Abstract
This research sought to examine the impact of existential anxiety and threatened control on ingroup favoritism and to further discern whether these effects could be generalized to a non-Western culture. In study one, participants were assigned to a mortality salience (MS), a control threat (CT), or baseline condition, in which self-esteem and perceptions of control were assessed. Following this, they evaluated ingroup and outgroup targets. Participants in the MS and CT conditions rated ingroup members (i.e., New Zealanders) higher than outgroup members (i.e., Asians), while those in the baseline condition did not. In the MS condition, ingroup evaluations were positively correlated with self-esteem (but not locus of control). In the CT condition, ingroup evaluations were negatively correlated with feelings of control (but not self-esteem). Study two sought to assess these effects amongst participants from the Indian subcontinent. Ingroup favoritism was found in the CT condition only. Ingroup evaluations were positively correlated with self-esteem (but not control). These findings suggest that MS and CT influence ingroup favoritism via different psychological mechanisms, and that these influences may be culturally bound.
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Rankin, V., Arahanga-Doyle, H., Scarf, D., Hunter, J.A. (2022). How Ingroup Favoritism Functions As a Defense Against Threat. In: Akande, A. (eds) Handbook of Racism, Xenophobia, and Populism. Springer Handbooks of Political Science and International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13559-0_18
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