Failure and defeat as determinants of group cohesiveness

Difference in the risk of discrimination on psychological distress experienced by early wave infected and late wave infected COVID-19 survivors in Japan

The psychological distress experienced by coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) survivors after recovery from the illness is amplified by discrimination endured because of their infection status. However, the difference in the risk of facing discrimination and risk of experiencing psychological distress in the early and late waves of the COVID-19 pandemic remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether the risk of facing discrimination because of infection status was lower in the early or late waves and whether risk of discrimination on psychological distress was more serious in later, rather than earlier waves. We conducted two online surveys to collect data from survivors divided into two groups. The participants with scores of five or more on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale were identified as having experienced psychological distress. The participants were identified as having experienced discrimination based on infection status if they had endured being blamed, some type of discrimination, or having themselves or their families maligned. The timing of infection was split into infected during early waves of the pandemic for 2021 participants and infected during later waves of the pandemic for 2022 participants. Modified Poisson regression analyses were performed using experiences of discrimination as criteria and timing of infection as predictors. Modified Poisson regression analyses were further performed using the presence of psychological distress as a criteria and experiences of discrimination and timing of infection as the criteria, in addition to interaction effect of these es. The data of 6010 participants who were infected in early waves and 5344 participants who were infected in later waves were analyzed. The risks of being blamed, some forms of discrimination, and participants and their families being maligned were significantly lower in the group who were infected in later waves than those infected in earlier waves. Experiences of discrimination were highly associated with psychological distress in those infected in later waves than those infected in earlier waves, while only being blamed showed a significant association. Risk of discrimination was found to be lower in those infected in later waves, whereas risk of discrimination on psychological distress was shown to be more serious in those infected in later waves. Therefore, we submit that it is more important to support COVID-19 survivors who face discrimination, than it is to attempt to decrease the current discriminatory climate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Qualitative Exploration of Collective Collapse in a Norwegian Qualifying Premier League Soccer Match-The Successful Team's Perspective

The current case study focused on a crucial match in the qualification for the Norwegian Premier League (Eliteserien). In the match, the participants of the study experienced a radical change in performance toward the end of the second half, from being behind by several goals to scoring 3 goals in 6 min and winning the qualifying game. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine the perceptions and reflections of players and coaches (sporting director) on what occurred within their own team and within the opposing team. The momentum shift in the opposition team can be described as a collective collapse. In the study, the theoretical collective collapse process model was used as a guide for the design of the interview questions where five semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants involved in the match (players, coach, and sporting director). The participants watched excerpt clips from the match to recall the main events, which they subsequently reflected on. The results highlighted the importance of the "before-game" aspects (i.e., pressure, first game result), the "during-the-game" behavior (i.e., goals scored, playing with a low degree of risk) and the cognitive (i.e., feelings of pressure, despair) and emotional reactions (i.e., frustration, joy) to the match unfolding. In addition, social contagion processes were evident in both teams relating to emotion and behavior. Overall, the data from this study investigated the general structure of the process model of collective sport team collapse and found support for the notion of a temporal cascade of causes for a team collapse. Future research is encouraged to examine this model, to provide guidance to teams, coaches, and sport psychologists in order to make recommendations for dealing with collective collapse in sport teams.

Shared Adversity Increases Team Creativity Through Fostering Supportive Interaction

In the current era, building more innovative teams is key to organizational success, yet there is little consensus on how best to achieve this. Common wisdom suggests that positive reinforcement through shared positive rewards builds social support within teams, and in turn facilitates innovation. Research on basic group processes, cultural rituals, and the evolution of pro-group behavior has, however, revealed that sharing adverse experiences is an alternative path to promoting group bonding. Here, we examined whether sharing an adverse experience not only builds social support within teams, but also in turn enhances creativity within novel teams. Drawing on behavioral observation of an experimental group interaction we find evidence that sharing an adverse (vs. non-adverse) experience leads to increased supportive interactions between team members and this in turn boosts creativity within a novel team. These effects were robust across different indicators of creativity: objective measures of creativity, third party ratings of the creativity of group products, and participants' own perceptions of group creativity. Our findings offer a new perspective from which to understand how best to boost innovation and creative output within teams.

