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European Journal of Social Psychology, Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 43, 40–49 (2013)Published online 17 December 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.1923
Research article
Social categorization and group-motivated interindividual–intergroup discontinuity
ROBERT BÖHM1*, KLAUS ROTHERMUND2 AND OLIVER KIRCHKAMP3
1Center for Empirical Research in Economics and Behavioral Sciences (CEREB), University of Erfurt, Erfurt,Germany; 2General Psychology II, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany; 3School of Economicsand Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany
Abstract
Research on the interindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect has demonstrated that intergroup relations are often less cooperativethan interindividual relations. The aim of the present paper is to test whether mere social categorization suffices to create a group-motivated discontinuity effect. In two experiments, we manipulated actors’ personal versus social identity salience, whereas control-ling for actors’ outcome independence (1 : 1) versus interdependence (3 : 3). Making actors’ social identity salient using aminimal group treatment was sufficient to increase defection in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, irrespective of whether this was inan interindividual or intergroup interaction (Experiment 1). Using a Mutual Fate Control matrix in Experiment 2, results indicatethat this effect can be attributed to actors’ increased motivation to maximize relative differences to outgroup opponents under socialidentity salience. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Inmany social interactions, interests of decision makers partiallycorrespond and partially conflict with each other (mixed-motivesituations; Schelling, 1960). Decision makers face a motiva-tional conflict between actions that maximize own outcomes(defection) and actions that maximize joint outcomes (coopera-tion). Opposing actors can be individuals but also groups, forexample, boards of directors, committees, or juries (Messick,Moore, & Bazerman, 1997). An impressive body of researchin both laboratory and non-laboratory settings demonstrated thatin mixed-motive situations, intergroup interactions are often lesscooperative than interindividual interactions (for an overview,see Wildschut, Pinter, Vevea, Insko, & Schopler, 2003).Because of this discontinuity in behaviour (cooperation vs.non-cooperation) as a function of the type of opponent(individuals vs. groups), this phenomenon has been labelledinterindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect.
Most of the previous research suggests that the discontinu-ity effect is linked to the motivation to selfishly maximize ownpersonal outcomes. This motivation is larger in intergroupinteractions than it is in interindividual interactions (Schopler,Insko, Drigotas, & Wieselquist, 1995; Wildschut & Insko,2007; Wildschut, Insko, & Gaertner, 2002). However, someexperiments also suggest that it is the motivation to maximizethe own group’s joint outcome, which may be responsible forthe discontinuity effect (Wildschut et al., 2002; Insko et al.,1987). We call the phenomenon resulting from the formerfamily of explanations a person-motivated discontinuity effect,and from the latter explanation a group-motivated discontinu-ity effect. In previous experiments, actions from person-level
*Correspondence to: Robert Böhm, Center for Empirical Research in Economics aE-mail: [email protected]
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
and group-level motivations were structurally confounded,and both might have partly contributed to the observeddiscontinuity effects. Moreover, the conditions and underlyingpsychological processes of group-motivated discontinuityhave received little attention. Particularly, it was not testedwhether mere social categorization can be sufficient to createa group-motivated discontinuity effect.
Group-motivated effects on competitive behaviour are ofutmost importance in social settings. Often individual actorsare members of distinct social groups. These actors cantake decisions that have important consequences for society(e.g. managers of different firms, politicians and representa-tives of social groups). If actors representing social groupsare more competitive than individual agents, processes ofintragroup communication or a ‘shield of anonymity’ cannotexplain a behavioural discontinuity because these elementsare often lacking in these interaction situations. Still, the mererepresentation of oneself as a member or representative of asocial group or category might suffice to have an influenceon the decisions that are made and might result in moreaggressive and less cooperative bargaining behaviour.
The question whether mere social categorization itself maybe responsible for the discontinuity effect is also important froma theoretical perspective. It establishes a link between the litera-ture on social identity and categorization processes (for reviews,see Hogg, Abrams, Otten, & Hinkle, 2004; Hornsey, 2008) andthe literature on the interindividual–intergroup discontinuityeffect. Showing that mere social categorization increasescompetitive behaviour would indicate that at least some part of
nd Behavioral Sciences (CEREB), University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany.
Received 30 September 2011, Accepted 21 October 2012
Group-motivated discontinuity effect 41
the interindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect cannot beexplained with selfish, person-related motives, but must origi-nate from a purely group-based motivation.
In this paper, we investigate the role of social categorizationprocesses for the emergence of the interindividual–intergroupdiscontinuity effect. We argue that social categorization sufficesto create a group-motivated discontinuity effect. Furthermore,we investigate whether the motivation to maximize absolute orrelative outcomes of the own group is responsible for this effect.Before turning to the first experiment, we review prominentexplanations of interindividual–intergroup discontinuity withregard to the proposed distinction between person-level andgroup-level motivations. Moreover, we discuss the role of socialcategorization processes for group-motivated discontinuity andderive the hypotheses of the present research.
