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Although stressors are common in group life, people cope better when group authorities treat them with care/concern. However, it remains unclear whether such treatment affects individuals' physiological stress. In this experiment, individuals engaged in an interview known to increase cortisol (stress biomarker). Surrounding the interview, an ingroup supervisor treated them with standard professionalism (politeness [control]), explicit care/concern (high-quality treatment), or disregard (poor-quality treatment). While those in the control condition experienced a spike in cortisol, individuals in the high-quality treatment condition did not experience this physiological stress (cortisol). Those given poor-quality treatment also did not exhibit stress, suggesting the explicit disregard for them may have undermined the interview's legitimacy, thereby removing social evaluative threat. Paralleling past research, self-reported stress did not reflect individuals' physiological stress (cortisol). Overall, results suggest that to alleviate group members' physiological stress, supervisors need to be more than polite and professional–also demonstrating care/concern for them as individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on social identity and leadership rarely examines leadership processes from the perspective of leaders themselves. Three studies (experimental, longitudinal, cross-sectional) help fill this gap. Integrating social identity principles with a reflected appraisals perspective, we demonstrate that as individuals come to see themselves as (informal) leaders in a group, it positively affects their own sense of fit to the group prototype. Their own perceived prototypicality, in turn, yields a strengthened attachment to the group (identification). Importantly, we demonstrate this in racial and ethnic minority groups – an understudied context, yet where individuals develop meaningful conceptions of leadership and identification, with implications for their health and commitment to collective action. Altogether, this provides insights on social identity processes, and minority group leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies (N = 1,048) examined how Blacks’, Asians’, and Latinos’ perceived value within their own ethnic group (ethnic intragroup status) shapes mental health (depression, anxiety, psychological distress). The proposed intragroup status and health (ISAH) model predicts that feeling valued among ethnic ingroup members has benefits for health, but also indirect costs. Costs arise because individuals who feel highly valued in their ethnic group see their ethnicity as more central to their self-concept; with stronger identity-centrality, individuals more frequently view daily social interactions through the “lens” of their ethnicity and ultimately perceive/experience more discrimination. Discrimination, in turn, adversely shapes mental health. Results of structural equation modeling supported these predictions across all groups in both studies. Thus, feeling valued in one’s minority group may be a double-edged sword for mental health. Overall, the ISAH model reveals how intragroup processes, when considered from an intergroup perspective, advance our understanding of minority mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although group-based relative deprivation predicts people's willingness to protest unfair outcomes, perceiving that one's subgroup is respected increases employees' support for organizations. An integration of these perspectives suggests that subgroup respect will dampen the impact of group-based relative deprivation on workers' responses to unfair organizational outcomes. We examined this hypothesis among university faculty ( N = 804) who underwent a system-wide pay cut. As expected, group-based relative deprivation predicted protest intentions. This relationship was, however, muted among those who believed university administrators treated their area of expertise (i.e., their subgroup) with a high (vs. low) level of respect. Moderated mediation analyses confirmed that group-based relative deprivation had a conditional indirect effect on protest intentions via participants' (dis)identification with their university at low to moderate, but not high, levels of subgroup respect. Our finding that satisfying relational needs can attenuate responses to group-based relative deprivation demonstrates the benefits of integrating insights from distinct research traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research demonstrates that feelings of respect affect important aspects of group functioning and members' psychological well-being. One limitation is that respect has been variously defined as reflecting individuals' status in the group, degree to which they are liked by the group, and how fairly they are treated in interactions with group members. These different conceptions are integrated in the dual pathway model of respect. The authors tested the model's prediction that fair treatment from group members shapes attitudes toward the group and self via two distinct pathways: status and inclusion. Findings from a field study supported the model and yielded new insights: Whereas perceptions of status predicted social engagement, liking was more important in predicting well-being (especially among dominant subgroups). Discussion focuses on the utility of the dual pathway model for understanding how respect perceptions are formed and how they affect the welfare of groups and individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]