Quiescent subordinate groups show less ethnocentrism until questioning their low-status identity reignites resource conflict.

Evidence

In summary, RCT states that opposing claims to scarce resources, such as power, prestige, or wealth, generate ethnocentrism and antagonism between groups. Therefore, low status should tend to intensify out-group hostility in groups that are politically, economically, or socially subordinate. The evidence suggests, however, that where social-structural differences in the distribution of resources have been institutionalized, legitimized, and justified through a consensually accepted status system (or at least a status system that is suffi-ciently firm and pervasive to prevent the creation of cognitive alternatives to it), the result has been less and not more ethnocentrism in the different status groups. The price of this has often been the subordinate group’s self-esteem. On the other hand, whenever a subordinate group begins, for whatever reasons, to question or deny its presumed characteristics associated with its low status, this seems to facilitate the reawakening of a previously dormant conflict over objective resources. At the same time, it is likely that one of the counter-reactions from the dominant groups in such situations will be to work for the preservation of the previously existing “subjective” and “objective” differentiations. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2698

Categorization

• DEFINE: Reintroduces the key theoretical claim that legitimacy and the absence of ‘cognitive alternatives’ pacify intergroup antagonism, directly relevant to whether strategic essentialism loosens or tightens the bind.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s tracing of Foucault’s counter-history and the conditions under which subordinate groups develop cognitive alternatives to their assigned identity. — connects to: Subordinate groups often favor their oppressors rather than showing ethnocentrism; Status hierarchies dampen conflict by limiting cross-group comparisons, yet cannot explain rapid social change. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2695; Low-status groups can also hold prejudice against dominant group members — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 970 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Zero-sum competition over resources produces ethnocentrism and intergroup hostility #corroborates (0.90) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 136
• Low-status groups can also hold prejudice against dominant group members #expands (0.85) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 970
• Subordinate groups often favor their oppressors rather than showing ethnocentrism #corroborates (0.80)
• Low-status groups’ lower social dominance orientation means ideology does not block their politicization #corroborates (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4440
• Majority members contrast with in-groups while minorities assimilate with them #contradicts (0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1392
• Status hierarchies dampen conflict by limiting cross-group comparisons, yet cannot explain rapid social change. #corroborates (0.70) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2695