You can't always do what you want: Social identity and self-presentationaldeterminants of the choice to work for a low-status group

Group members' choice to work on individual or on group status improvement was examined as a function of agree of in group identification (low, high) and accountability of responses (anonymous, accountable to the ingroup). In Experiment I (N = 73), in line with the authors 'predictions, accountabili ty elicited progroup behavior among low identifiers, whereas individualisti c behavior was displayed when participants were anonymous. No similar effec t of accountability was observed for high identifiers, who always chose for group status improvement. Experiment 2 (N = 118) replicated and extended t hese findings. Degree of identification with the ingroup was shown to deter mine which contextual cues are likely to influence group members' responses . The integration of traditionally separate models of social influence (sel f-presentation and social identity) is proposed. It is suggested that degre e of identification with a group functions as a moderator of which type of influence the group is able to exert.