality and referred to situations in which Germany was in conflict with the U.S. or Greece). Then, we asked participants how important it was to them to behave in certain ways, for example to be friendly or dominant towards the respective other group. Our results showed that when participants felt that their group was victimized or disadvantaged, it was important to them to behave dominantly toward the perpetrator or advantaged group, whereas when participants felt that their group was perpetrating transgressions or illegitimately advantaged, it was important to them to act in friendly ways towards the victimized or disadvantaged group. Furthermore we showed that the effect of the ingroup’s social role was independent of participants stable preferences to be friendly or dominant with other people, that is, even participants who were chronically low in dominant behavior in their interpersonal encounters responded with increased dominance when they were reminded of their membership in a group that was victimized or disadvantaged.
Our findings highlight the importance of the social context for peoples’ behavioral goals; that is, identifying as a member of a certain group will influence what kind of behavior is viewed as right and important. When feeling that one’s group is treated unfairly or even victimized by another group, people will try to regain power and control by acting dominantly, whereas when feeling that one’s group has harmed another group or enjoys illegitimate advantage (e.g. has greater access to certain resources), people will act in friendly ways in order to be accepted by the other group despite their immoral actions or illegitimate advantage. These results illustrate how groups want to interact with each other after a conflict or in the face of social inequality. Thus, the results will inform efforts of mediation, conflict resolution, and reconciliation.
This article examines how group members prefer their group to interact with other groups when their intergroup relations are characterized by transgressions or illegitimate inequality. We pursue the idea that a group’s social role might determine their interaction goals across diverse contexts. For example, women earning less than men showing the same performance, consumers perpetuating inhumane working conditions in low-wage countries by buying cheap textile products, and German authorities failing to investigate right-wing violence against immigrants – all of these examples refer to intergroup conflicts that differ in many ways but potentially share psychological consequences.
One characteristic of such conflicts is that, besides the competition about tangible resources, the conflicting parties experience threats to basic psychological needs, such as the need for positive esteem and a worthy identity (
The parties involved in a conflict typically differ in the extent to which they view themselves as weak and vulnerable, that is, experience a threat to their agentic identity, or as violent and unjust, that is, experience a threat to their communal identity. Specifically, according to the needs-based model (
Similar threats are assumed for members of disadvantaged and advantaged groups in context of structural inequality (i.e., contexts that are characterized by “systematic inequalities in the distribution of economic and political resources”,
Obviously, contexts of direct violence and structural inequality differ in many respects, such as the nature and severity of transgressions. Being wounded in a military operation is not the same as being viewed as incompetent and discriminated against in an employment setting. Nevertheless, the distinction between the two types of contexts is not always clear-cut (e.g., do police shootings of unarmed black Americans represent direct violence or structural inequality?). Moreover, according to the Big Two theorizing (
According to social identity theory, feeling threatened regarding one’s positive social identity results in the motivation to overcome this threat and restore a positive self-concept (
There is some indirect evidence suggesting that members of victimized and perpetrating groups pursue different interaction goals. To illustrate, in a study assigning participants’ ingroups to the social roles of either victim or perpetrator (e.g., by reminding Jewish and German participants of the Holocaust, see
An advantage of this technique is that it points to a useful intervention in conflictual intergroup relations: Sending identity-restoring messages can ameliorate identity threats, which in turn can improve intergroup relations. A limitation of this approach is that the assumed needs have only been
Preliminary evidence for an effect of social role on people’s communal and agentic interaction goals comes from two experiments conducted by
In summary, our work builds on previous research which showed only indirectly that members of victimized and perpetrator groups experience different goals (to be agentic or communal, respectively) following a conflict depending on their group’s social role (
We conducted two studies using different contexts to submit our main hypotheses, derived from the needs-based model (
Study 2 aimed to replicate and extend Study 1. Specifically, Study 2 tested whether and how the effect of the ingroup's role (i.e., illegitimately disadvantaged or advantaged) on group members’ goals for intergroup interactions is influenced by their
Together, the present studies aimed to (a) provide a systematic and comprehensive account of how intergroup interaction goals depend on which roles groups occupy within contexts of illegitimate intergroup inequality and transgressions, and (b) explore whether and how goal pursuit at the interpersonal level affects goal pursuit at the group level.
