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The Importance of Status Legitimacy for Intergroup Attitudes Among Numerical Minorities
Author(s) -
Bettencourt B. Ann,
Bartholow Bruce D.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1998.tb01247.x
Subject(s) - legitimacy , ingroups and outgroups , psychology , representation (politics) , minority group , social psychology , social status , ethnic group , political science , law , politics
This study investigated whether the legitimacy of the status structure influences the interactive effects of group status and numerical representation on intergroup attitudes. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (level of status; high, low) by 2 (legitimacy of status; legitimate, illegitimate) by 2 (numerical representation; majority, minority) between‐subjects design. The predicted three‐way interaction indicated that, when status was illegitimate, majority groups with high status showed more ingroup bias than majority groups with low status, but minority groups with high status did not show more ingroup bias than their counterparts with low status. By comparison, when status was legitimate, high‐status groups were more biased than low‐status groups, regardless of numerical representation.