The good, the bad, and the manly: Threats to one's prototypicality and evaluations of fellow in-group members

If highly identified group members evaluate in-group members, including the self, according to how well they fit the group's prototype, then they shou ld be threatened when told that they are nonprototypical of the in-group. W e propose that this threat will encourage high identifiers to increase thei r use of prototypicality as a standard for evaluating in-group members. Usi ng men as the in-group, we found that group identification and level of pro totypicality feedback interacted to affect intra.-roup evaluations. When hi ghly identified men received feedback that they were low in prototypicality as men, they felt more threatened and showed greater differentiation in th eir liking for prototypical men over nonprototypical men compared to when t hey received high prototypicality feedback. In contrast, prototypicality fe edback did not influence feelings of threat among low identifiers, nor did it interact with target prototypicality to affect liking of the targets. (C ) 2001 Academic Press.