Using participants’ actual membership in various “real world” groups, Study 1 tested the prediction that participants reminded of their membership in an illegitimately disadvantaged or victim group would prefer their group pursue more agentic but less communal interaction goals than participants reminded of their membership in the corresponding illegitimately advantaged or perpetrator group across five diverse intergroup contexts involving gender, national/ethnic, and consumer identities.
Psychology students (
Participants’ nationality/ethnicity and gender were used to assign them to the different cells of the 2 (Role [illegitimately disadvantaged/victim, illegitimately advantaged/perpetrator]) × 5 (Context [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) between-subjects designi. Contexts referred to discrimination of immigrants in Germany (Context 1), right-wing violence (Context 2), an international transgression (Context 3), exploitative consumption (Context 4), and gender discrimination (Context 5) (for detailed descriptions of the context variable and its operationalization, see below; for a verbatim description, see
Note that while Contexts 1, 2 and 5 used participants' membership in natural groups (i.e., immigrants vs. non-migrants; women vs. men) and should therefore be considered as quasi-experimental, in Contexts 3 and 4 all participants were randomly assigned to a condition that presented their ingroup as either illegitimately disadvantaged/victimized or illegitimately advantaged/perpetrating transgressions.ii
After providing demographic information, participants read short one-sentence statements which reminded them of their ingroup's role in the various contexts. The contexts referenced several controversies in the German media involving conflictual intergroup relations characterized by illegitimate group inequality or transgressions. Following the manipulation, participants completed the following measures using 5-point scales (1 =
The intergroup conflicts used in all five contexts were heavily covered by the German media at the time we collected the data (summer 2014). Even though the five contexts were very diverse, the manipulation texts were formally identical. Each consisted of two sentences of the following form: “As you know [clarification of relationship between the participant’s ingroup and the outgroup; e.g., "immigrants are disadvantaged compared to Germans"]. How should we [participant’s ingroup; e.g., "Germans"] behave towards [respective outgroup; e.g., “immigrants”] in your opinion given this fact?” Because the needs-based models’ hypotheses can be transferred from contexts of direct violence to contexts of structural inequality only when the groups’ inequality is perceived as illegitimate, contexts referring to group inequality involved inequalities we expected most participants would perceive as illegitimate.
The first context referenced the relationship between immigrants and the non-migrant majority in Germany. The manipulation text reminded participants of the general structural disadvantage of immigrants compared to non-migrants, thus assigning non-migrant participants to the advantaged role and immigrant participants to the disadvantaged role by using the identical manipulation text in both role conditions. At the time we collected the data, the discrimination of immigrants – especially in the job market – was heavily discussed in the German media (e.g.,
The second context referred to the concrete transgressions of the far-right German terrorist group “Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund” (NSU; national-socialist underground) that murdered nine immigrants from Turkey and Greece between 2000 and 2006. In the course of the trial against NSU, massive investigative blunders by German authorities were revealed and intelligence agencies were criticized for underestimating the threat of right-wing extremism and for failing to convey its findings more publicly. Importantly, the manipulation text in that condition referenced the investigative shortcomings rather than the NSU murders itself, because we assumed that most German participants would identify with German authorities (and feel guilty for their failures) but not with the terrorist group. As in the first context, non-migrant participants were assigned to the perpetrator role and immigrant participants to the victim role by using the identical manipulation text in both role conditions.