The Whistleblower's Dilemma in Young Children: When Loyalty Trumps Other Moral Concerns

When a group engages in immoral behavior, group members face the whistleblower's dilemma: the conflict between remaining loyal to the group and standing up for other moral concerns. This study examines the developmental origins of this dilemma by investigating 5-year-olds' whistleblowing on their in- vs. outgroup members' moral transgression. Children (n = 96) watched puppets representing their ingroup vs. outgroup members commit either a mild or a severe transgression. After the mild transgression, children tattled on both groups equally often. After the severe transgression, however, they were significantly less likely to blow the whistle on their ingroup than on the outgroup. These results suggest that children have a strong tendency to act on their moral concerns, but can adjust their behavior according to their group's need: When much is at stake for the ingroup (i.e., after a severe moral transgression), children's behavior is more likely to be guided by loyalty.

'The Unhealthy Other': How vaccine rejecting parents construct the vaccinating mainstream

To address the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy and rejection, researchers increasingly recognise the need to engage with the social context of parents' decision-making. This study examines how vaccine rejecting parents socially construct the vaccinating mainstream in opposition to themselves. We analyse qualitative data from interviews with parents in Adelaide, South Australia. Applying insights from Social Identity Theory (SIT), we show how these parents bolster their own sense of identity and self-belief by employing a discourse that casts vaccinators as an Unhealthy Other. We demonstrate how the parents identify vaccination as a marker of parental conformity to the 'toxic practices of mass industrial society', linking it to other ways in which membership of the consumerist mainstream requires individuals to 'neglect their health.' This is explored through themes of appearance, diet, (over) consumption of pharmaceuticals, inadequate parenting values and wilful or misguided ignorance. This construction of the Unhealthy Other elevates the self-concept of vaccine hesitant and rejecting parents, who see themselves as part of an enlightened, but constantly besieged, group of healthy and virtuous parents. It is common for the vaccinating mainstream to present vaccine hesitant and rejecting parents as a group subject to epistemic closure, groupthink, confirmation bias and over-confidence in their own expertise. However, vaccine hesitant and rejecting parents also see mainstream society as a group-a much larger one-subject to the same problems. We suggest the need to mitigate the 'groupness' of vaccination and non-vaccination by extending the practice of vaccination to recognisable practitioners of holistic health.

How Do Acquired Political Identities Influence Our Neural Processing toward Others within the Context of a Trust Game?

Trust is essential for mutually beneficial human interactions in economic exchange and politics and people’s social identities notably have dramatic effects on trust behaviors toward others. Previous literature concerning social identities generally suggests that people tend to show in-group favoritism toward members who share the same identity. However, how our brains process signals of identity while facing uncertain situations in interpersonal interactions remains largely unclear. To address this issue, we performed an fMRI experiment with 54 healthy adults who belonged to two identity groups of opposing political orientations. The identity information of participants was extracted from a large-scale social survey on the 2012 Taiwan presidential election. Accordingly, participants were categorized as either the Kuomintang (KMT) or the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters. During the experiment, participants played trust games with computer agents with labels of the same or the opposing political identity. Interestingly, our results suggest that the behaviors of the two groups cannot be equally attributed to in-group favoritism. Behaviorally, only the DPP supporter group showed a significant trust preference toward in-group members, which did not hold for the KMT supporter group. Consistently, neurophysiological findings further revealed that only the DPP supporter group showed neuronal responses to both unexpected negative feedback from in-group members in anterior insula, temporoparietal junction, and dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, as well as to unexpected rewards from out-group members in caudate. These findings therefore suggest that acquired identities play a more complex role in modulating people’s social expectation in interpersonal trust behaviors under identity-relevant contexts.

Collective Task Responsibility Allocation

This article explores differences in individual- and group-level allocation of responsibility for task performance following positive and negative performance feedback. In two studies, 330 participants completed and received veridical feedback for a verbal performance task. A group identity measure showed higher levels of group identification in groups with face-to-face interaction compared with those that did not interact. On several measures, both individual-and group-level responses exhibited the classic self- or group-serving response pattern (higher internal attributions for success than for failure). Empirical evidence documents and further refines understanding of a group-serving response pattern in several types of actual collectives.

Generating Agreement in Computer-Mediated Groups

Agreement is an important social outcome often poorly handled by computer-mediated groups, presumably because the computer cannot transmit the necessary rich information. A recently proposed cognitive model suggests richness is not the key to social agreement and that group agreement can be generated by the exchange of anonymous, lean text information across a computer network. This experiment investigates this theory. Self-chosen groups of 5 completed three answer rounds on limited choice problems while exchanging a few characters of position information. These asynchronous, anonymous computer-mediated groups generated agreement without any rich information exchange. The key software design criteria for enacting agreement is proposed to be not richness but dynamic many-to-many linkage. The resulting “electronic voting” may be as different from traditional voting as e-mail is from traditional mail. It may also imply a new generation of groupware that recognizes social influence.

