Authors: Marek Błażewicz & Mirosław Kofta (University of Warsaw)

initial version

Despite widespread belief, ingroup positivity and outgroup derogation are distinct phenomena, having different sources and mechanisms (e.g., Brewer, 2007). A dual-process theory (Duckitt, 2001) proposed that RWA “…expresses the threat-driven motivational goal of maintaining and establishing group and social order, cohesion, and security”, whereas SDO expresses “…the competitively driven goal of establishing and maintaining ingroup dominance, power and superiority” (Duckitt & Sibley, 2007, p. 115). It seems therefore that RWA might primarily account for ingroup love, whereas SDO might primarily account for outgroup derogation. We examined this hypothesis studying the relationships between RWA and SDO and inferences of personality traits of ingroup and outgroup members. 251 participants were presented with 16 short stories describing various life situations and inferred personality traits of story heros. Then, for each person, an aggregate index of trait positivity was calculated separately for communion and competence traits. Depending on experimental condition, story hero was presented as an ingroup or outgroup member. Simultaneous regressions (with RWA and SDO as predictors) have revealed that (a) RWA increased inferences of positive communion as well as competence traits in the case of ingroup members and had no effects on trait inference in the case of outgroup members, and (b) SDO had no effects on trait inference in the case of ingroup members, but increased inferences of negative communion as well as competence traits in the case of outgroup members. The findings support an idea that RWA promotes ingroup love, whereas SDO promotes ingroup superiority though derogation of outgroupers.

Details

Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 0.1743 0.1459 1.19 0.2359
ZSDO -0.0381 0.1514 -0.25 0.8020
ZRWA 0.3884 0.1552 2.50 0.0144
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) -0.0547 0.1635 -0.33 0.7387
ZSDO 0.0695 0.1696 0.41 0.6830
ZRWA 0.4361 0.1739 2.51 0.0142
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 0.2836 0.1376 2.06 0.0424
ZSDO -0.4202 0.1436 -2.93 0.0045
ZRWA 0.2257 0.1457 1.55 0.1254
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 0.0992 0.1463 0.68 0.4995
ZSDO -0.2797 0.1527 -1.83 0.0707
ZRWA 0.0105 0.1550 0.07 0.9460 
## 
## Call:
## lm(formula = posv_Wsp ~ ZSDO + ZRWA, data = czyste[czyste$GRUPA == 
##     "ingroup", ])
## 
## Residuals:
##     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
## -2.4941 -0.8349 -0.1673  0.7307  3.3750 
## 
## Coefficients:
##             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)  
## (Intercept)   0.1743     0.1459   1.195   0.2359  
## ZSDO         -0.0381     0.1514  -0.252   0.8020  
## ZRWA          0.3884     0.1552   2.502   0.0144 *
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
## Residual standard error: 1.311 on 78 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared:  0.07741,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.05376 
## F-statistic: 3.273 on 2 and 78 DF,  p-value: 0.04318
## 
## Call:
## lm(formula = posv_Kom ~ ZSDO + ZRWA, data = czyste[czyste$GRUPA == 
##     "ingroup", ])
## 
## Residuals:
##     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
## -2.9786 -1.1754  0.0483  0.7967  5.1367 
## 
## Coefficients:
##             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)  
## (Intercept) -0.05473    0.16349  -0.335   0.7387  
## ZSDO         0.06952    0.16963   0.410   0.6830  
## ZRWA         0.43614    0.17391   2.508   0.0142 *
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
## Residual standard error: 1.469 on 78 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared:  0.09087,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.06755 
## F-statistic: 3.898 on 2 and 78 DF,  p-value: 0.02435
## 
## Call:
## lm(formula = posv_Wsp ~ ZSDO + ZRWA, data = czyste[czyste$GRUPA == 
##     "outgroup", ])
## 
## Residuals:
##     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
## -3.2510 -0.7788 -0.0682  0.8702  3.1895 
## 
## Coefficients:
##             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)   
## (Intercept)   0.2836     0.1376   2.062  0.04245 * 
## ZSDO         -0.4202     0.1436  -2.926  0.00446 **
## ZRWA          0.2257     0.1457   1.549  0.12536   
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
## Residual standard error: 1.259 on 81 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared:    0.1,  Adjusted R-squared:  0.07783 
## F-statistic: 4.502 on 2 and 81 DF,  p-value: 0.01399
## 
## Call:
## lm(formula = posv_Kom ~ ZSDO + ZRWA, data = czyste[czyste$GRUPA == 
##     "outgroup", ])
## 
## Residuals:
##     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
## -4.3111 -0.7662 -0.0482  0.8481  3.2303 
## 
## Coefficients:
##             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)  
## (Intercept)  0.09923    0.14629   0.678   0.4995  
## ZSDO        -0.27968    0.15273  -1.831   0.0707 .
## ZRWA         0.01054    0.15500   0.068   0.9460  
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
## Residual standard error: 1.339 on 81 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared:  0.04296,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.01933 
## F-statistic: 1.818 on 2 and 81 DF,  p-value: 0.1689