Person-motivated versus group-motivated interindividual–intergroup discontinuity
In interindividual interactions (1 : 1), the maximization of anactor’s personal interest predicts defection; whereas in inter-group interactions (n : n, with n> 1), defection can be the resultof maximizing the actor’s personal interest as well as the owngroup’s joint interest.1
Most explanations (for an overview, see Wildschut & Insko,2007) assume actors’ greater motivation to maximize their ownpersonal outcomes in intergroup interactions compared withinterindividual interactions as the main source of interindivid-ual–intergroup discontinuity (i.e. person-motivated discontinu-ity effect). For instance, it has been argued that groupmembers are less identifiable for non-cooperative behaviour inan anonymous intergroup context, making self-interested behav-iour more likely (Schopler et al., 1995). Additionally, in-groupmembers can provide mutual social support for self-interestedbehaviour (Insko, Schopler, Hoyle, Dardis, & Graetz, 1990;Schopler et al., 1993; Wildschut et al., 2002). Actors may also‘pool’ their cognitive recourses during an intragroup discussionthat is often present prior to intergroup interactions. Thus, theyare more likely to gain insight into the mixed-motive games’‘rational’ structure, dictating non-cooperative behaviour to max-imize personal outcomes (Bornstein, Kugler, & Ziegelmeyer,2004; Bornstein & Yaniv, 1998; Kocher & Sutter, 2005).Furthermore, enabling actors to rationalize selfish behaviour asan in-group-favouring act by making them accountable for othergroup members’ outcomes has been shown to increase defection(Pinter & Wildschut, 2011; Pinter et al., 2007).
An alternative approach to explain the phenomenon is bymeans of group-level motivations. Accordingly, themotivation to maximize the own group’s outcome may be(at least partly) responsible for the interindividual–intergroupdiscontinuity effect. For instance, Wildschut et al. (2002,Experiment 3) showed that cooperation with an opponent
1Group members’ personal outcomes are perfectly correlated with the group’sjoint outcome. Thus, there is no conflict of interest within groups in intergroupinteractions (unitary groups; Bornstein, 2008). As a result, group members cancoordinate on a joint strategy without personal costs. Intragroup coordinationon a joint strategy may use any public choice mechanism, for instance, a consen-sus rule (Bornstein & Yaniv, 1998; Wolf et al., 2008), a majority rule (Cohen,Montoya, & Insko, 2006; Schopler et al., 1995), an average rule, or a leader/rep-resentative decision (Pinter et al., 2007). These mechanisms may use, but do notrequire an intragroup discussion (‘cheap talk’).
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
group was smaller when an individual group member expectedthat his or her decision was made public to other groupmembers than in a situation when the decision was private.This effect, however, may also be attributed to the normativepressure to benefit the in-group in the public condition, whichwould explain the effect in terms of person-based rather thantruly group-based motives (fear of negative feedback and/orsanctions from the group).
It is, thus, still an open question whether the structural char-acteristics of typical intergroup interactions (e.g. proceduralinterdependence, anonymity and intragroup communication)are necessary to activate a group member’s motivation tomaximize the own group’s outcome. In the following, wepresent experiments to test a purely group-motivated disconti-nuity effect. Specifically, we investigated whether the actors’shared perception of a joint group membership suffices toincrease competitive behaviour in interaction with actors froman (perceived) outgroup even in the complete absence of anyadditional factors.
Social categorization and group-motivated discontinuity
According to an identity-based perspective of group formationand intergroup behaviour (Hogg et al., 2004; Hornsey, 2008;Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986; Turner, Hogg,Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), a person’s self-conceptencompasses a personal identity and a social identity. Aperson’s personal identity is based on idiosyncratic character-istics that are not shared with other people—a self-construalin terms of the distinction ‘I’ and ‘You’. Social identity isderived from a person’s knowledge to belong to a certainsocial group and the subjective meaning associated with thisknowledge. Drawing attention to a group membership of aperson (‘social categorization’) thus also leads to an activationof the respective social identity. People cognitively representgroups in terms of prototypes. These prototypes are sets ofinterrelated attributes that capture similarities within a groupas well as differences between groups according to the princi-ple of meta-contrast (Turner et al., 1987). People of the samesocial group typically have similar definitions of what attri-butes they share, and how they relate to and differ from othersocial groups. Accordingly, group membership is a collectiveself-construal in terms of the distinction ‘We’ and ‘They’.In a given situation, only one identity is psychologicallyreal—personal versus social identity—the salient basis ofself-construal and social perception (Oakes & Turner, 1986).If persons self-categorize as group members through theprinciples of accessibility and fit (Oakes, 1987), the in-group’sprototype may affect how they feel and behave (e.g. in-groupliking and in-group over out-group preference).
Building on the identity-based intragroup and intergroupperspective, what motivates behaviour in mixed-motive situa-tions under personal and social identity salience, respectively?As a result of a self-representation as a unique individual(salient personal identity) or as an interchangeable componentof a larger social unit (salient social identity), behaviour isinfluenced by the motivation to maximize either the personalor the in-group’s outcome, respectively (Brewer, 1991;De Cremer & Van Vugt, 1999; Brewer & Kramer, 1986).According to Messick and Sentis (1985) and in line with social
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42 Robert Böhm et al.
identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986), under socialidentity salience not only non-social utility (i.e. absolute out-comes of in-group members; max own) but also social utilitybecomes important (i.e. outcome of in-group members relativeto out-group members; max rel). Following this perspective,maximizing relative outcomes plays a greater role inintergroup than interindividual relations because it increasespositive distinctiveness. Supporting this assumption, competi-tive intergroup behaviour has been reported even in theabsence of outcome interdependence between in-group mem-bers (Billig & Tajfel, 1973; Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament,1971). Previous research already compared interactions betweenin-group and out-group members under actors’ social identitysalience (e.g. Insko, Kirchner, Pinter, Efaw, & Wildschut,2005). However, one might also expect more competitionbetween members of different groups under social identitysalience in comparison with interactions between the samepersons if their personal identity is made salient, particularlybecause of an increased competitive motivation.
