Self-esteem needs can drive group members toward discrimination that shields high in-group status.

Evidence

Other theories such as social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) and system justification theory (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004) take a different stance and propose that members of groups at the low ends of the status hierarchy are also active contributors to their own oppression. By supporting policies that favor dominant groups and adopting ideologies that justify the hierarchy, subordinates contribute to the formation and maintenance of these hierarchies. A third perspective on the formation of group-based hierarchies comes from SIT (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). According to SIT, the need for self-esteem is thought to lead group members to adopt various behavioral and cognitive identity management styles. One of these identity management styles is social competition, a form of intergroup discrimination that is used to create or protect high in-group status. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 852

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 852
• XREF: connects to: Self-esteem rises from joining the positively valued and distancing from the negatively valued. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 157