The third context reminded (non-migrant) German participants of international transgressions in which Germany assumed either a victim or a perpetrator role. The victim condition involved the United States National Security Agency (NSA) espionage scandal during which the NSA bugged Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. The perpetrator condition involved Germany’s refusal to pay reparations for 200 Greek civilians who were killed by the Nazis during WWII. Similar to the second context, this condition referenced German authorities’ refusal to pay the reparations and not the killings itself. We acknowledge that the situations in the two conditions of Context 3 differ in several ways beyond the social role of the ingroup. Nevertheless, they are comparable in that both cases referred to a concrete transgression involving another nation (i.e., USA or Greece).
The fourth context asked German participants to think about their identity as consumers. In the victim condition, they were reminded of a recent media revelation that Google illegally used information involuntarily provided by its consumers. Thus, this condition addressed a potential threat to participants’ control (over their privacy) and exposure to unjust treatment, constituting a victim position. In the perpetrator condition, participants were reminded of the consequences, in terms of inhumane working conditions, caused by their consumption of cheap textile products from low-wage countries. As in Context 3, victim and perpetrator conditions differ in several ways, but are nevertheless comparable in that both cases referred to consumer identities.
Finally, the fifth context was identical for both advantaged (men) and disadvantaged (women) roles and concerned women unfairly earning less than men showing the same performance.
To make sure that the participants understood the referenced contexts and the role their ingroup played, we asked them to indicate their knowledge about it using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 =
Participants indicated their agreement with two items assessing perceptions of the illegitimately advantaged/perpetrator role (“In this context, I see my group as having the perpetrator role,” “My group has acted immorally in this context”;
Because perceiving the inequality between the groups as illegitimate is a precondition for the applicability of hypotheses derived from the needs-based model (
To assess agentic and communal interaction goals, we used the Circumplex Scales of Intergroup Goals (CSIG;
The items were translated into German by two independent translators; the final version was back-translated by a native speaker, reaching a very high correspondence with the original version, verified by its author. Agentic and communal dimension scores theoretically range from -4 to +4; in Study 1, participants’ agency scores ranged from -2.14 to 2.65 (
The data (
To check the effectiveness of the role manipulation, we subjected our manipulation check index to a 2 (Role [illegitimately disadvantaged/victim, illegitimately advantaged/perpetrator]) × 5 (Context [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) ANOVA which revealed a significant main effect of role,
Context | Disadvantaged role |
Advantaged role |
95% CI | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 51 | -0.04 | 0.89 | 36 | 0.53 | 0.77 | 2.27 | .024 | 0.08, 1.06 | 0.50 |
2 | 58 | -0.38 | 1.07 | 40 | 0.37 | 1.16 | 3.17 | .002 | 0.29, 1.22 | 0.66 |
3 | 28 | -1.09 | 1.19 | 32 | 0.79 | 1.51 | 6.31 | < .001 | 1.29, 2.47 | 1.64 |
4 | 30 | -1.05 | 0.92 | 41 | 1.05 | 1.13 | 7.56 | < .001 | 1.56, 2.65 | 1.84 |
