Outgroup salience boosts conscious ingroup identification when the ingroup is already salient.

Evidence

The results of Study 2 (see Figure 2) provide evidence that ingroup salience and outgroup salience combine to play an important role in determining a conscious sense of social identification. This conclusion is consistent with the tenets of selfcategorization theory. Importantly, the results go beyond previous findings to show that the effects of ingroup salience and outgroup salience on conscious identification with the ingroup do not depend on conscious awareness of the relevant cognitive processes or even of the ingroup/outgroup stimuli. When subliminal primes designed to make the ingroup salient were used in conjunction with subliminal primes designed to make the outgroup salient, self-reported identification with the ingroup was significantly higher than when ingroup salience primes were used alone or when outgroup salience primes were used alone. — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 47

These results demonstrate that the combination of ingroup salience and outgroup salience is necessary to influence participants’ conscious sense of social identity. This finding is consistent with previous theory suggesting that group identities can become automatically linked with the self and others over time (Amiot et al., 2007) and provides important implications for other research areas in which prime pairing is used (e.g., Is it necessary to link I/me with positive self-descriptors, or are positive self-descriptive words alone enough to boost implicit self-esteem?; see Dijksterhuis, 2004). — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 48

Consistent with expectations, results indicated a significant effect, F(1, 68) = 4.44, p = .039, η2 = .063, such that participants for whom the outgroup was made salient identified more strongly as a member of their university (M = 51.71, SD = 12.98) than those not exposed to the outgroup primes (M = 44.95, SD = 13.13; see Figure 1). — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 35

These results suggest that when both ingroup and outgroup were salient, participants’ self-identification with the ingroup was enhanced compared to when only an ingroup or an outgroup were made salient. — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 44

Categorization

• QUESTION: The analogy to implicit self-esteem priming raises whether conjunctive primes follow a general rule across constructs requiring both self- and other-referent activation.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 47; Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 48; Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 35 (+1 more)
• XREF: connects to: Either ingroup or outgroup salience alone may suffice to increase social identification. — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 19; Identification with one’s group is strongest when both ingroup and outgroup are made salient — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 23; Salient group membership extends the psychological self to the ingroup (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Outgroups are not typically salient when people think about their ingroup #contradicts (0.85) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 453
• Ingroup bias rises when outgroups are similar and ingroup identification is strong. #qualifies (0.78) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 432
• Ingroup-outgroup pairing, not either alone, drives identity shifts #expands (0.76) — Brandon Randolph-Seng, Darcy A. Reich, and Kenneth G. DeMarree, On the Nonconscious Antecedents of…, 50
• Group salience strengthens positive contact’s anxiety-reducing effect #expands (0.75) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1844
• Experimentally raising a group’s perceived entitativity increases members’ identification with it. #corroborates (0.74) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 266
• Group membership salience shifts flexibly across contexts and individuals #qualifies (0.73) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 111
• Salient group membership extends the psychological self to the ingroup #expands (0.72)
• Eliminating group salience backfires because identity is meaningful and perceptually unavoidable #complicates (0.72)