Warm or competent? Improving intergroup relations by addressing threatened identities of advantaged and disadvantaged groups

Applying the Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation to contexts of group disparity, two studies examined how messages from outgroup representatives that affirmed the warmth or competence of advantaged or disadvantaged groups influenced their members’ intergroup attitudes. Study 1 involved natural groups differing in status; Study 2 experimentally manipulated status. In both studies, advantaged-group members responded more favorably, reporting more positive outgroup attitudes and willingness to change the status quo toward equality, to messages reassuring their group’s warmth. Disadvantaged-group members responded more favorably to messages affirming their group’s competence. Study 2 further demonstrated that the effectiveness of reassuring a disadvantaged group’s competence stemmed from restoring its threatened dimension of identity, irrespective of a change of the status quo. In line with Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), these results indicate that beyond the competition over tangible resources, groups are concerned with restoring threatened dimensions of their identities. Exchanging messages that remove identity-related threats may promote not only positive intergroup attitudes but also greater willingness to act collectively for intergroup equality. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Intuition suggests that conveying positive gestures andmessages to members of another group is likely to promote positive intergroup attitudes and relations (Osgood, 1962). The Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation (Nadler & Shnabel, 2008; Shnabel & Nadler, 2008), however, further proposes that the specific contents of such positive intergroup messages are critical to shaping the resulting intergroup attitudes. Research conducted within the framework of the NeedsBased Model (Shnabel, Nadler, Ullrich, Dovidio, & Carmi, 2009) on the exchange of positive messages between victimized and perpetrating groups (e.g., Jews and Germans) has revealed that messages that satisfy the unique motivations of members of victimized and perpetrating groups were particularly effective in increasing their willingness to reconcile with each other. Specifically, members of victimized groups suffered from impairment to their sense of power and experienced an enhanced motivation for gaining power as a result. Consequently, they were more motivated to reconcile with the perpetrating group when the other group conveyed an empowering, rather than accepting, message to them. Members of perpetrating groups, in contrast, suffered from impairment to their moral image, which enhanced the anxiety of their members over social exclusion. Perpetrating groups consequently experienced an enhanced motivation for gaining *Correspondence to: Nurit Shnabel, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv Univer E-mail: shnabeln@post.tau. ac.il Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. moral-social acceptance and therefore were more motivated to reconcile when the victimized group communicated an accepting message. The goal of the present work, consisting of two experiments, was to explore how these previous insights into psychological needs associated with victim and perpetrator roles can be applied to better understand mutual relations between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Based on the premise that the social roles of “victims” and “perpetrators” correspond in several respects to those of advantaged and disadvantaged groups (see also Siem, von Oettingen,Mummendey, &Nadler, 2013), we incorporated general principles of intergroup perception, drawing mainly from the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) and literature on the “Big-Two” (Abele, Cuddy, Judd, & Yzerbyt, 2008), to extend the Needs-Based Model to the context of status differentials between groups. In particular, we examined how the content of intergroup messages, which targeted different dimensions of disadvantaged and advantaged groups’ identities (i.e., competence or warmth) and thus addressed different motivations, influenced their members’ intergroup attitudes and willingness to act for social change. Applying the Needs-Based Model to contexts of intergroup inequality, we confronted twomajor challenges that we turn to discuss in the next two sections. sity, Ramat Aviv, Israel. Received 10 April 2012, Accepted 29 April 2013 Nurit Shnabel et al. Nature of Impaired Dimensions We suggest that much in the same way that direct violence threatens victims’ sense of power and perpetrators’moral image, group disparity threatens disadvantaged groups’ competence and advantaged groups’ warmth, the two fundamental identity dimensions identified by the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske et al., 2002). While there is strong similarity between these constructs, it is important to note that moral image and warmth, on one hand, or sense of power and competence, on the other, are not exactly the same. For