When groups are wrong and deviants are right

Membership role and subjective group dynamics: Impact on evaluative intragroup differentiation and commitment to prescriptive norms

Two studies examined participants’ evaluations of ingroup or outgroup normative and deviant members and changes in agreement with a prescriptive norm. In Experiment 1 ( N = 51), the normative target was either a full or marginal ingroup or outgroup member, and the deviant was a full member. In Experiment 2 ( N = 113), both targets were full or marginal members, or one was a full member and the other was marginal. As predicted, maximal upgrading of normative members and downgrading of deviant members, as well as endorsement of the norm, occurred when both targets were full ingroup members. In contrast, the deviant was derogated least and the deviant’s position was endorsed most when the deviant target was a full ingroup member and the normative target was a marginal ingroup member. Evaluations of normative and deviant ingroup members mediated the effects of their role on participants’ agreement with the norm.

When principled deviance becomes moral threat: Testing alternative mechanisms for the rejection of moral rebels

Monin, Sawyer, and Marquez (2008) demonstrated that a rebel who refused to participate in a racially prejudiced decision task was derogated by actors who had themselves taken part in the task, but exalted by uninvolved observers. These authors argued that this rejection resulted from actors who expected and resented imagined moral reproach from the rebel. Two new studies address alternative explanations for such rejection of moral rebels. Study 1 rules out both (a) self-presentation and (b) a more cognitive alternative wherein anchoring on one’s first impression of a task leads to do-gooder derogation. Study 2 breaks down the principled rebellion into its two components, a principled stance and rebellion itself, to show that both seem to play a part in derogation. Individuals imagine that moral others would reject them, which in turn leads to rejecting those deviants.