5 | 30 | -1.52 | 1.54 | 11 | 0.73 | 1.52 | 5.57 | < .001 | 1.45, 3.04 | 1.96 |
We also checked whether the precondition of illegitimacy perceptions was met. With scores ranging from
Role | Context 1 |
Context 2 |
Context 3 |
Context 4 |
Context 5 |
||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Disadvantaged/victim | 197 | 2.70 | 0.81 | 2.88 | 0.98 | 1.75 | 0.84 | 2.63 | 0.89 | 1.23 | 0.43 |
Advantaged/perpetrator | 160 | 2.58 | 0.77 | 2.64 | 0.90 | 2.75 | 0.92 | 2.49 | 0.75 | 1.64 | 0.81 |
To examine the effect of role and context on agentic interaction goals, a 2 × 5 ANOVA was conducted. The results revealed significant main effects of role,
All post hoc comparisons were in the expected direction (see
Context | Agentic Goals |
Communal Goals |
||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Disadvantaged |
Advantaged |
95% CI | Disadvantaged |
Advantaged |
95% CI | |||||||||||
Study 1 | ||||||||||||||||
1 | 0.14 | 0.54 | -0.14 | 0.59 | 2.02 | .044 | 0.01, 0.55 | 0.44 | 1.94 | 0.80 | 2.15 | 0.72 | -1.26 | .208 | -0.52, 0.11 | -0.27 |
2 | 0.47 | 0.58 | -0.07 | 0.63 | 4.17 | < .001 | 0.28, 0.79 | 0.86 | 1.91 | 0.92 | 2.28 | 0.70 | -2.44 | .015a | -0.68, -0.07 | -0.50 |
3 | 0.67 | 0.64 | -0.20 | 0.66 | 5.33 | < .001 | 0.55, 1.19 | 1.38 | 1.12 | 0.70 | 1.73 | 0.73 | -3.18 | .002 | -0.99, -0.23 | -0.82 |
4 | 1.09 | 0.50 | -0.13 | 0.81 | 8.03 | < .001 | 0.92, 1.51 | 1.93 | 0.88 | 0.64 | 1.96 | 0.68 | -6.08 | <.001 | -1.44, -0.74 | -1.47 |
5 | 1.22 | 0.73 | -0.25 | 0.50 | 6.63 | < .001 | 1.03, 1.90 | 2.33 | 1.33 | 0.62 | 1.90 | 0.46 | -2.18 | .030 | -1.09, -0.06 | -0.77 |
Study 2 | ||||||||||||||||
0.65 | 0.50 | 0.05 | 0.51 | 6.62 | < .001 | 0.42, 0.78 | 1.21 | 2.39 | 0.66 | 2.49 | 0.75 | -0.78 | .434 | -0.35, 0.15 | -0.16 |
aRemoving the participants who scored above the midpoint of the perceived illegitimacy scale led to a significant contrast between victimized and perpetrator participants with regard to communal goals in Context 2 (victim condition:
For communal intergroup goals, a 2 × 5 ANOVA revealed significant main effects of role,
The results of Study 1 generally supported our theorizing. As hypothesized, participants generally reported stronger agentic interaction goals when their ingroup occupied an illegitimately disadvantaged/victim role, and they tended to show stronger communal interaction goals when their ingroup occupied an illegitimately advantaged/perpetrator role. Social role showed predominantly large effects on agentic goals, the effect on communal goals varied depending on the context: While all comparisons were in the expected direction, only two out of four comparisons were significant after Bonferroni correction, yielding large effects.
In four of five contexts, we effectively induced a sense of illegitimate disadvantage or victimization, or illegitimate advantage or perpetration. The stronger the role manipulation’s impact on participants’ experience of their ingroup as illegitimately advantaged or perpetrator versus disadvantaged or victim (as reflected in the effect sizes of the manipulation check), the stronger its impact tended to be on participants’ agentic and communal motives. In Context 1, where our role manipulation failed (i.e., immigrant participants did not perceive their ingroup as “treated unfairly” or “victimized”, and non-migrant participants did not perceive their ingroup as “immoral” or having a perpetrator role, compared with the respective outgroup), we likewise failed to induce changes in agentic and communal goals ― a result that is congruent with our general reasoning.
