Mitigating Identity Threat in Health Messaging: A Social Identity Complexity Perspective

Health messages aiming to reduce red meat consumption may threaten multiple social identities because people's dietary choices are intertwined with personal, social, and cultural aspects of their lives. Leveraging social identity theory and the concept of social identity complexity, this experiment tested how identity-threatening messages affect people's intention to reduce red meat consumption and how the effect of identity threat may be moderated by messages highlighting the relationships between multiple identities that define a person. Participants (N = 409) read messages that varied identity threat (i.e. the extent to which people feel devalued because of their membership in a social group) and identity complexity (i.e. the extent to which people perceive multiple identities as independent). The study found that identity-threatening messages decreased intentions to reduce red meat consumption when people perceived their dietary identity as overlapping with other identities, but increased the intentions when the dietary identity was seen as independent from other identities. Further, the effects of identity threat and complexity were limited to people with high (vs. low) levels of red meat consumption. We discuss the role of identity complexity in alleviating identity threat and increasing persuasion.

The Intergroup Value Protection Model: A Theoretically Integrative and Dynamic Approach to Intergroup Conflict Escalation in Democratic Societies

SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACT

We review social-psychological evidence for a theoretically integrative and dynamic model of intergroup conflict escalation within democratic societies. Viewing individuals as social regulators who protect their social embeddedness (e.g., in their group or in society), the intergroup value protection model (IVPM) integrates key insights and concepts from moral and group psychology (e.g., group identification, outrage, moralization, protest) into a functional intergroup value protection process. The model assumes that social regulators are continuously looking for information diagnostic of the outgroup's intentions to terminate the relationship with the ingroup, and that their specific cognitive interpretations of an outgroup's action (i.e., as a violation of ingroup or shared values) trigger this process. The visible value-protective responses of one group can trigger the other group's value-protective responses, thus dynamically increasing chances of conflict escalation. We discuss scientific implications of integrating moral and group psychology and practical challenges for managing intergroup conflict within democratic societies.

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

The 2021 Capitol Hill attack exemplifies a major "trigger event" for different groups to protect their values within a democratic society. Which specific perceptions generate such a triggering event, which value-protective responses does it trigger, and do such responses escalate intergroup conflict? We offer the intergroup value protection model to analyze the moral and group psychology of intergroup conflict escalation in democratic societies. It predicts that when group members cognitively interpret another group's actions as violating ingroup or shared values, this triggers the intergroup value protection process (e.g., increased ingroup identification, outrage, moralization, social protest). When such value-protective responses are visible to the outgroup, this can in turn constitute a trigger event for them to protect their values, thus increasing chances of intergroup conflict escalation. We discuss scientific implications and practical challenges for managing intergroup value conflict in democratic societies, including fears of societal breakdown and scope for social change.

Ingroup love, outgroup hate, and the gateway group effect: Comparing the direct and indirect impact of dual versus single identification

Decades of research in social identity have shown that people instinctively hold positive attitudes towards ingroup members and negative attitudes towards outgroup members. However, it remains unclear how people respond to individuals explicitly identified with both one's ingroup and outgroup. We propose that when people are exposed to dual-identified individuals and groups (e.g., Muslim-Americans explicitly identifying with both their Muslim and American identities), intergroup attitudes will improve, driven more by the ingroup component (American), despite the presence of the outgroup component (Muslim). Moreover, we suggest exposure to dual-identification can also improve attitudes toward the broader outgroup (Muslims more generally), a phenomenon called the gateway-group effect. To test these hypotheses, we created a new measure of dual-identification and conducted three studies involving both Muslim-Americans and Mexican-Americans. Results confirmed that exposure to explicitly dual-identified groups improved attitudes towards the dual-identified group (e.g., Mexican-Americans) as well as toward the respective outgroup (e.g., Mexicans).