Intergroup discrimination is a pervasive fact of life and many factors are proposed to contribute or relate to its existence and expression (e.g. Staub, 2001). Though much research in social psychology has focused on the need for positive self-esteem as an underlying motive, in the past 25 years, evidence for the role of self-esteem in intergroup discrimination has at best proved contradictory (see Long & Spears, 1997; Rubin & Hewstone, 1998). More recently, other motivational constructs for human behaviour have been proposed to play a part in intergroup discrimination (e.g. Abrams & Hogg, 2001). This thesis focuses on the need to belong (or belongingness) as this has long been recognised as a basic human need (e.g. Horney, 1945) and recently, evidence has been provided to support this assumption (e.g. Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Thus the present thesis argues that as a fundamental need, the need to belong (NTB) would be expected to play a role in intergroup discrimination. In support of this assumption, results from some empirical studies are also highly suggestive of a link between intergroup discrimination and the NTB (e.g. Marques & Paez, 1994), though the current research programme is the first to explicitly examine this link. Seven experiments employing the same basic methodology were conducted to investigate the central hypothesis that engaging in intergroup discrimination decreases the NTB. Three experiments supported the hypothesis. Experiments 2 and 3 found that the NTB decreased for New Zealanders who engaged in intergroup discrimination and Experiment 7 found that members of a minimally socially important group showed a decrease in the NTB following intergroup discrimination when measured at a group level, but not at the personal level.
Experiment 1 (Chapter 5) investigated the central hypothesis utilizing the minimal group paradigm (MGP). Despite participants exhibiting intergroup discrimination when given the opportunity, there was no significant change in their reported NTB. Thus the results of this experiment did not support the central hypothesis. Experiment 2 (Chapter 6) investigated whether the central hypothesis would be supported if participants were members of a realistic and meaningful social group category (i.e. New Zealanders). Results from this experiment showed that those participants who exhibited intergroup discrimination did in fact show a significant decrease in their NTB. Experiment 3 (Chapter 7) sought to replicate these results and to control for self-esteem effects utilizing New Zealand participants. Again, results supported the central hypothesis and no effect was found for either global or collective self-esteem. To test whether this result would generalize to other social categories, Experiment 4 (Chapter 8) tested whether the NTB would be decreased after women participants engaged in intergroup discrimination. Results found there was no significant difference in the NTB between women who engaged in discrimination and those who did not. Thus the central hypothesis and the results from Experiment 2 and 3 were not supported. To then investigate whether social influence accounted for the contradictory results from Experiments 1-4, Experiment 5 (Chapter 9) required women to publicly or privately state their intergroup discrimination. No significant changes were found in the NTB (from pre- to post- allocation task) for either private or public responding conditions, whether women engaged in intergroup discrimination or not. It was then assessed whether the importance to participants of the social identity in question was a factor. Experiments 6a and 6b (Chapter 10; women and men respectively) compared the NTB of participants with low identification with their social group, to high identifying participants. For both women and men, no significant changes were found in the NTB from pre- to post-allocation task for either high or low identifiers, regardless of whether they engaged in intergroup discrimination. Thus the central hypothesis was again not supported. Finally in Experiment 7, the NTB measure was re-evaluated and items were changed to be more group-oriented, compared to the original more individually-oriented items. The procedure used for Experiment 1 (i.e. MGP) was employed for Experiment 7 (Chapter 11) with participants completing both the personal and group versions of the NTB scale. The results for the modified group NTB scale showed that for participants who engaged in intergroup discrimination, group NTB decreased significantly from pre- to post- allocation task, compared with no significant change for those participants who did not engage in discrimination. No effects were found for either control or experimental participants� responses on the original NTB scale. Thus the central hypothesis and the results from Experiments 2 and 3 were supported. Furthermore, as was found for earlier experiments, there was no effect of either personal or collective self-esteem on the results for Experiments 4- 7. Taken overall, these results indicate that there may be a relationship between intergroup discrimination and the need to belong and that this may be most appropriately assessed using a group level measure of the NTB. Moreover, these results cannot be explained on the basis of self-esteem. Results from Experiments 2 and 3 may also indicate that if the social group category is meaningful enough for the individual (e.g. nationality), significant changes for the NTB at the personal level may occur. Despite the limitations of the present research, these results indicate that the investigation of the relationship between intergroup discrimination and the need to belong may further elucidate the underlying nature of prejudice. A number of possible directions for future research are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217368 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Pehi, Phillipa TePaea, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Psychology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Phillipa TePaea Pehi |
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