Intergroup bias is a phenomenon of favoring one’s own group and derogating other groups. This can be expressed through an individual’s positive evaluations of the ingroup and negative evaluations of outgroups. Research has found that feeling threatened plays a relevant role for the occurrence of bias, i.e., when under threat, people tend to express increased intergroup bias. Given numerous recent societal crises (e.g., COVID-19, war, inflation) this study investigated the relationship between various types of threats, political orientation, and political intergroup bias. The groups studied were the Swedish political left and right. Data was collected via an online survey (N = 149) in which participants initially rated threat perception, followed by evaluations of political left and right supporters. The participants’ in- and outgroups were defined through stating their political identification prior to the evaluations. Threat of the political situation in Sweden was shown to be the only threat to significantly correlate with political intergroup bias. Linear regression analysis showed that both Swedish political threat and political orientation were significant predictors of intergroup bias, although political orientation was a stronger predictor. In other words, the results provided insight into the relevance of contextual correspondence between the examined threat and groups. Methodological and theoretical limitations are discussed. Controlling for personality traits and degree of political identification is suggested for future research.

The current research integrates social cognitive theories of psychological construals and information processing with theories of social identity to identify the conditions under which multiculturalism helps versus hinders positive intergroup relations. Three experiments investigated how abstract vs. concrete construals of multiculturalism impact majority group members' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward ethnic minorities in the US. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that construing multiculturalism in abstract terms by highlighting its broad goals reduced majority group members' prejudice toward ethnic minorities by decreasing the extent to which diversity is seen as threatening the national group. However, construing multiculturalism in concrete terms by highlighting specific ways in which its goals can be achieved increased majority group members' prejudice toward minorities by amplifying the extent to which diversity is seen as threatening the national group. Experiment 3 then revealed that a different concrete construal that incorporates values and practices of both majority and minority groups reduced perceived threats to the national group and in turn attenuated prejudice and increased desire for contact with ethnic minorities. Collectively, these experiments demonstrate when and why multiculturalism leads to positive versus negative intergroup outcomes, while identifying new ways in which multiculturalism can be successfully implemented in pluralistic nations.

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Humans tend to view those with similar characteristics to their own more favorably than those with dissimilar characteristics. Mahajan and Wynn (2012) suggest this phenomenon is rooted in an innate preference for similarity to self and is enhanced by the salience of the similar characteristic(s). This conclusion was based on results from a study conducted by Mahajan and Wynn showing that infants who chose a food prior to choosing a puppet (High Salience condition) preferred the puppet with the same food preference, whereas infants who chose a food after choosing a puppet (Low Salience condition) showed no preference based on a single measure of choice. However, their results may have been affected by factors other than infant preference such as parental bias or side bias. The purpose of the present study was to replicate Mahajan and Wynn's (2012) Low Salience condition and extend it by assigning 20 infants and their parents (10 infants/parent dyads per group) to either (a) a between group manipulation in which infants' food preference was made "salient" to parents (but not infants) in only one group, or (b) a within-subject repeated measures of infants' choices. Results suggested that the manipulation may have been insufficient to assess parental bias; however, more infants (75%) chose a puppet presented on one side more often than a particular puppet (e.g., similar or dissimilar) suggesting infants' choices may be more a product of side bias than puppet preference.