Summing up, there is good empirical and theoreticalsupport for the assumption that social identity salienceincreases actors’ motivation to maximize the own group’soutcome in interactions with out-group opponents comparedwith an actor’s motivation to maximize his/her own personaloutcome under personal identity salience. Therefore, wehypothesize that interactions between actors with a salientsocial identity are less cooperative than interactions betweenactors with a salient personal identity. This would lead to agroup-motivated discontinuity effect. The effect should holdeven when one omits or controls for concurring mechanismsthat have been shown to induce person-motivated interindivid-ual–intergroup discontinuity. Moreover, in the absence ofstructural differences between interindividual and intergroupinteractions, particularly the motivation to maximize the owngroup’s outcome (absolute and/or relative) should accountfor group-motivated interindividual–intergroup discontinuity.
EXPERIMENT 1
2A pilot study was conducted to test the manipulation’s effectiveness in the presentcontext. We conducted four sessions, each with 18 participants (N=72; 22 men, 50women), who were invited to an interactive lab-experiment. In two sessions, inter-action partners were outgroup members according to the estimation task (socialidentity condition), whereas in the other sessions interaction partners were matchedrandomly (personal identity condition). Self-categorization was assessed by askingparticipants how much they perceive all persons of the experimental session asone group, two groups and unique individuals (7-point scales from 1= completelydisagree to 7 = completely agree; Gaertner, Mann, Murrell, & Dovidio, 1989).There was a significant difference in the perception of two groups between the so-cial identity and personal identity condition,Mpersonal = 2.50, SD=1.54,Msocial =3.94, SD=2.24,F(1, 71) = 10.16, p< .01 and �p
2 = 0.13. Values of perceptions asunique individuals and one group did not differ between conditions (bothFs< 1).This indicates that the manipulation of social categorization was successful and istherefore suitable for the present context.
In real-life interactions, intergroup interactions may involvesocial identity salience but also a positive outcome interdepen-dence between members of the same social group. For instance,a firm’s board of directors may decide jointly whether to cooper-ate or compete with another firm, and the outcomes of thisdecision are shared by all decision-makers as well as by otheremployees of the firm. It has been shown that procedural interde-pendence, characterized by a required consensus to reach agroup decision and positive interdependence of group members’outcomes, increases the discontinuity effect (Insko et al., 1994;Wildschut, Lodewijkx, & Insko, 2001; Wildschut et al., 2003).It is therefore important to control for procedural interdepen-dence in order to identify the mere effect of social categorizationon actors’ behaviour.
Therefore, the present study manipulates social categorization(personal vs. social identity salience) and outcome interdepen-dence (independent vs. interdependent) independently andorthogonally to each other. Social identity was made salient by aminimal group procedure. In the social identity condition, actors
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
were assigned to the social category of overestimations or underes-timators according to the results of an estimation task (Tajfel et al.,1971). In the personal identity condition, no group categories weremade salient (e.g. Grieve & Hogg, 1999).2 Furthermore, in the in-terdependent outcomes condition, participants were assigned toteams of three actors that played against each other (3 : 3), withcommon outcomes for all actors of a team. In the independent out-comes condition, actors played against one another (1 : 1), and theywere the only people that were affected by the outcomes of a game.Thus, there were four possible combinations: outcome interdepen-dence with social identity salience (3 : 3; actors were informed thattheir team consisted of members of the same social category, andthat the opponent team consisted entirely of members of the othersocial category), outcome interdependence with personal identitysalience (3 : 3; no reference to social categories), outcome indepen-dence with social identity salience (1 : 1; actors were informed thatthey would play against an actor of the other social category) andoutcome independence with personal identity salience (1 : 1; noreference to social categories).
To prevent social identity to emerge spontaneously in the out-come interdependence condition, we did not allow for inter-group discussions or contact between the actors of a team(all actors remained seated individually at their computersduring the whole experiment). Actors made individual decisionsin both 1 : 1 and 3 : 3 interactions. The aggregation of individualdecisions in 3 : 3 interactions did not require consensus. We didthis to rule out differences in the decision-making procedure ininterindividual versus intergroup interactions as a possibleconfound. Furthermore, assignment of actors to teams andsocial categories, as well as opponent matching was completelyanonymous. We did this to rule out differences in anonymitybetween interindividual versus intergroup interactions as apossible confound.
Participants played a one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma Game(PDG). In this mixed-motive game, several authors have showninterindividual–intergroup discontinuity effects (McCallumet al., 1985; Insko et al., 1987, 1988, 2001, 2005; Wildschutet al., 2001, 2002). The PDG involves symmetric interactionsbetween two opponents (individuals or teams). Each side canchoose between a cooperative (C) and a defective choice (D),without knowing the choice of the opponent(s). The outcomesfor the two sides are determined by the combination of theirrespective choices. Following the game-theoretic analysis of thisgame, it is ‘rational’ (maximizing an actor’s absolute outcomeirrespective of the opponent’s choice) for both sides to defect,because cooperation is strictly dominated by defection: u(C, C)u(D, C) and u(C, D)< u(D, D), yet, cooperation is collectivelymore efficient: u(C, C)> u(D, D) and u(C, C)> [u(C, D) + u
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Group-motivated discontinuity effect 43
(D, C)]/2. Similarly, defection also maximizes an actor’s out-come relative to the opponent’s outcome.
