Compensatory biases after ingroup threat: 'Yeah, but we have a good personality'

It was hypothesized that participants who strongly, identify with the ingro up and receive unfavorable feedback about their group in one domain would c ompensate on alternative dimensions. A group of emergency medical service v olunteers received negative, positive or no feedback on their volunteer org anization and were asked to rate the ingroup and an outgroup on dimensions alternative to the feedback. As predicted, high identifiers showed an incre ase in ingroup favoritism after negative feedback (i.e. compensation) and a decrease after positive feedback (i.e. modesty effect). In contrast, low i dentifiers distanced themselves from the ingroup after negative feedback an d accentuated self-ingroup similarity, after positive feedback. Results are discussed in relation to a schema-maintenance model through compensation ( Seta & Seta, 1993) and social identity theory. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wile y & Sons, Ltd.