Negative characterisations of social groups threaten group members’ social identities evoking various group-protective responses. Drawing on research about the functions of lay conceptions of humanness in social perception, the current research investigated a novel group-protective strategy: believing that an in group’s negative traits (flaws) are fundamental aspects of ‘human nature’ (HN). A similar protective strategy has been documented when acknowledging flaws in the individual self; this was extended to the acknowledgement of in group flaws in the current studies. In Study 1 (N = 77),participants’ in group-descriptiveness ratings of flaws were most strongly predicted by their HN ratings of flaws, suggesting that people may selectively acknowledge HN flaws as in group-descriptive. Study 2 (N = 51) demonstrated that flaws were rated higher on HN when attributed to an in group than to an out group. However, this effect was not found for positive traits, suggesting that it may reflect a motivation to protect a threatened in group-identity. Study 3 (N = 79) replicated this asymmetrical ‘humanising of in group flaws’ effect, and found that it was independent of desirability. In addition in group-identification was measured in Study 3 and found not to moderate the humanising of in group flaws. / Finally, in Study 3 participants also rated traits on an alternative sense of humanness, known as ‘human uniqueness’ (HU). The asymmetrical humanising of in group flaws effect was not found for the HU dimension, indicating that HN may be better suited to the protective function of mitigating flaws. These studies indicate that HN beliefs are systematically related to in group flaw-acknowledgement and suggest that in order to mitigate their in group’s flaws and thus protect the value of their social identities, people may be motivated to (a) selectively acknowledge HN flaws as in group-descriptive; and (b) ‘humanise’ flaws attributed to their in group Further more, the current research supports the claim that HN is an important dimension of social perception (e.g., Haslam et al., 2008); extends the relevance of this dimension to perceptions of in groups; and suggests that the HN concept should be understood as dynamic and flexible, rather than fixed.

Traditional studies of ethnic relations focus on racialization between Whites and Blacks, or ethnic stratification between Whites and people of color. The increasingly integrated world has ensured continued movements of humans and goods and the inevitable contacts between people of different cultural background. This dissertation aims at broadening conventional studies of interethnic relations to examine racial attitudes among people who have internalized more than one culture -- i.e. the biculturals and multiculturals. Social psychological research suggests that bicultural individuals are capable of switching between two cultural meaning frames depending on contextual demands. Bicultural individuals vary in how well they integrate the two cultural identities internalized in them -- i.e., their bicultural identity integration levels (BII levels). Their BII levels lead to either culturally congruent or culturally incongruent behaviors among bicultural individuals. The underlying assumption of linguistic intergroup bias indicates that people tend to describe more abstractly observed positive ingroup behaviors and negative outgroup behaviors and describe more concretely observed negative ingroup behaviors and positive outgroup behaviors. In this study, bicultural Asian American participants are hypothesized to use language of either higher or lower abstraction to describe actions of positive and negative valence performed by either ethnic Asians or European Americans depending on the cultural priming they received and their BII levels. The study results point out the perceived ingroup/outgroup orientation of the bicultural participants towards their coethnics and people of the mainstream culture. Effects of the cultural priming and impact of BII levels are also discussed. / text

The aim of the present research was to investigate the various determinants of intergroup relations, particularly national stereotypes, in- group identification, contact, and social categorization. In chapter one a total of 150 Turkish Cypriots filled a national stereotypes questionnaire, social identity scale, and a scale assessing intergroup contact. Factor analysis of the stereotypes of the Turkish Cypriots (autostereotypes) demonstrated the existence of four latent variables adopted as Positivity, Competency- Based, Negativity and Religiosity/ Conservatism. The same factor structure was obtained for the stereotypes used to evaluate the Greek Cypriots (heterostereotypes). It was observed that Turkish Cypriots consistently demonstrated in- group favoritisim. In support of the Contact hypothesis it was found that increased exposure was predictive of greater endorsement of positive national stereotypes of the Greek Cypriots. In- group identification seemed to affect in- group attitudes alone / however, moderation analyses showed that in- group identification influenced negative out- group attitudes moderated through positive in- group attitudes. This led to the development of a model of negative out- group attitudes. In the second chapter the direction, content, and uniformity of the national stereotypes Turkish Cypriots endorse regarding the Turkish, Greek and British, three nations that have played a significant role in the history of Turkish Cypriots were assessed. Stereotypes were analyzed according to the following five dimensions: Empathic, dominant, efficient, negative, and religiosity/ conservative. Results led to the conclusion that Turkish Cypriots demonstrated in- group favoritism and had quite uniform autostereotypes yet inconsistent heterostereotypes. Stereotypic content was also mainly determined by the political, historical, and social relationship present between the national groups in question. In the third chapter participants were 150 Turkish Cypriots asked to assess their own town as well as the inhabitants of Nicosia. It was predicted that the act of stereotyping the neighbor would change depending on the type of category evoked from the questionnaire manipulation, such that Turkish Cypriots would judge Greek Cypriots as more similar when a common in- group identity Cypriot was suggested. The research findings however, did not support the assertions and Turkish Cypriots did not perceive themselves as more similar to Greek Cypriots under any condition, reflected also in their consistent selection of the same adjectives for Greek Cypriots over conditions. The limitations of the researches and future implications were discussed in an attempt to shed light on the intergroup processes present in Cyprus.