We measured several motivations via closed-ended questionsin a post-experimental questionnaire: maximization of absolutegain, maximization of relative gain, minimization of differences,maximization of joint outcomes, and distrust (Kelley & Thibaut,1978). Previous research has demonstrated the importance ofthese motivations as mediators of interindividual–intergroup dis-continuity (Insko et al., 1987, 2005;Wildschut et al., 2001, 2002).
Hypotheses
We expected more defection in the social identity conditionthan in the personal identity condition, even when controllingfor actors’ outcome interdependence. The greater motivationto maximize the own group’s outcome (relative and/or abso-lute) by actors with a salient social identity compared withthe individual motivation to maximize the own personal out-come by actors with a salient personal identity was expectedto mediate the behavioural difference in PDG-choices.
Method
Participants and design
Participants were 170 students (65 men, 105 women) from variousdisciplines of the University of Jena. Age of participants rangedfrom 18 to 29years (MD=20). All participants had the possibilityto earn up to €7 (M=€4). The experiment used a 2 (social catego-rization: social vs. personal identity salience)� 2 (outcome interde-pendence: interdependent vs. independent) between-subjectsdesign. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the condi-tions. Respective cell sample sizes were 24 in the interdependentoutcomes/social identity condition, 36 in the interdependentoutcomes/personal identity condition, 54 in the independentoutcomes/social identity condition and 56 in the inde-pendent outcomes/personal identity condition.3
Procedure
Participants subscribed via the online registration softwareORSEE (Greiner, 2004) for the experimental sessions, eachconsisting of 12 to 18 participants. Experimental sessions wererun in a laboratory with separated individual PCs. On arrival,participants drew an index card to determine their cubiclenumber. The whole experiment was computer-mediated usingthe software z-Tree (Fischbacher, 2007) without actual contactbetween participants. The experimenter told the participantsthat they would have real interactions with other participantsand that those would determine their payoff.
In the social identity condition, the experiment started withan adapted minimal group paradigm. Here, participantsperformed an ‘estimation task’ that assigned them either to
3The relative frequency of participants in each condition is roughly proportionalto the standard errors in the conditions. After collecting data with approximatelyequal sample sizes per condition (24–36 participants), standard errors of themeandifference on PDG-choice for the social categorization manipulation were SE=0.262 for the interdependent outcomes condition and SE=0.505 for the indepen-dent outcomes condition. Therefore, we recollected data in the independent out-comes condition to have a roughly equal standard error of the mean difference inthe latter condition (SE=0.193).
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
the group of ‘overestimators’ or ‘underestimators’.4 Partici-pants in the independent outcomes condition were told thatthey would interact with another participant who would beeither randomly selected (personal identity condition) or whowould be a member of the opposite social group regardingthe results of the estimation task (social identity condition;overestimator : underestimator). Participants in the interdepen-dent outcomes condition were told that the two teams of threeoutcome interdependent actors each would play the game.Participants were either assigned randomly to the teams(personal identity condition) or according to their group mem-berships (social identity condition; members of the own teamwere drawn from the same social group, and members of theother team were drawn from the opposite social group). Inthe interdependent outcomes condition, it was furtherexplained that team members would make their decisions indi-vidually and independently; however, one member of eachteam would be selected randomly, and the decision would bepaired with the decision of a randomly selected member ofthe other team. The payoffs resulting from this pairing wouldbe effective for all members of the respective team. Thus,participants knew that the own decision might affect the otherteam members’ outcomes as well as others’ decisions mightaffect the own outcome. The term group was only used in thesocial identity condition, whereas it was referred to outcomeinterdependent individuals in the personal identity condition.
Participants received detailed information about the ‘interac-tive decision-making task’ (the words game, cooperation orcompetition were not used in the instructions). They got exam-ples and answered test questions. Participants then made theirdecisions. Afterwards, they completed a post-experimentalquestionnaire, including the assessment of their behaviouralmotivations and demographics. Finally, participants wereinformed about their payoff and were paid individually. Thewhole experiment took about 30 to 40minutes.
Dependent variables
PDG-choice. The main dependent variable was whetherparticipants cooperate (labelled X in the experiment) or defect(labelled Y) in the PDG. The PDG-matrix had an index of corre-spondence of r=�.80 (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978; Wolf, Insko,Kirchner, & Wildschut, 2008). The respective payoffs (in Euro)were presented as a matrix (as displayed in Figure 1(A)).
Reasons for PDG-choice. After participants made theirchoices in the PDG, they were asked for their reasons. They gavetheir agreement/disagreement to 10 statements (1= completelydisagree to 7 = completely agree), each two assessing one ofthe following motivations: maximization of the own (group’s)absolute outcome (max own; ‘[. . .] to earn as much as possible,independently of what the other player/group earns.’ and ‘[. . .]to earn as much as possible, I did not think so much about what
4The laboratory belongs to the School of Economics and Business Administration, which allows no experiments using deception procedures. In fact, the tesmeasured the overestimation and underestimation of objects that were presented on the screen and assigned participants according to their test resulto the respective group. However, there were only five trials, which renderedthe test unreliable but still face valid. To make sure that half of the participantswere assigned to each group, the software computed a median-split of the participants’ mean estimations. There were no differences between the groups regarding mixed-motive game-behaviour in all the presented experiments.
Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 43, 40–49 (2013
-t-t
--
)
Table 1. Percentage of players who defected by experimentalcondition (Exp. 1)
Socialcategorization
Interdependentoutcomes
Independentoutcomes
Social identity 75 60Personal identity 43 50
6Performing several simple mediation analyses did not qualitatively change the
Figure 1. The games used in the experiments; (A) Prisoner’s DilemmaGame (PDG, Exp. 1); (B) Mutual Fate Control (MFC, Exp. 2)
44 Robert Böhm et al.
the other player/group earns.’), maximization of the relative out-come difference (max rel; e.g. ‘[. . .] to earn more than the otherperson/group.’ and ‘[. . .] more concerned to maximize thedifference to the other player/group than to maximize my/mygroup’s absolute outcome.’), minimization of the relative out-come difference (min diff; e.g. ‘[. . .] to earn the same amount.’and ‘[. . .] earnings are fair distributed between me/my groupand the other player/group.’), maximization of the joint outcome(max joint; e.g. ‘[. . .] earn as much as possible together.’ and‘[. . .] we both/both groups maximize the joint outcome.’) andfear or distrust (distrust; e.g. ‘[. . .] afraid the other player/groupcould be egoistic.’ and ‘I did not trust the other player/group.’)Spearman–Brown corrected reliabilities of the strategy-categorieswere: .83 for max own, .61 for max rel, .89 for min diff, .85 formax joint and .75 for distrust. Given the satisfactory intraclasscorrelations, the item-ratings for each category were averaged.
Results
Overall, about 45% (75 out of 167) of the participants made acooperative choice and 55% (92 out of 167) chose to defect.5
The relative frequencies of defective choices in each experimentalcondition are shown in Table 1.
PDG-choice by experimental condition
The choice in the PDG was modelled as a function of socialcategorization and outcome interdependence in a logistic regres-sion. As expected, social categorization was a significant predic-tor of PDG-choice, B=�0.89, SE=0.35, w2(1, N=167) = 6.43,p= .01, OR=2.43. About 64% (49 out of 76) of the participantswith a salient social identity, but only 47% (43 out of 91) of theparticipants with a salient personal identity defected. In otherwords, controlling for outcome interdependence, participantswho interacted under social identity salience were 2.4 timesmore likely to defect than participants with a salient personalidentity. This effect was independent of actors’ outcome interde-pendence. Neither the main effect of outcome interdependencenor the interaction term of the two factors became a significantpredictor of PDG-choice, both w2(1, N=167)< 2.5, p> .15.
Reasons for PDG-choice
To check the association of participants’ motivations and theirrespective choices in the PDG, we correlated the assessed
5We excluded three participants from the analyses who stated after the exper-iment to already have known the PDG from lectures or previous experiments.
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
motivations with PDG-choice (Table 2); all correlations werein the expected directions.
We were particularly interested to detect those underlyingmotivations that might account for the effect of social categori-zation on PDG-choice. To answer this question, we performeda multiple mediation analysis (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Thisprocedure allows generating estimates for indirect effects of allproposed mediator variables in a multiple mediator model,which reduces the likelihood of parameter bias because of omit-ted variables as it may occur in several simple mediator models(Judd & Kenny, 1981). We bootstrapped simultaneously theindirect effects of max own, max rel, min diff, max joint anddistrust on the effect of social categorization on PDG-choice.The estimates and 95% confidence intervals for the indirecteffects of the mediator variables are shown in Table 3. The onlyindirect path that does not contain zero in the intervals is that ofmax rel, indicating its significant indirect effect (p< .05).6 Themotivation to maximize the relative outcome difference to theopponent(s) was smaller in the personal identity than in the socialidentity condition, Mpersonal = 2.51, SD=1.30, Msocial = 3.03,SD= 1.63, B=�0.52, SE=0.23 and p< .05. In turn, max relpredicted defection, B=0.40, SE=0.18 and p< .05.
Discussion
As expected, actors with a salient social identity were less cooper-ative than actors with a salient personal identity. The main effect ofsocial categorization was independent of outcome interdependencebetween in-group members. These results support our hypothesisthat mere social categorization is sufficient to produce a group-motivated interindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect. More-over, we gained additional insight into the motivational processesthat might underlie the behavioural differences. A multiple media-tion analysis revealed that social identity salience increases actors’motivation to maximize the relative gain (max rel), and that thehigher frequency of defection in the social identity condition canbe attributed to this motivation. Stated differently, the motivationto maximize the relative outcome was larger when it implied anadvantage of the own group in the social identity condition, andit was smaller when it implied an individual advantage in thepersonal identity condition.
In the PDG, as in many other mixed-motive games, bothof the two greed-based motivations—to maximize absoluteoutcomes and to maximize relative outcomes—predict defec-tion. This is consistent with the positive correlations of maxown and max rel with the frequency of defection. In the presentexperiment, both personal-motivated and group-motivated maxown were important predictors of PDG-choices (in absolute
reported results: The indirect effect of max rel becomes significant,Point Estimate=�0.39, SE=�0.20, Bootstrapped BC 95% CI [�0.84,�0.05] with 10000 resam-ples, whereas this was not the case for the other variables.
