Disparaging a lower-status group psychologically uplifts the higher-status group

Evidence

And while having a socially sanctioned group of people to disparage is psychologically uplifting for those granted higher social status, there is little doubt that the people who are belittled often struggle to feel good about themselves. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 236

Categorization

• BMF: This evokes the social scaffolding of Things Fall Apart, where the osu caste system and the marginalization of the ‘efulefu’ (worthless men) function exactly as designated inferiors whose existence props up clan dignity — a cross-domain resonance with Achebe’s treatment of hierarchy.
• XREF: connects to: Ingroup identification predicts less forgiveness only among the higher-status group — Miles Hewstone and Ed Cairns and Alberto Voci and Juergen Hamberger and Ulrike Niens, Intergroup Contact, Forgiveness, and…, 105; Threat effects on attitudes are stronger for low-status than high-status outgroups — Blake M. Riek, Eric W. Mania, and Samuel L. Gaertner, Intergroup Threat and Outgroup…, 129; Narrated exclusivity hardens over time into constitutive claims of positional superiority. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 114

Related

• Low social status can paradoxically increase out-group admiration (similarity 0.82)