Effects of social rejection on ethnocentrism : intragroup rejection versus intergroup rejection

Abstract

In today’s age of globalization, intergroup and intercultural social interactions are becoming more common and inevitable. When communicating with outgroup members, ethnocentrism can be an obstacle to effective interactions and hence, cause negative consequences like prejudice and discrimination. Ethnocentrism, first coined by Sumner (1906), refers to the attitude and belief that one’s own group is superior over others. Many studies have examined how intergroup contacts could influence ethnocentrism, but little is known about how intragroup contacts can actually affect ethnocentrism, an intergroup attitude. Thus, this study examines the effects of social rejection type on ethnocentrism as well as ingroup favoritism by manipulating experience of ingroup rejection versus outgroup rejection. Significant effect of rejection type was found on ingroup favoritism but not ethnocentrism. Outgroup rejection was found to cause higher ingroup favoritism than ingroup rejection, more evidently for people with high need to belong and those with low self-esteem. Rejection type did not have an effect for people with low need to belong and those with high self-esteem. Findings suggested that negative intergroup contacts seemed to have greater impact than negative intragroup contacts, as the latter may be buffered by past positive contacts. This paper sheds light on the effects of rejection type on ethnocentrism and ingroup favoritism and contributes to current research seeking to diminish negative factors that hinder positive intergroup and intercultural relations in our world.