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Table 2. Correlation of relative frequencies to defect and reasonsgiven by the participants (Exp. 1)
DefectivePDG-choice Max own Max rel Min diff Max joint
Max own 0.40**Max rel 0.44** 0.49**Min diff �0.50** �0.66** �0.45**Max joint �0.59** �0.64** �0.47** 0.72**Distrust 0.18* 0.06 0.08 �0.03 �0.09
PDG, Prisoner’s Dilemma Game;Maximization of absolute outcome (max own), maximization of relative out-come difference (max rel), minimization of outcome difference (min diff),maximization of joint outcomes (max joint) and fear (distrust);**p< .01,*p< .05
Group-motivated discontinuity effect 45
terms, ratings regarding the maximization of absolute outcomeswere even higher than ratings regarding the maximization ofrelative outcomes). Still, only max rel was established as asignificant mediator of the effect of the social categorizationmanipulation. However, one should interpret this result withcaution because the two motivations were highly correlated,leaving not much room for independent contributions to theoverall effect of social categorization. To substantiate, the contri-bution of the motivation to maximize the relative advantage ofthe own group to the social identity effect, we thereforeconducted another experiment using a different game matrix[Mutual Fate Control, (MFC)]. The structure of the gameallowed us to unequivocally attribute behavioural differencesin cooperative/defective choices between personal versus socialidentity salience conditions to the motivation to maximize rela-tive (rather than absolute) differences between opponents.
EXPERIMENT 2
This experiment aimed at establishing the tendency to maximizethe own group’s relative outcome as the underlying motivationalprocess of the social categorization effect. We applied the samemanipulation of social/personal identity salience of Experiment1 but restricted our focus to the outcome interdependence condi-tion (i.e. a team of actors from the same social category played
Table 3. Multiple mediation model of the effect of identity salienceon Prisoner’s Dilemma Game-choice through max own, max rel, mindiff, max joint and distrust (Exp. 1)
Proposedmediator
Indirect effect
Pointestimate SE
Bootstrapped BC 95% CI
Lower Upper
Max own �0.02 0.08 �0.29 0.07Max rel �0.21 0.16 �0.65 �0.01Min diff �0.01 0.10 �0.26 0.15Max joint �0.09 0.22 �0.57 0.31Distrust �0.04 0.07 �0.27 0.06
Maximization of absolute outcome (max own), maximization of relative outcomedifference (max rel), minimization of outcome difference (min diff), maximiza-tion of joint outcomes (max joint) and fear (distrust); BC, bias corrected;10 000 bootstrap resamples; CIs that do not contain zero indicate a significantindirect effect with p< .05
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
against a team of actors from the opposing social category versusrandomly created opponent teams).
Participants played a one-shot game that has been termedMFC (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959; Kelley & Thibaut, 1978). Simi-lar to the PDG, an actor has control over the opponent’s outcome(fate control; Figure 1(B): the opponent may gain €6 in case ofan X-choice and €5 in case of a Y-choice). In contrast to thePDG, an actor has no control over own outcomes (no reflexivecontrol; Figure 1(B): the own outcome is on average €5.50,irrespective of the own choice). Thus, all four possible out-come-combinations constitute (weak) Nash equilibria in pure-strategies, and there is no strongly dominant strategy. As aconsequence, an actor is indifferent between both choicesregarding the own absolute outcome (max own), whereas themotivation to maximize relative outcomes (max rel) would pre-dict a competitive Y-choice. Previous research found interindi-vidual–intergroup discontinuity effects using this game matrix(McCallum et al., 1985; Wildschut et al., 2002).
Because Experiment 1 was lacking a psychological measure ofsocial identity salience, we also assessed participants’ perceivedsimilarity to members in their own team and to members in theopponent team prior to the MFC-choice. With these evaluations,we can calculate a measure of participants’ perceived socialversus personal identity salience (meta-contrast ratio; Turneret al., 1987).
Hypotheses
Building on the findings of Experiment 1, we expected morecompetition among teams in the social identity condition thanamong teams in the personal identity condition. The greaterperceived similarity to members of the own team relativeto members of the opponent team by actors in the socialidentity condition compared with actors in personal identitycondition was expected to mediate the behavioural differencein MFC-choices.
Method
Participants and design
Participants were 48 students (11 men, 37 women) from variousdisciplines of the University of Erfurt. Age of participantsranged from 19 to 36 years (MD=22). All participants had thepossibility to earn up to €6 (overall earnings of M=€5.70).The experiment used a one-factorial (social categorization: socialvs personal identity salience) between-subjects design. Partici-pants were randomly assigned to one of the conditions.
Procedure
Each experimental session consisted of 24 participants. Theprocedure and manipulation of personal/social categorizationwas the same as in the interdependent outcomes condition ofExperiment 1.
Dependent variables
MFC-choice. The main dependent variable was whetherparticipants maximized both teams’ outcomes (labelled X in
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46 Robert Böhm et al.
the experiment) or competed with the opponent team (labelledY). The respective payoffs (in Euro) were presented as a ma-trix (as displayed in Figure 1(B)).
