NUMERICAL REPRESENTATION OF GROUPS IN COOPERATIVE SETTINGS - SOCIAL ORIENTATION EFFECTS ON INGROUP BIAS

Investigates whether the greater ingroup favoritism typically expresse d by numerical minorities. compared with numerical majorities, could b e minimized by encouraging an interpersonal social orientation during intergroup cooperation. Study 1 examined how the type of social orient ation adopted during cooperation affected the intergroup attitudes of numerical majorities and minorities. The outcomes of Study I showed th at, compared to both a no-focus control and an interpersonally focused condition, a task-focus orientation was associated with an increase i n ingroup bias among numerical majorities but a decrease in ingroup bi as among numerical minorities. The results of Study 2 replicated those of Study 1 and showed support for the hypothesis that the effect of s ocial orientation on ingroup bias among numerical majority and minorit y groups is mediated by ingroup identification and cohesion. Implicati ons of these findings for understanding numerical representation effec ts and cooperative intervention outcomes are discussed. (C) 1997 Acade mic Press.