Our findings are valuable theoretically because they show that across very diverse contexts, strategies to strive for a positive self-concept (by either highlighting agentic or communal aspects of the ingroup’s identity) critically differ between illegitimately disadvantaged or victimized and illegitimately advantaged or perpetrating groups. This finding can be considered as complementing social identity theory (
The practical value of these results is that knowing how those groups typically behave towards each other can help guide structured encounters between conflicting groups, such as “dialogue group” interventions based on the contact hypothesis (
Unexpectedly, non-migrant participants did not show stronger communal tendencies compared to immigrants in the contexts of structural inequality (discrimination of immigrants, Context 1) and a direct transgression (failure to investigate right-wing violence, Context 2). However, these non-significant differences do not seem to be due to un-communal non-migrants in these contexts, but rather highly communal immigrants. In those two contexts, the illegitimately disadvantaged/victim group (i.e., immigrants) yielded a different pattern of results compared to illegitimately disadvantaged/victim participants in Contexts 3-5 (i.e., international transgression, exploitative consumer relations, gender discrimination). Specifically, whereas illegitimately disadvantaged/victim participants in Contexts 3-5 showed a relatively balanced ratio of agentic and communal goals, illegitimately disadvantaged/victim participants in Contexts 1 and 2 (i.e., immigrant participants) clearly prioritized communion over agency (notwithstanding the increased agentic intergroup goals in the context of right-wing violence). Apparently, it was paramount for those participants to highlight their communal identity dimension when interacting with members of the non-migrant German majority. A possible explanation is that “the generic immigrant” is perceived as both low in agency
A potential limitation is the small sample size of some of the sub-samples. Post-hoc power analyses revealed that the statistical power to detect at least
Another limitation may be seen in the incommensurability of Contexts 3 (international transgression) and 4 (exploitative consumption) with regard to the different social roles. As a consequence, there may have been other variables (besides the social role of one’s ingroup) that influenced the results (see the General Discussion for a more detailed analysis). Indeed, the main effect of context on both agentic and communal interaction goals and the significant interactions between role and context suggest that participants responded differently to the various context conditions. Nevertheless, and most important for our purpose, the effect of social role on agentic and communal goals was in the predicted direction across all studies. Similarly, although one might be concerned that we subsumed social identities that were characterized by either illegitimate (dis-)advantage (i.e., structural inequality) or perpetrator- and victimhood (i.e., direct violence) across highly diverse contexts, the consistency of the
Study 2 focused on the effects of one’s ingroup’s role on interaction goals in a context of structural inequality, and pursued two main aims. The first aim was to test the combined influence of both individual (i.e., “self”) and group (i.e., “social”) identity on agentic and communal intergroup interaction goals. Thus, in Study 2 we measured preexisting preferences to pursue agentic or communal interpersonal goals before manipulating participants’ ingroup’s role. This allowed us to examine how goals dispositionally pursued on the individual level (i.e., “
A second aim of Study 2 was to manipulate – rather than simply measure – legitimacy of group disparity in order to examine its proposed moderating effect on the relationship between social role and intergroup interaction goals (
Recall that the intergroup contexts used in Study 1 were selected so that most participants would perceive the situation as illegitimate. Therefore, our hypothesis regarding the effect of social role was a main effect hypothesis in Study 1. In contrast, because in Study 2 the legitimacy of the status difference was varied, our hypothesis regarding the effect of social role was an interaction hypothesis. The effect of social role as seen in Study 1 should be stronger when legitimacy is low rather than high. Given that our hypothesis regarding the effect of social role implied a two-way interaction, the three-way interaction including dispositional goals represented the crucial test if the predicted effect would occur regardless of individual’s dispositional tendencies to pursue agentic and communal goals.
Undergraduate psychology students (
In the first survey, we assessed participants’ basic demographic information and dispositional interpersonal goals. To avoid fatigue and consistency effects, the second survey, which included the experimental manipulation and the assessment of intergroup goals, was administered one week later.