A Tripartite Model of Group Identification

Group identification is defined as member identification with an interacting group and is distinguished conceptually from social identity, cohesion, and common fate. Group identification is proposed to have three sources: cognitive (social categorization), affective (interpersonal attraction), and behavioral (interdependence). Inconsistent use of the term and problematic measurement mar existing literature on group identity and group identification. A new group identification scale, composed of three subscales that match the tripartite model for the cognitive, affective, and behavioral sources, is presented and its psychometric properties described.

Explaining Lifelong Loyalty: The Role of Identity Fusion and Self-Shaping Group Events

Pledging lifelong loyalty to an ingroup can have far-reaching behavioural effects, ranging from ordinary acts of ingroup kindness to extraordinary acts of self-sacrifice. What motivates this important form of group commitment? Here, we propose one especially potent answer to this question-the experience of a visceral sense of oneness with a group (i.e., identity fusion). In a sample of British football fans, a population in which high levels of lifelong loyalty are thought to be common, we first examined the hypothesised relationship between fusion and perceptions of lifelong loyalty to one's club. We further explored the hypothesis that fusion and lifelong loyalty are not merely a reflection of past time investment in a group, but also reflect a deeper, memory-based process of feeling personally shaped by key group events, both euphoric and dysphoric. We found broad support for these hypotheses. Results suggest that feeling personally self-shaped by club events (e.g., crucial wins and losses), rather than time invested in the club, leads to greater identity fusion to one's club. In turn, fusion engenders a sense of lifelong club loyalty. We discuss our findings in relation to the growing literature on the experiential origins of intense social cohesion.

Defensive Reactions to Group-Relevant Information

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that possession of a strong social identity would motivate people to arrive at a conclusion which supported their previous beliefs when responding to information that threatened their group. In a pre-measure, participants were classified as either weak or strong in social identity. After reading a threatening or non-threatening (fictitious) report about their group, participants were asked to evaluate the report. The results showed that participants with a strong social identity evaluated the threatening information more negatively than those with a weak social identity. Participants who had a strong social identity evaluated the non-threatening information more positively than those with a weak social identity. These results are discussed in the context of motivated reasoning and social identity theory.

Increasing Group Entitativity

Previous research has shown the strength of the linguistic intergroup bias across different intergroup settings. However, there is no evidence of linguistic discrimination within minimal groups. This experiment aimed to shed light on the phenomenon of linguistic intergroup discrimination in a minimal group setting, and to investigate the impact of group entitativity on this bias. Four group entitativity conditions were created by altering the mere categorization condition toward less entitativity and toward more entitativity. Participants were asked to describe the choice allegedly made by another participant in allocating resources to ingroup and outgroup members. Results showed an overall linguistic bias, whereby ingroup behaviors were described more positively and abstractly than outgroup behaviors. Increasing group entitativity resulted in increasingly biased outgroup descriptions, which in the most entitative condition revealed a predominant use of negative abstract terms.

Perceptions of Self and Group in the Context of a Threatened National Identity: A Field Study

Previous research indicates that people who are highly identified with their groups tend to remain committed to them under threat. This study examines the generalizability of this effect to (a) a real-life context involving the perception that others view the ingroup (Australians) as intolerant of minorities and (b) various dimensions of social identification. The sample comprised 213 respondents to a random mail survey. Perceived threat was inversely related to self-stereotyping (i.e. perceptions of self-ingroup similarity), but only for individuals with weak subjective ties to other group members. Threat perceptions were also predictive of enhanced judgments of within-group variability on threat-relevant dimensions, particularly for individuals with weaker ingroup ties. Various strategies for coping with a threatened social identity are linked to different facets of social identification.

Uncertainty Reduction, Self-Enhancement, and Ingroup Identification

Two experiments tested the prediction that uncertainty reduction and self-enhancement motivations have an interactive effect on ingroup identification. In Experiment 1 (N = 64), uncertainty and group status were manipulated, and the effect on ingroup identification was measured. As predicted, low-uncertainty participants identified more strongly with a high- than low-status group, whereas high-uncertainty participants showed no preference; and low-status group members identified more strongly under high than low uncertainty, whereas high-status group members showed no preference. Experiment 2 (N = 210) replicated Experiment 1, but with a third independent variable that manipulated how prototypical participants were of their group. As predicted, the effects obtained in Experiment 1 only emerged where participants were highly prototypical. Low prototypicality depressed identification with a low-status group under high uncertainty. The implications of these results for intergroup relations and the role of prototypicality in social identity processes are discussed.

