Ingroup identification can moderate or mediate how deprivation produces prejudice

Evidence

There is evidence that feelings of deprivation often lead directly to prejudice (Olson & Hafer, 1996; Pettigrew et al., 1998). According to the “moderation hypothesis” outlined above, one could expect this effect to differ between high and low identifiers. Some empirical evidence for such moderation was found by Struch and Schwartz (1989) in an Israeli interreligious context. They observed that perceptions of conflicting goals (a variable related to deprivation) were correlated with aggressive intentions towards the outgroup, but that the correlation was noticeably stronger amongst those participants who identified strongly with their ingroup. A similar interaction between a group conflict variable – this time between the actual experience (or not) of a particular intergroup dispute – and identification was observed by Brown et al. (2001) in a study of British visitors to France. The effects of the conflict on negative evaluations of French people were more marked amongst more strongly identified respondents. These results suggest that identification might indeed qualify the effects of deprivation on prejudice. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 464

When thinking about the consequences of ingroup identification for prejudice, one further variable of relevance might be deprivation, the “feeling that one has been unjustly deprived of some desired thing” (Crosby, 1976, p. 88). Here we consider two possibilities of how the three variables – identification, deprivation, and prejudice – might be linked. One option proposes identification to moderate the effect of deprivation on prejudice. In other words, something different happens among high and low identifiers because of the differential importance of their group memberships to them (Ellemers, Spears, & Doosje, 2002). Another option proposes identification to be the linking process (a mediator) between systematic discrimination or deprivation and intergroup outcomes such as outgroup derogation and prejudice (Mummendey, Kessler, Klink, & Mielke, 1999). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 463

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to grievance-based accounts of conflict; a concrete empirical anchor for how identification magnifies felt deprivation into outgroup hostility — relevant to work on political polarization and nationalist grievance. — 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; Ingroup identification strength moderates whether group-level or individual-level threats drive attitudes. — Blake M. Riek, Eric W. Mania, and Samuel L. Gaertner, Intergroup Threat and Outgroup…, 151; Type of ingroup association moderates whether collective guilt or shame is evoked — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 325
• SEED: An essay angle: ingroup identification as an amplifier pedal for grievance — why the same felt deprivation produces aggressive outgroup intentions in some people and not others.
• DEFINE: Defines deprivation and lays out the moderation-vs-mediation distinction as two competing causal structures — useful framework for thinking about grievance and group dynamics.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 464; , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 463