Violence and Aggression between Groups The role of threatened egotism

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Violence and Aggression between GroupsThe role
of threatened egotism

• Roy Baumeister and the roots of evil
• Susan Hollbach
• Bernard Mathieu
• Amélie Mummendey
• Nicole Tausch
• Frank Wieber

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Aggression between Groups

• People acting as members of a group towards
  members of an out-group
• Not just out-group devaluation
• But intentional harmful behaviour

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Theories of Group Aggression and Intergroup
Conflict

• Group aggression Focus on the relation between a
  group member and the in-group (e.g., norm
  enhancement, deindividuation)
• dont focus on intergroup relations
• Intergroup theories (SIT, RD, RCT) no explicit
  predictions concerning aggressive behaviour
  against out-group members

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Where we started

• Transferring the motives or roots of evil from
  the interindividual to the intergroup level
• - Evil as a means to an end - Idealism- Sadism
  (unclear)- Egotism and revenge

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Threatened Egotism

• Baumeister, Smart Boden, 1996
• People are aggressive when
• They have a high self-esteem (not low
  self-esteem)
• Which is unstable
• And threatened
• Aggression targeted towards the source of threat
• Our QuestionIs there an analogy on the group
  level?

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Individual Level
Aggression
Perceived threat to self-esteem
Narcissism (Unstable high self-esteem)
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Group Level (An individual acting as a group
member)
Aggression against out-group member
Unstable high collective self-esteem
Perceived threat
Collective self esteem favourable
self-evaluation based on ones group
membership
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Research Questions1. When?

• A group member should be more likely to aggress
  against an out-group member if
• High collective self-esteem
• Unstable
• Threatened by an out-group
• Design Stability x Threat/No Threat
• Covariate Collective self-esteem

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Hypotheses for unstable condition
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Example

• IGC context Evil (ingroup) vs. Gender Aloha
  (outgroups)
• Stability manip. daily evaluation vs. not
• Threat manip. Gender group spreading rumors
  about Evil group
• DV e.g. noise blaster, computer virus setting,

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Research Questions2. Against whom?

• People will only aggress against members of the
  threatening Outgroupbut not against members of a
  non-threatening Outgroup.
• Design
• Stability
• x
• Threat/No Threat
• x
• Outgroup (Outgroup is source of threat vs. not)
• Covariate Collective self-esteem

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Hypotheses
Threatening Outgroup Any other relevant
group
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Example

• IGC context Evil (ingroup) vs. Gender Aloha
  (outgroups)
• Stability manip. daily evaluation vs. not
• Threat manip. Gender group spreading rumors
  about Evil group
• Target manip. gender group vs. aloha group
• DV e.g. noise blaster, computer virus setting,

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Other things we discussed

• The relation between personal and collective
  self-esteem
• What happens if a person holds low vs. high
  personal self-esteem?
• Do people with low personal self-esteem who
  derive their positive self-evaluation from the
  positive evaluation of their group aggress more
  when their group is threatened?

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Comparedtowhad?

• Do people with low personal self-esteem who
  derive their positive Self-Evaluation from the
  positive evaluation of their group aggress more
  when their group is threatened compared to
• people with high personal self-esteem.

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Controversial

• Is the motive to aggress
• to stop the threatening out-group from harming
  you?
• to control the out-group?
• to restore self-esteem?
• or revenge?? choose between 2 groups (higher
  status non aggressive vs. lower status aggressive)

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Other things we discussed

• How many mosquito bites do you have?
• ?Future research should take a closer look on
  interspecies aggression

Aggression towards mosquitoes
Perceived threat
Number of mosquito bites