In-Group or Out-Group Extemity: Importance of the Threatened Social Identity

Some researchers have found that out-group members are responded to more extremely than in-group members; others have found the reveres. The pre authors hypothesized that when importance of group membership was low, out-group extremity would be observed. That is, when the target's actions have few or no implications for the perceive's identity, out-group extremity will occur. In-group extremity was expected when perceivers are high in identification with the in-group. The presence of a threat to one's identity was predicted to intensity the in-group extremity effect for highly identified persons only Evaluations of a loyal or disloyal in-group or out-group member were made by highly identified or weakly identified in-group participants under threatening or nonthreatening conditions. The results confirmed the predicted pattern of effects. Implications for sports spectators and other self-selected group members are discussed.

When Misery Loves Categorical Company: Accessibility of the Individual Self as a Moderator in Category-Based Representation of Attractive and Unattractive In-Groups

In two experiments, the role of the accessibility of the individual self as a moderator variable in processing information about attractive or unattractive in-groups was examined. An indicator of category-based in-group representation served as the main dependent variable. In Experiment 1, the authors predicted and found an interaction between accessibility of the individual self and in-group attractiveness. People exhibited more category-based representations for unattractive than for attractive in-groups when accessibility was low, but the opposite trend was observed when accessibility was high. Experiment 2 showed that the difference in category-based representations of unattractive versus attractive in-groups, given low accessibility of the individual self: depends also on relative in-group size. Here, only majority members, but not minority members, showed the critical effect. The results are discussed in terms of group members' self-evaluation concerns.

Social Attraction, Personal Attraction, and Self-Categorization-, A Field Study

A distinction based on social identity theory and self-categorization theory is made between depersonalized (i.e., group prototypical, stereotypical) social attraction and idiosyncratic personal attraction. Only the former; as the affective component of group cohesiveness, is considered to be related to group belongingness. A questionnaire administered after a training session to 28 members of an Australian football team supported the hypotheses. As predicted, group prototypicality was significantly more closely related to social attraction and to social (group-based) popularity than to personal attraction and personal (non-group-based) popularity. Furthermore, members who were morestrongly identified with the team (e.g., rated themselves as highly prototypical) employed prototypicality as a stronger basis for social attraction than other members did.

Perceiving Discrimination Against One’s Gender Group has Different Implications for Well-Being in Women and Men

Using structural equation modeling, the authors tested theoretical predictions concerning the effects of perceived discrimination against one’s gender on psychological well-being in women and men. Results were highly supportive of the Rejection-Identification Model, with perceptions of discrimination harming psychological well-being among women but not among men. The results also support the Rejection-Identification Model’s prediction that women partially cope with the negative well-being consequences of perceived discrimination by increasing identification with women as a group. In contrast, perceived discrimination was unrelated to group identification among men. The authors found no support for the hypothesis that perceptions of discrimination have self-protective properties among the disadvantaged. Results are consistent with the contention that the differential effects of perceived discrimination among women and men are due to differences in the groups’ relative positions within the social structure.

The Impact of Respect Versus Neglect of Self-Identities on Identification and Group Loyalty

How do targets deal with a discrepancy between their choice of identity and the way they are categorized by others? In this article, the authors demonstrate that participants’ reactions to this discrepancy depend on whether the way they are actually treated by others respects their chosen identity. Participants whose choice of identity was neglected expressed low identification and little loyalty to the group to which they had been assigned. By contrast, identification and group loyalty were stronger among participants whose choice of identity was respected and who did not differ from controls on these measures. Of importance, only participants whose self-identity was respected also were willing to self-categorize in and express willingness to cooperate with the ascribed group. The implications of these results for the understanding of identity processes in pluralist societies are discussed.

