使用加工分离程序对低地位群体内/外群体偏爱的研究

Ingroup/Outgroup Favoritism among the Members of Low-Status Group By Using Process Dissociation Procedure

使用加工分离程序(PDP),以50名农村籍大学生为被试,采用2(群体:外群体、内群体)×2(特质词效价:积极、消极)×2(加工:意识加工、无意识加工)混合设计,研究了低地位群体对内群体以及高地位外群体偏爱的内隐特征。在本研究情境中发现:农村大学生在提取城市群体积极特质词比消极特质词时的无意识加工更显著;而提取农村群体的积极和消极特质词时,无意识加工的贡献没有显著差异。说明低地位群体成员对外群体有内隐偏爱,对内群体却不存在内隐偏爱。

Categorizing people into groups often leads to intergroup bias. Social identity theorists argue that being in a group can pro- vide psychological benefits. As a result, people tend to favor their own group and exhibit hostility toward other groups, which is known as ＂in-group favoritism＂ and ＂out-group derogation,＂ respectively. But there is also an increasing body of evidence indicating that peo- ple, typically low-status group members, sometimes display out-group favoritism, which refers to the tendency to express an evaluative preference for members of a group to which one does not belong. However, the issue of whether low-status groups have internalized the out-group favoritism is under debate. Jost and Burgess proposed that out-group favoritism among groups low in social standing was due to compliance with authority and self-protection. Mellott and Greenwald employed Implicit Association Test （IAT） and found low-status members displayed implicit out-group favoritism in cognition, emotion and behavior. Chinese researchers, who used the same method, also found similar findings. It illustrated that members in low-status groups indeed internalized the favoritism of high-status groups. But we noted that the used method typically was IAT. Jacoby suggests that this implicit way may not be ＂process pure＂ and is likely to involve both conscious and unconscious processes. In order to gain further understanding regarding low-status members＂ ＂ real＂ implicit cognition about the high-status out-groups, it is important to dissociate these two cognitive processes and identify their respective contributions. To explore this issue, the current study adopted the process dissociation procedure. Besides, it is interesting to explore when low-status members has implicit out-group favoritism and how they evaluate their own group. Thus, process dissociation procedure was adopted to compute the separate contribution of conscious and unconscious processes when fifty rural undergraduates recognized trait words about urban group and rural group, and obtained the rural participants＇implicit cognition of these two groups. The results showed that when rural undergraduates recognized the trait words about urban group, the contribution of unconscious processes for positive words was significantly greater than for negative words. However, the differences in contribution of unconscious processes between the rural group＇s positive words and negative words were not significant. It indicates that low status group members only have implicit out-group favoritism, but do not have in-group favoritism.