Perceived Legitimacy as an Implicit and Explicit Moderator of Ingroup and Outgroup Favoritism Among Members of Low Status Groups

It is an assumption shared by social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) and system justification theory (Jost and Banaji, 1994) that the perceived legitimacy of status differences moderates the expression of ingroup vs. outgroup favoritism among groups that are low in social status, although there are surprisingly few empirical demonstrations of this phenomenon. In Study 1, which made use of an experimental induction of low socio-economic status, it was demonstrated that perceived legitimacy of the status differences increased outgroup favoritism on status relevant dimensions and decreased ingroup favoritism on status irrelevant dimensions. In Study 2, members of a real-world group that was relatively low in social status displayed strong outgroup favoritism on relevant attributes and strong ingroup favoritism on irrelevant attirbutes. It was found that explicit or conscious perceptions of legitimacy predicted ingroup and outgroup favoritism on status relevant attributes , whereas implicit or unconscious perceptions of legitimacy predicted ingroup and outgroup favoritism on status irrelevant attritbutes.