Group Prototypically and Depersonalized Attraction in Small Interactive Groups

Two studies of mixed-sex interactive groups (N = 173) investigated the self-categorization theory hypothesis that positive attitude (liking) among group members is depersonalized in terms of the group prototype. Subjects ranked fellow members in terms of liking under conditions accentuating or diminishing group membership salience and rated the group's cohesiveness, described the group prototype, ranked fellow members and themselves on prototypically, and rated the subjective clarity of the prototype. In Study 2 they also ranked members in terms of interpersonal similarity to self. The results generally supported the hypotheses. Group liking was independent from interpersonal liking and was positively associated with perceptions of self and others that were depersonalized in terms of the group prototype and with perceptions of elevated group cohesiveness and a clear group prototype. Interpersonal attraction was unrelated or negatively related to these variables but was more strongly associate with perceptions of interpersonal similarity.

The Dynamics of Group Differentiation in the Face of Defeat

This study examined the process of between-group differentiation in a disadvantaged group to see how its members achieved some form of positive in-group distinctiveness. The players on the last-place ice hockey team in a competitive league were tested at eight games. Before and after each game, they were asked to rate how they perceived their team, the opposing team, and themselves. One hypothesis was that players could not ignore their past and present performance and would rate their opponents as superior on attributes that were critical for success. A second hypothesis was that players would achieve a measure of positive distinctiveness by seeing their opponents as more "dirty" in their play. Results, which supported these hypotheses, are discussed within the context of Tajfel and Turner's social identity theory.

Ethnocentrism, Social Identification, and Discrimination

In line with social identity theory (SIT), minimal group paradigm (MGP) studies have shown that high in-group identifiers discriminate more than low in-group identifiers. But why do some people identify more to their ad hoc group in the MGP? One week prior to a MGP study, 121 undergraduates completed scales assessing their ethnocentrism, authoritarianism, and personal need for structure. In Phase 2, the same participants took part in a MGP study in which us-them categorization was either assigned randomly or was chosen. Participants who chose their group membership identified more with their own group and discriminated more than respondents randomly assigned to their group. Path analysis showed that ethnocentrism and perception of control over group ascription predicted degree of in-group identification, which in turn, was positively related to discriminatory behavior.

Self-Stereotyping in the Face of Threats to Group Status and Distinctiveness: The Role of Group Identification

In four studies, effects of self-perceived or public-perceived threats to group status or group distinctiveness on self-stereotyping (defined as similarity to prototypical in-group members) were investigated for people with high or low in-group identification. The main prediction was that high and low identifiers will respond differentially when their group's status or distinctiveness is threatened such that self-stereotyping is reduced for low identifiers but enhanced for high identifiers. Although the four studies investigated different comparison groups and different kinds of group threat, the results of all studies provided support for the prediction, and this was confirmed by a meta-analysis. This supports the authors' argument that the initial level of group identification determines whether group members are likely to set themselves apart from the rest of their group or to show group solidarity when their identity as group members is threatened.

Intragroup and Intergroup Evaluation Effects on Group Behavior

Groups differ in the prestige they are accorded by outgroups, and individuals differ in how much respect they receive from their group. The authors orthogonally varied both types of social evaluation—intergroup and intragroup—to assess their joint effects on reward allocations and the amount of time donated to work on a group activity that could satisfy either personal or group goals. Respected members of a devalued group were the most inclined to withhold rewards from the outgroup, and they donated the greatest amount of time to improve the ingroup’s image rather than their personal image. Disrespected members of a prestigious group did not favor the ingroup over the outgroup in reward allocations, and they invested in a group activity only if they might improve their personal image by doing so. The authors discuss why intragroup respect is particularly important for devalued group members.

A Social Identity Approach to Sport Psychology: Principles, Practice, and Prospects

Drawing on social identity theory and self-categorization theory, we outline an approach to sport psychology that understands groups not simply as features of sporting contexts but rather as elements that can be, and often are, incorporated into a person's sense of self and, through this, become powerful determinants of their sport-related behavior. The underpinnings of this social identity approach are outlined, and four key lessons for sport that are indicative of the analytical and practical power of the approach are presented. These suggest that social identity is the basis for sports group (1) behavior, (2) formation and development, (3) support and stress appraisal, and (4) leadership. Building on recent developments within sport science, we outline an agenda for future research by identifying a range of topics to which the social identity approach could fruitfully contribute.

