Devaluing Domains in Response to Threatening Intergroup Comparisons

Perceived Legitimacy and the Status Value Asymmetry

Schmader, Toni
Major, Brenda
Eccleston, Collette P.
McCoy, Shannon K.

¹Department of Psychology, University of Arizona
²Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara.

³Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Toni Schmader, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210068, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0068. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

Much of the research reported in this article is based on Toni Schmader's doctoral dissertation, written while she was at the University of California, Santa Barbara. For this research, Toni Schmader was awarded the 2000 Social Issues Dissertation Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. This research was supported by National Research Service Award MH12015-01 and by National Science Foundation Grant BCS-9983888. We thank Nancy Collins, Howard Giles, Stanley Klein, Diane Mackie, Brian Lickel, Robert Kurzban, and Rich Gramzow for their advice on this research and on drafts of this article.

Received Date: September 11, 2000; Revised Date: October 1, 2000; Accepted Date: October 5, 2000

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80(5):p 782-796, May 2001.

Group status and status legitimacy were tested as moderators of devaluing in response to threatening intergroup comparisons. In 3 experiments, participants received feedback comparing their in-group (based on school or gender) to a higher or lower status out-group. When the legitimacy of group status differences was assumed (Studies 1 and 2) or manipulated (Study 3), participants devalued the domain when their in-group compared unfavorably with a lower status out-group but did not devalue the domain when their in-group compared unfavorably with a higher status out-group. In Study 3, this status value asymmetry was eliminated when status differences were delegitimized. Mediational analyses suggested that the status value asymmetry was explained by the perceived utility of the domain for gaining status-relevant rewards.