example, as part of their research on agentic women, Rudman and Glick (2001) distinguished between competence and dominance, the latter referring to advancing one’s interests at the expense of others. Correspondingly, Leach, Ellemers, and Barreto (2007) showed that warmth and morality constitute separate dimensions of groups’ identities. Nevertheless, we suggest that competence and power, on one hand, and warmth and moral image, on the other, can be subsumed under the same two broad, multifaceted categories—the “Big-Two” dimensions—that underlie various social judgments and perceptions (Abele et al., 2008). We further argue that different components within the Big-Two dimensions may become more salient as a function of the specific context: In contexts of direct violence, such as the ones examined so far within the Needs-Based Model’s framework, groups may be motivated to restore their sense of power andmoral image, whereas in contexts of group disparity, they may be particularly concerned about defying their stereotypical portrayal as incompetent or cold. Indeed, competence and warmth are generally perceived in compensatory ways: When a group is perceived as high on one dimension, it tends to be perceived as low on the other (Kervyn, Yzerbyt, & Judd, 2010). Thus, disadvantaged groups are often stereotypically perceived as warm but incompetent, whereas advantaged groups are often stereotypically perceived as competent but cold and immoral (Fiske et al., 2002). Such stereotypic portrayals can arouse different identity threats among groups differing in status. Specifically, members of disadvantaged groups are likely to experience a threat to the competence dimension of their identity, whereas advantaged-groupmembers may typically experience a threat to their warmth dimension (i.e., the “moral-social dimension”; Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007). Consistent with this suggestion, Bergsieker, Shelton, and Richeson (2010) found that within interpersonal interactions between Blacks and Latinos (disadvantaged groups in the USA) and Whites (an advantaged group), Blacks and Latinos were motivated to gain respect, whereas Whites were motivated to be liked. The motivation to gain respect or to be liked corresponds to the removal of threats to the competence and warmth dimensions, respectively, of their identities. Whereas Bergsieker and colleagues suggested that these divergent motivations may lead to misunderstandings and negative attitudes toward individual interaction partners, the present research studied the consequences of addressing these motivations in terms of improving positive intergroup attitudes and cooperation at the group level. Meaning of Reconciliation in Contexts of Group Disparity In the field of peace psychology, positive peace represents the promotion of social arrangements that reduce social, racial, gender, and economic injustices as barriers to peace (Christie, Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Tint, Wagner, & DuNann Winter, 2008). (By contrast, negative peace refers to the cessation of direct violence.) Consistent with the definition of positive peace, we suggest that whereas in contexts of direct violence, reconciliation denotes “a changed psychological orientation toward the other” (Staub, Pearlman, Gubin, & Hagengimana, 2005, p. 301); when translated into contexts of group disparity, reconciliation may additionally mean readiness to support structural change toward equality. This additional aspect—willingness to act for social equality—is of particular importance in light of the findings that in contexts of group disparity, positive intergroup attitudes may be dissociated from collective action tendencies. Specifically, among disadvantaged groups, positive attitudes toward the advantaged group may reflect the justification of group disparity, which is related to reduced collective action tendencies (Saguy & Chernyak-Hai, 2012; Saguy, Tausch, Dovidio, & Pratto, 2009). Among advantaged groups, positive attitudes toward disadvantaged outgroups are often dissociated from willingness to act for changing the status quo to improve the situation of these outgroups because such action requires to give up power and privilege (Dixon, Durrheim, & Tredoux, 2005; Dovidio, Gaertner, & Saguy, 2008; Saguy et al., 2009). In summary, in terms of the ultimate outcomes of the reconciliation process (i.e., intergroup harmony and support for equality), the translation of groups’ willingness to reconcile into contexts of group disparity would correspond to both having positive intergroup attitudes and willingness to act for social change to eliminate group disparity. Of course, collective action toward achieving equality has different meanings, in terms of underlying motivations, for members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups. For advantaged-group members, willingness to act for social change constitutes a particularly strong indicator of “willingness to reconcile” because, beyond an abstract positive orientation toward the disadvantaged outgroup, such tendencies signify an altruistic readiness to reli