The general tendency to pursue agentic and communal interaction goals on an individual level was assessed with the German version of
In the second survey, we manipulated ingroup role and legitimacy of status disparity using
To ensure that the manipulation referred to a social category (clinical psychologists) that is psychologically meaningful for participants, we asked participants how important the subject of clinical psychology was to them (1
Four items, taken from
Agentic and communal intergroup interaction goals were assessed using the German version of the CSIG; the reliabilities of the agentic and communal dimensions were .73 and .86. Participants’ agency scores ranged from -1.46 to 1.96 (
The data (
Participants indicated that clinical psychology was important to them (
A 2 (Role [disadvantaged, advantaged]) × 2 (Legitimacy [low, high]) ANOVA with perceived ingroup role as the dependent variable revealed a significant main effect of the role manipulation,
An analogous 2 × 2 ANOVA with perceived legitimacy as the dependent variable revealed significant main effects of the legitimacy manipulation,
To test whether the dispositional preferences for interpersonal agency and communion moderate the impact of social role on agentic intergroup interaction goals, we conducted a multiple regression analysis, regressing agentic intergroup goals on agentic and communal dispositional interpersonal goals (
Predictor | Agentic goals (CSIG) |
Communal goals (CSIG) |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CI | CI | |||||
Agentic interpersonal goals (CSIV) | .09 | .05 | -.01, .18 | .00 | .06 | -.12, .12 |
Communal interpersonal goals (CSIV) | .01 | .05 | -.09, .11 | .33** | .06 | .21, .45 |
Social role | -.30** | .05 | -.39, -.21 | .11 | .06 | -.00, .22 |
Legitimacy | .00 | .05 | -.09, .10 | -.06 | .06 | -.17, .06 |
Role × legitimacy | -.06 | .05 | -.15, .03 | .02 | .06 | -.09, .13 |
Agentic goals × role | .05 | .05 | -.05, .15 | -.01 | .06 | -.13, .11 |
Communal goals × role | -.09 | .05 | -.19, .00 | .06 | .06 | -.06, .17 |
Agentic goals × legitimacy | .02 | .05 | -.08, .12 | -.11 | .06 | -.23, .01 |
Communal goals × legitimacy | -.07 | .05 | -.17, .02 | -.12* | .06 | -.23, -.00 |
Agentic goals × role × legitimacy | -.02 | .05 | -.11, .08 | .03 | .06 | -.09, .15 |
Communal goals × role × legitimacy | -.05 | .05 | -.15, .04 | .06 | .06 | -.06, .18 |
Total |
.35** | .32** |
*
A prerequisite for testing a three-way interaction is to include all the two-way interactions in the analysis. However, we have no theoretical grounds to expect significant two-way interactions between agentic or communal dispositions and the legitimacy manipulation.
Agentic interpersonal goals,
An analogous multiple regression with communal intergroup interaction goals as the dependent variable revealed a significant main effect of communal interpersonal goals,
Consistent with social categorization theory (
Interestingly, participants’ dispositional preferences had a stronger effect on communal than on agentic intergroup interaction goals. This finding is consistent with
Unexpectedly, the legitimacy manipulation did not moderate the results of social role as it did in
Interestingly, we did observe an unexpected interaction between the legitimacy manipulation and the dispositional preference for communal interpersonal interactions, such that participants with high (vs. low) preference for interpersonal communion showed an increase in communal intergroup goals when assigned to the illegitimate condition (irrespective of whether the illegitimate disparity between their ingroup and the outgroup advantaged or disadvantaged them). One possible explanation is that illegitimate status disparities is the type of potentially conflictual situation that heightens communal persons’ inclination to strive for harmonious relationships and heightens uncommunal persons’ inclination to become guarded and self-protective.