abstract: Recent research has identified affirmation of transcendence and exposure to violent Bible verses as being related to greater prejudice toward value-violating out-groups (Blogowska & Saroglou, 2012; Shen et al., 2013). Effects of exposure to specific Bible verses on attitudes toward out-groups have not been measured in combination with the Post-Critical Belief Scale developed by Hutsebaut (1996). The relationships between exposure to scriptural endorsements of prejudice, affirmation vs. disaffirmation of transcendence, literal vs. symbolic processing of religious content, and prejudice toward value-violating out-groups were examined using an online survey administered to a sample of U.S. adults (N=283). Greater affirmation of transcendence scores were linked to greater prejudice toward atheists and homosexuals and more favorable ratings of Christians and highly religious people. Lower affirmation of transcendence scores were linked to less favorable ratings of Christians and highly religious people and more favorable ratings of atheists. Exposure to scriptural endorsements of prejudice did not have a significant effect on levels of prejudice in this study. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Psychology 2013

Partant du constat que la catégorisation des individus en un « Nous » et un « Eux » peut suffire à provoquer un traitement inégal des membres de ces groupes, certaines stratégies ont proposé d’atténuer la frontière ainsi créée en recatégorisant l’ensemble des membres des deux groupes au sein d’un ensemble supraordonné. Cependant, cette stratégie peut s’avérer inefficace, voire contreproductive, précisément quand elle menace les fonctions remplies par les identités initiales. Parmi ces fonctions, la possibilité de se définir comme différents des autres (ie. la distinctivité) est particulièrement concernée. La présente recherche a pour objet de tester, à travers 5 études : 1) si la recatégorisation provoque effectivement une menace sur la distinctivité 2) ses conséquences sur les biais intergroupes 3) la pertinence d’une stratégie de préservation de la distinctivité par l’ajout de catégories sociales.Les résultats ont montré, sur des groupes minimaux, mais aussi nationaux, que de la recatégorisation émanait une menace qui s’exprime tant sur des mesures implicites qu’explicites du biais intergroupe même si des processus propositionnels semblent modérer l’impact de la menace sur ces derniers. De plus, proposer des catégorisations supplémentaires a permis de réduire cette menace et le biais intergroupe associé, sans faire émerger d’effet délétère mesurable.Ces résultats soulignent l’apport de croiser les approches fonctionnelles et sociocognitives des catégorisations sociales et incitent à reconsidérer ces dernières non pas nécessairement comme des problèmes, mais également comme ressources dans les stratégies visant à l’harmonisation sociale. / On the premise that categorising individuals into “Us” and “Them” can be enough to elicit unequal treatment between the members of those groups, some strategies suggest recommend to blur group boundaries by recategorising all the members of both groups into one superordinate group. However, this strategy may prove inefficient or even counterproductive, precisely when it threatens initial identities functions. Among those functions, being able to define oneself as different from the others (ie. distinctiveness) is especially affected. This research aims at testing, in 5 studies: 1) if indeed recatégorisation produces a threat to distinctiveness 2) its consequences on intergroup bias 3) the relevance of a distinctiveness preservation strategy by social categories addition.Results, on both minimal and national groups, showed that a threat stemmed from recatégorisation which had impact on both implicit and explicit measures of intergroup bias, although propositional processes seem to moderate threat’s influence on the latter. Moreover, offering additional categorization allowed for a threat and related intergroup bias reduction, with no measurable harmful effect arising.These results underline the contribution of putting together functional and sociocognitive approaches of social categorisations and encourage rethinking the latter not necessarily as issues but also as resources in social harmonization strategies.