The risk of male success and failure: How performance outcomes along with a high-status identity affect gender identification, risk behavior, and self-esteem

Previous research has demonstrated that failure on a task may at times increase self-esteem, known as the failure-as-an-asset effect. This effect is observed when high-status group members (e.g., referring to management positions: men) show poor performance in a domain that is seen as a low-status domain—one in which the low-status group (e.g., referring to management positions: women) typically outperforms the high-status group. In line with social identity theory, in this case the poor performance leads high-status group members to a strong identification with the high-status ingroup, resulting in higher state self-esteem. However, social identity theory originally refers not only to self-evaluation, but also to the influence on individual behavior. Building on that, we predicted that if high-status group members show higher ingroup identification after negative individual feedback in a low-status domain, they should also show stronger ingroup prototypical behavior. A great deal of research has indicated that women’s behavior is more risk-averse than is men’s behavior. Thus, men should show riskier behavior after a poor performance on a test in which women outperform men. Two studies support our hypothesis. Men with an alleged individual low performance on a fictitious test reported riskier behavioral intentions (Experiment 1), and actually showed riskier behavior in an investment game (Experiment 2), when men were outperformed by women rather than when women were outperformed by men. The opposite pattern was found for men with an individual positive performance. As predicted, these effects were mediated by men’s gender identification. Practical implications are discussed.

Threats to Feminist Identity and Reactions to Gender Discrimination

The aim of this research was to examine conditions that modify feminists' support for women as targets of gender discrimination. In an experimental study we tested a hypothesis that threatened feminist identity will lead to greater differentiation between feminists and conservative women as victims of discrimination and, in turn, a decrease in support for non-feminist victims. The study was conducted among 96 young Polish female professionals and graduate students from Gender Studies programs in Warsaw who self-identified as feminists (M_age  = 22.23). Participants were presented with a case of workplace gender discrimination. Threat to feminist identity and worldview of the discrimination victim (feminist vs. conservative) were varied between research conditions. Results indicate that identity threat caused feminists to show conditional reactions to discrimination. Under identity threat, feminists perceived the situation as less discriminatory when the target held conservative views on gender relations than when the target was presented as feminist. This effect was not observed under conditions of no threat. Moreover, feminists showed an increase in compassion for the victim when she was portrayed as a feminist compared to when she was portrayed as conservative. Implications for the feminist movement are discussed.

Blinding trust: the effect of perceived group victimhood on intergroup trust

Four studies investigate how perceptions that one's social group has been victimized in society-that is, perceived group victimhood (PGV)-influence intergroup trust. Jewish and politically conservative participants played an economic trust game ostensibly with "partners" from their ingroup and/or a salient outgroup. Across studies, participants dispositionally or primed to be high in PGV revealed greater trust behavior with ingroup than outgroup partners. Control participants and those dispositionally low in PGV did not display such bias. Study 3 revealed, moreover, that high PGV enhanced ingroup trust even after an overt betrayal by an ingroup partner. Results were not explained by fluctuations in group identification, highlighting the novel, independent role of PGV in shaping an important aspect of intergroup relations-that is, trust. Implications of PGV for intergroup relations are discussed.

Threats to group value, domain-specific self-esteem and intergroup discrimination amongst minimal and national groups

The research reported in this investigation sought to examine the self-esteem hypothesis (SEH) using measures of domain-specific and public collective self-esteem (CSE). Two studies were conducted. Each tested both propositions of the SEH. The first study revealed that minimal group members (a) experienced an increase in that domain of self-esteem judged to be relatively more important to the in-group, following the display of in-group favouritism and (b) that minimal group members with low public CSE (and who thus believed that the in-group was negatively evaluated by the out-group) showed enhanced levels of in-group favouritism. The second study, which utilized the members of real social categories (i.e. New Zealanders and Australians) and negative outcome allocations (i.e. white noise) revealed identical findings. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Perceiving Your Group’s Future to Be in Jeopardy: Extinction Threat Induces Collective Angst and the Desire to Strengthen the Ingroup

Collective angst reflects concern about the ingroup’s future vitality. In four studies, the authors examined the impact of ingroup extinction threat on the experience of collective angst. In Study 1, collective angst was elicited in response to a physical or symbolic ingroup extinction threat compared to a no-threat control group. In Study 2, the extent to which French Canadians expressed collective angst because of the perceived extinction threat posed by English Canada predicted desire to engage in ingroup strengthening behaviors. In Studies 3 and 4, the impact of a historical extinction threat was assessed. The extent to which Jewish people expressed thinking about (Study 3) or were reminded of the Holocaust (Study 4) resulted in an increased desire to engage in ingroup strengthening behaviors. Collective angst acted as a mediator of these effects. Implications of extinction threat for both intragroup and intergroup behavior are discussed.