The present research systematically examined how group members’ pursuit of interaction goals depends on their ingroup’s role as illegitimately disadvantaged or victimized versus illegitimately advantaged or perpetrating transgressions. Drawing on the needs-based model's theorizing (
Study 2 additionally examined whether and how (i.e., directly or as a moderator) individuals’ dispositions to seek agency and communion in their interpersonal interactions would influence their agentic and communal goals within intergroup interactions. In the case of communion, consistent with
Taking both Study 1 and Study 2, involving six different contexts, into account, the overall effects of social role were medium to large by conventional standards (mean effect sizeiv Cohen’s
A potential limitation of both studies is that we only assessed participants’
Even though there seems to be growing consensus that the fundamental dimensions of agency and communion can characterize almost every aspect of social interaction (
In conclusion, the results of the present studies provided robust support for the hypothesized association between experiencing the ingroup as illegitimately disadvantaged or victimized and experiencing increased agentic intergroup interaction goals; and it provided some mixed support for the hypothesized association between experiencing the ingroup as illegitimately advantaged or perpetrating transgressions and experiencing increased communal intergroup interaction goals (i.e., the effect of social role on communal goals was not always significant). Understanding the motivational ramifications of self-categorizations as a member of an illegitimately disadvantaged or victimized group or an illegitimately advantaged or perpetrator group is likely to be an important component of any efforts to advance positive intergroup relations and social progress – ranging from structured encounters between members of conflicting groups (i.e., contact interventions), to collective apologies or media campaigns to promote social harmony.
For both studies datasets are freely available (see the
The following supplementary materials are freely available for the present paper via the OSF project page (
[…] Health as well as care and treatment of physically and mentally impaired people are increasingly important in our society. Especially in times of the economic crisis, the number of those who suffer from burnout-syndrome, depression or psychosomatic illnesses rises rapidly. Different occupational groups, e.g. physicians and psychologists, are confronting this issue.
In a study throughout Germany, carried out by the Emnid institute for the "ZEIT", these occupational groups/professions were compared with each other in psychiatric and psychosomatic medical centers, concerning different criteria. The study showed that psychiatrists have more influence on decisions concerning the patients compared to psychologists. Furthermore, physicians enjoy a higher reputation among the remaining clinic staff, and also their monthly gross income is on average 1000 euros above the one of psychologists.
Although physicians’ and psychologists’ tasks differ in content, the fact that both professions still bear the same responsibility shows that the differences mentioned above are unjustified: For the patients, both groups play an indispensable role in their recovery process. The education of both occupations is very comprehensive and in the course of the patients’ diagnosis, consultation, therapy and reintegration, psychologists are equally important as physicians. Moreover, according to the study results, both professions spend on average the same amount of time in direct contact with the patients. According to Helmut Kreiner, manager of the (specialist) clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy Gauting GmbH, "The existing status differences are therefore mostly unfounded". […]
These differences are not quite unjustified, taking into account the fact that physicians have – in addition to their psychotherapeutic duties – other areas of responsibility, such as the somatic examination and the medication, and therefore often bear more responsibility than psychologists. Due to their usually broader education, in many clinics they play a more important role in the patients’ recovery process. Moreover, according to the study results, physicians spend on average more time in direct contact with the patients than psychologists. According to Helmut Kreiner, manager of the professional clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy Gauting GmbH, “The existing status differences are therefore not quite unfounded.” […]
Context | Disadvantaged/victim role | Advantaged/perpetrator role |
---|---|---|
1 | As you know, immigrants are disadvantaged compared to Germans in many different contexts. | As you know, immigrants are disadvantaged compared to Germans in many different contexts. |