Meta-contrast ratio. As argued elsewhere (Insko et al.,2005), in ordinary language, similarity is often used to describecategorical affiliation. Therefore, we assessed participants’ per-ceived similarity between themselves and the members of theirown team (simown; ‘How similar do you perceive the membersof your team to yourself?’), and the members of the opponentteam (simopponent; ‘How similar do you perceive the membersof the other team to yourself?’). Ratings were made on 7-pointscales from 1= not similar at all to 7 = extremely similar.Following Turner et al. (1987), groups (i.e. teams) are perceivedas entitative categories if between-group differences areperceived as greater than within-group differences (high com-parative fit). Accordingly, we recoded the similarity ratings intoratings of dissimilarity, such that dissim= [max(sim)� sim+1].Afterwards, the meta-contrast ratio was calculated as follows:dissimopponent/dissimown.
Results
MFC-choice by experimental condition
Overall, 14 out of 48 participants made a competitive MFC-choice. As expected, about 42% (10 out of 24) of the participantsin the social identity condition chose to compete with the oppo-nent team, whereas this was only the case for about 17% (4 outof 24) of the participants in the personal identity condition,yielding a significant difference, Pearson’s w2(1, N=48) = 3.63,p= .03 (one-tailed) and OR= 3.57.
Mediation analysis
We tested whether participants’ relative similarity perceptionsto members of the own team and the opponent team mayaccount for the difference between identity conditions withregard to competitive choices. In the social identity condition,the average meta-contrast ratio was marginally larger thanin the personal identity condition, Msocial = 1.45, SD= 0.55;Mpersonal = 1.18, SD = 0.48, F(1, 47) = 3.40 and p= .07. Thisindicates that participants in the social identity conditionperceived greater similarities to the members of their ownteam relative to the members of the opponent team comparedwith participants in the personal identity condition. In turn,the larger the meta-contrast ratio, the more likely was a competi-tive MFC-choice, B=1.71, SE=0.79 and p< .05. The boot-strapped indirect effect of the meta-contrast ratio was significantat the 10% level, 90% CI [0.29, 2.31] with 10000 resamples.
Discussion
Consistent with previous research (McCallum et al., 1985), therewas overall less defection in the MFC (29%) than in the PDG ofExperiment 1 (57%, only interdependent outcomes condition).This might be because of options in the MFC do not differ withregard to expected absolute outcomes, so that only the tendencyto maximize relative advantages can motivate defection,whereas bothmax own andmax rel are associated with defection
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
in the PDG. Importantly, however, there was still more compe-tition among teams with members from different social catego-ries than among teams with randomly assigned members. Interms of effect sizes, the social categorization effect in thepresent study (OR=3.57) is comparable with the effect obtainedin the PDG of Experiment 1 (OR=3.75, only interdependentoutcomes condition). Moreover, participants in the social iden-tity condition perceived greater dissimilarities to members ofthe opponent team relative to the members of the own teamcompared with participants in the personal identity condition.This difference, integrated to a single index of meta-contrastratio, was partially accountable for the increased competitive-ness in the social identity condition. In sum, results support theassumption that the competitive motivation to maximize relativedifferences to the opponents underlies the group-motivateddiscontinuity effect.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
This paper contributes to the literature on interindividual–intergroup discontinuity as well as on social categorizationprocesses. We provide first evidence for a group-motivatedinterindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect induced bymere social categorization. We used an experimental paradigmthat either excluded (e.g. intragroup discussion and jointdecision-making in intergroup interactions) or controlled for (e.g.identifiability and outcome interdependence) alternative mechan-isms that could otherwise determine the interindividual–intergroupdiscontinuity effect (Wildschut et al., 2003; Wildschut & Insko,2007). Actors with a salient social identity were less cooperativethan actors with a salient personal identity when the motivationsto maximize absolute and relative outcomes motivated defection,(Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, Experiment 1) as well as when onlythe maximization of relative outcomes motivated defection, andactors were indifferent regarding their absolute outcomes (MFC,Experiment 2). The results are noteworthy because it was doubtedthat mere social categorization might suffice to produce theinterindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect in the absence ofstructural differences among interindividual and intergroup inter-actions (e.g. Drigotas, Insko, & Schopler, 1998).
We did not find a main effect of actors’mere outcome interde-pendence on mixed-motive game behaviour in Experiment 1.Although the aggregation of decisions in order to induceoutcome interdependence differed from previous experiments(random selection of one actor’s decision instead of using amajority or average rule), our finding is consistent with previousstudies (Insko et al., 1988; Wildschut et al., 2001). More importantfor the present research, outcome interdependence did also notmoderate the effect of social categorization on mixed-motive gamebehaviour. Thus, effects of social categorization on competitivebehaviour occur irrespective of the type of interaction.
Similar results have been obtained in negotiation research. Ithas recently been shown that actors’ salient social versus per-sonal identity may affect interindividual negotiations (Demoulin& Teixeira, 2010; Trötschel, Hüffmeier, & Loschelder, 2010).Here, it has been found that interactions between individualopponents from different social groups compared with oppo-nents with a salient personal identity increased competitiveperceptions, which resulted in reduced concession behaviour,
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Group-motivated discontinuity effect 47
and consequently to inferior negotiation outcomes. As oppo-nents were always individual actors, this behavioural differencecan be attributed to a mere effect of social categorization,providing support for an identity-based discontinuity effect ina more applied context.
