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Reaching across group boundaries: Respect from outgroup members facilitates recategorization as a common group
Author(s) -
Simon Bernd,
Mommert Alex,
Renger Daniela
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/bjso.12112
Subject(s) - outgroup , ingroups and outgroups , psychology , social psychology , conceptualization , group (periodic table) , developmental psychology , chemistry , organic chemistry , artificial intelligence , computer science
Two laboratory experiments tested the hypothesis that (equality‐based) respect from outgroup members facilitates recategorization of the original ingroup and outgroup as a common group. In Experiment 1, we varied respect from outgroup members (low vs. medium vs. high) and measured recipients’ willingness to recategorize. As predicted, high respect from an outgroup source increased willingness to recategorize as a common group relative to low respect. In Experiment 2, we orthogonally varied respect (low vs. medium vs. high) and its source (ingroup members vs. outgroup members) and employed a more differentiated recategorization measure including an intermediate or nested‐group option (i.e., two subgroups of a common group). While the recategorization effect of high versus low respect from outgroup members was replicated, no such effect was observed for respect from ingroup members. Instead, there was some indication that, when it comes from ingroup members, a medium level of respect may be optimal for inducing a shift towards recategorization as a common group. Implications of the present research for the conceptualization of respect are discussed.