How should we |
How should we |
|
2 | As you know, different immigrant organizations criticize the massive shortcomings regarding the investigation of the NSU killings. | As you know, different immigrant organizations criticize the massive shortcomings regarding the investigation of the NSU killings. |
How should we |
How should we |
|
3 | As you know, the NSA has conducted extensive espionage in Germany and even bugged Merkel’s mobile phone. | As you know, Germany refuses to pay reparations for the 200 civilians killed by the Waffen-SS in Greece in 1944. |
How should we |
How should we |
|
4 | As you know, corporations like Google financially enrich themselves by using information involuntarily provided by us consumers. | As you know, by buying cheap textile products, we consumers cause people (and even children) from low-wage countries to work under inhumane conditions. |
How should we |
How should we |
|
5 | As you know, showing the same performance, women earn less than men in many fields. | As you know, showing the same performance, women earn less than men in many fields. |
How should we |
How should we |
Context | Disadvantaged/victim role | Advantaged/perpetrator role |
---|---|---|
1 | To what extent do you consider the behavior shown by the Germans toward immigrants as legitimate? | To what extent do you consider the behavior shown by the Germans toward immigrants as legitimate? |
2 | To what extent do you consider Germany’s behavior as legitimate? | To what extent do you consider Germany’s behavior as legitimate? |
3 | To what extent to you consider the behavior shown by the NSA – respectively the USA – as legitimate? | To what extent do you consider Germany’s behavior as legitimate? |
4 | To what extent do you consider the behavior of international corporations such as google as legitimate? | To what extent do you consider the behavior of us consumers as legitimate? |
5 | To what extent do you consider the disadvantage of women in the work context as legitimate? | To what extent do you consider the disadvantage of women in the work context as legitimate? |
Variable | Range |
||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
potential | actual | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||
1. Female | – | – | – | ||||||||
2. Age | 32.22 | 9.56 | – | 17 – 72 | .00 | ||||||
3. Migration | – | – | – | – | .09 | -.06 | |||||
4. Social role | – | – | – | – | -.10 | -.02 | -.48** | ||||
5. MC social role | -0.06 | 1.39 | -4 – 4 | -4 – 4 | -.09 | .06 | -.08 | .49** | |||
6. Perc. legitimacy | 2.45 | 0.96 | 1 – 5 | 1 – 5 | -.08 | -.11* | .16** | .08 | .05 | ||
7. Agency | 0.25 | 0.78 | -4 – 4 | -2.14 – 2.65 | .05 | -.00 | .05 | -.42** | -.50** | -.15** | |
8. Communion | 1.76 | 0.83 | -4 – 4 | -0.56 – 4.00 | -.10 | -.08 | .13** | .17** | .33** | .07 | -.36** |
*
Variable | Range |
||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
potential | actual | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |||
1. Female | – | – | – | – | |||||||||
2. Age | 21.22 | 3.38 | - | 18 – 45 | .10 | ||||||||
3. Social role | – | – | – | – | -.17 | .09 | |||||||
4. Legitimacy | – | – | – | – | -.06 | .11 | .02 | ||||||
5. MC social role | 3.08 | 0.93 | 1 – 5 | 1 – 5 | .11 | -.07 | -.77** | .05 | |||||
6. MC legitimacy | 2.22 | 0.76 | 1 – 5 | 1 – 4 | .21* | -.09 | -.30** | -.30** | .31** | ||||
7. Agency (CSIV) | 0.07 | 0.54 | -4 – 4 | -1.51 – 2.05 | -.03 | -.02 | .03 | -.13 | -.00 | -.00 | |||
8. Communion (CSIV) | 1.85 | 0.66 | -4 – 4 | -0.47 – 3.23 | -.00 | -.05 | .14 | .10 | -.14 | -.29** | -.08 | ||
9. Agency (CSIG) | 0.35 | 0.58 | -4 – 4 | -1.46 – 1.96 | -.24** | .16 | .52** | -.01 | -.43** | -.16 | .12 | .05 | |
10. Communion (CSIG) | 2.44 | 0.70 | -4 – 4 | 0.65 – 3.85 | -.05 | -.01 | -.07 | .13 | .05 | -.15 | -.06 | .49** | -.06 |
*
This research received funding from the German Israeli Foundation (Grant No.: 1119-126.412010) and was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation awarded to Jenny Roth for a scientific network (Grant No.: RO 4826/1-1).
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors have no support to report.
Among German participants, there was a condition (
The online survey used the web-based platform “EFS survey”, which can adjust the randomization process based on participants’ demographical features such as nationality and gender (e.g., whereas participants with migration background were
To examine whether perceived legitimacy was influenced by the role manipulation [disadvantaged/victim, advantaged/perpetrator]) and/or the study context [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], we ran a 2 × 5 ANOVA on perceived legitimacy which revealed a non-significant main effect of role,
Weighted average effect sizes (see