Losing groups accept defeat when they deem the competition fair and legitimate

Evidence

Social and realistic competition also differ in the predictions that can be made about the consequences for subsequent intergroup behavior of winning or losing. After realistic competition, the losing groups should be hostile to the out-group victors, both because they have been deprived of a reward and because their interaction has been exclusively conflictual. However, when winning and losing establish shared group evaluations concerning comparative superiority and inferiority, then, so long as the terms of the competition are perceived as legitimate and the competition itself as fair according to these terms, the losing group may acquiesce in the superiority of the winning out-group. This acquiescence by a group considering itself as legitimately “inferior” has been shown in studies by Caddick (1980, 1982), Commins and Lockwood, (1979) and Turner and Brown (1978). Several other studies report findings that are in line with this interpretation: losing in-groups do not always derogate, but sometimes upgrade, their evaluations of the winning out-groups (for example, Bass & Dunteman, 1963; Wilson & Miller, 1961). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2724

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to system justification theory — the legitimacy of a hierarchy predicts acquiescence rather than resentment — and to the book’s broader themes of stable vs. unstable social hierarchies.
• QUESTION: This has huge implications for when revolution vs. resignation follows defeat — worth tracing the conditions that flip legitimacy beliefs.