Ingroup-outgroup evaluations under threats to group’s distinctiveness and self’s social identity, and the moderating effect of social value orientation.

Abstract

The current research aimed to investigate the effects on ingroup and outgroup evaluations when both the individual’s social identity and the individual’s ingroup are threatened simultaneously, as well as how individual differences in social value orientation moderates these ingroup-outgroup evaluations. Threats to ingroup and to the self were manipulated through false feedbacks. After manipulation, participants (N = 90) evaluated fellow NTU students of the same major of study as themselves (ingroup) and students of a different major of study (outgroup) on two measures. Results revealed that social value orientation significantly moderated the effects of threats to self and to ingroup on ingroup-outgroup evaluations in multiple ways, depending on social contexts and target of evaluation.