PERCEPTIONS OF RELATIVE GROUP-SIZE AND GROUP STATUS - EFFECTS ON INTERGROUP DISCRIMINATION IN NEGATIVE EVALUATIONS

The positive-negative asymmetry in social discrimination proposes a th reshold for ingroup favouritism within the negative domain: in contras t to comparable studies dealing with in- and outgroup evaluations on p ositive attributes, ingroup favouritism does not occur when negative a ttributes are used. The present study focuses on two aspects of this t hreshold: it investigates processes, which may influence the absence o f ingroup favouritism in the negative domain, and it tests 'aggravatin g' variables, which seem to be sufficient to elicit ingroup favouritis m even in the negative domain. Results show that ingroup favouritism o ccurred within the negative domain when several aggravating conditions were included, namely high salience of size- and status-similarity be tween groups and high ingroup identification. Furthermore, subjects un der minimal conditions tended to overestimate relative size as well as relative status of their ingroup. The perception of group members to belong to a high status majority is interpreted as a sufficient condit ion counteracting tendencies towards ingroup favouritism within the ne gative domain.