Previous research on interindividual–intergroup discontinuityshowed that greed and fear aremore pronounced in intergroup thanin interindividual interactions (Wildschut & Insko, 2007). Inaccordance with this research and the social identity perspectiveof intergroup relations (Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1979,1986; Turner et al., 1987; see also Kollock, 1998), we predictedthat the motivation to maximize outcomes for one’s own group,particularly relative to another group, should play a crucial rolefor group-motivated interindividual–intergroup discontinuity. Inline with this assumption, maximizing the relative advantage ofone’s own group was found to mediate the effect of socialcategorization on PDG-decisions (Experiment 1) and wassufficient to increase competition in the MFC (Experiment 2).
One should note the difference between the proposedgroup-motivated explanation and another structurally similarperson-motivated explanation of interindividual–intergroupdiscontinuity: altruistic rationalization (Pinter & Wildschut,2011; Pinter et al., 2007). Altruistic rationalization implies thatan actor’s salient personal identity increases selfish behaviourif he/she may attribute this as an in-group-favouring act. Incontrast, group-motivated discontinuity assumes that anactor’s salient social identity increases competitive behaviouras a truly in-group-favouring act. Future research is neededto separate both mechanisms and to quantify their relativeinfluence on the interindividual–intergroup discontinuity.
It is important to keep in mind that our results do not implicatethat social categorization is necessary to create interindividual–intergroup discontinuity. Previous research reported large effectsizes for the interindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect,whereas the present experiments showed small to medium effectsizes for merely group-motivated interindividual–intergroupdiscontinuity (Cohen, 1988). This indicates that social categoriza-tion may be only one component of the phenomenon. Structuraldifferences between interindividual and intergroup interactions ifnot condensed to a minimum as in our studies might be sufficientto create interindividual–intergroup discontinuity or to furtherincrease the effect. Typically, however, both personal-level andgroup-level motivations are concurrently causative forinterindividual–intergroup discontinuity.7 Hence, furtherresearch is needed to investigate what are necessary,sufficient and reinforcing conditions for the discontinuity effect.
Practical Implications
Clearly, the salience of social categories may be important inorder to create cooperation within groups (e.g. De Cremer &Van Vugt, 1999). Such within-group solidarity can lead topositive forms of collective action but certainly also to destruc-tive outcomes when it is used to compete with or even harm
7Indeed, the overall discontinuity effect might increase either by increasing struc-tural differences between interindividual and intergroup interactions, or by mak-ing the personal identity in the control conditionmore explicitly salient than in thepresent experiments (for an overview, see Haslam, 2004). The main focus of thepresent research, however, was to separate and disentangle the effects of struc-tural differences and social categorization processes.
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
another group. Regarding the latter case, the present results haveimportant practical implications for creating conditions thatfacilitate cooperation and that prevent aggressive and competi-tive behaviours between groups in everyday interactions. A first,promising strategy to effectively reduce (group-motivated) inter-individual–intergroup discontinuity is to change the level ofactors’ social categorization. If individual actors represent them-selves and their interaction partners in terms of different groupmemberships when interacting with each other (e.g. as represen-tatives of firms, interest groups or political parties), the collectiveoutcome might be inefficient. Therefore, it is important toemphasize the personal identities of all actors, which can beachieved by addressing all members personally, by focusingon their individual attributes and characteristics, their personalhistories, and by reminding participants of their personal respon-sibilities and individual moral codes.
Another intriguing practical implication of our findingsconcerns situations in which the motives to maximize absoluteand relative advantages come into conflict. These situationsare ubiquitous in everyday life, because very often wantingto be better off than others or at least not having less thanothers incurs immense absolute costs for oneself and others:Efforts and investments have to be made in order to exceedothers, although the outcome that can be achieved remainsconstant. In other situations, the only way to succeed or toreduce a relative disadvantage consists in inflicting harm onothers or in preventing them from obtaining positive out-comes. A promising strategy to counteract these dysfunctionalbehavioural tendencies that might be efficient even if socialidentities cannot be de-emphasized might consist in establish-ing a focus on the maximization of the own group’s absoluteoutcomes rather than on relative comparisons. Highlightingthe absolute benefits for the own group that can be obtainedthrough (long-term) cooperation might help to counteractcompetitive tendencies that are induced by a salient socialidentity (Insko et al., 2001; Wolf et al., 2009), and thus, mightbe particularly effective to reduce the group-motivated compo-nent of interindividual–intergroup discontinuity.
CONCLUSION
There are different structural and motivational sources for theinterindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect. The presentfindings suggest that mere social categorization may be suffi-cient to induce group-motivated competitiveness, which inturn creates a discontinuity effect. This implies that the discon-tinuity effect is not only restricted to interactions that differ inthe structural features of interindividual versus intergroupinteractions (e.g. individual vs. joint decision-making) but alsoapplies to relations that differ with respect to opponents’ socialcategorization. Thus, the present results further strengthen thephenomenon’s large area of application and challenge futureresearch to spot effective strategies in order to reduce the inter-individual–intergroup discontinuity effect.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by a doctoral fellowship to thefirst author in the International Research Training Group
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48 Robert Böhm et al.
(GRK 622) ‘Conflict and Cooperation between SocialGroups’, funded by the German Research Foundation. Wethank Nicole S. Harth, Johannes Leder, and Thomas Kesslerfor helpful comments on earlier drafts.
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