Search

Abstract: This research extended previous work on the relationship between intergroup status and helping exchanges by investigating the conditions that moderate the willingness of members of a high status group (psychology students) to seek help from a low status group (social work students). In Study 1, when participants believed that there was a threat to the stability of status relations, participants from the high status group were more willing to seek autonomy-oriented assistance, which is empowering, than dependency-oriented help, which could undermine their group's advantaged status. Study 2 considered how reframing the nature of intergroup relations by emphasizing common superordinate group membership can influence help-seeking among members of high status groups. When separate group identities were emphasized, the results replicated. However, as predicted, when common identity as mental health professional was made salient, psychology students were as willing to seek autonomy- and dependency-oriented help across both the unstable- and stable-relations conditions. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present study explored the implications of an intergroup perspective on individual difference and situational influences on helping, specifically, outgroup members. In particular, we examined the effects of social dominance orientation (SDO) and group status threat on the amount and kind of help offered by Jewish participants ( n = 99) to Arab and Jewish students. Dependent measures were the likelihood of helping outgroup and ingroup members across various situations of need and, when help is given, the likelihood that it would be dependency-oriented rather than autonomy-oriented assistance. As expected, higher SDO individuals offered less help to outgroup (Arab) students, particularly when they experienced threat to group status, but not to ingroup members. In addition, higher SDO participants, when they did report that they would help, were more likely to offer dependency-oriented help to outgroup than to ingroup members. The theoretical and applied implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Help offered by a member of a high status group to a member of a low status group is often resented because it may be perceived as motivated by a desire to reinforce status relations between the groups. The present research explored how trust in a high status group by members of a low status group can ameliorate these negative consequences. Study 1 examined how the trust of Israeli-Jews among Israeli-Arabs relates to their reactions to an offer of help from an Israeli-Jew. Additional studies investigated the reactions of low-status group members to help from a member of the high status group in a minimal group context (Study 2) and a real group setting (Study 3) while manipulating trust in the outgroup. The findings of the three experiments indicate that greater trust in the high status group elicited distinctively more positive intergroup responses to an offer of help from the high status group. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed. • Helping behavior is used strategically to achieve dominance over low status groups. • Intergroup helping enhances the sense of power of the group that offers the help while diminishing the power of the outgroup recipients. • Low status group recipients of outgroup help often respond negatively to intergroup helping. • Trust by members of the low status in the high status group can ameliorate the negative consequences of intergroup helping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current article presents a new intervention model for intragroup dialogue. Twenty-four Jewish-Israeli undergraduate students underwent a yearlong process to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, encountered Palestinian narratives, and reflected on the impact of the Palestinian other on their own identity as Jewish-Israelis. In this research we propose that such a process ameliorates identity threats posed by an intergroup conflict on collective identities, encouraging participants to adopt a more complex view of themselves, which validates both narratives of self and "other." Research was conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the intervention. Results showed that participants developed an increased capacity for acceptance of both Israeli and Palestinian collective narratives, and demonstrated a greater willingness toward reconciliation, manifested in more readiness to acknowledge responsibility and apologize for past transgressions. Discussion is dedicated to the added value of this model, specifically in relation to intergroup contact approaches to dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present research, we introduce a conceptualization of the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an enduring feeling that the self is a victim across different kinds of interpersonal relationships. Then, in a comprehensive set of eight studies, we develop a measure for this novel personality trait, TIV, and examine its correlates, as well as its affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. In Part 1 (Studies 1A-1C) we establish the construct of TIV, with its four dimensions; i.e., need for recognition, moral elitism, lack of empathy, and rumination, and then assess TIV's internal consistency, stability over time, and its effect on the interpretation of ambiguous situations. In Part 2 (Studies 2A-2C) we examine TIV's convergent and discriminant validities, using several personality dimensions, and the role of attachment styles as conceptual antecedents. In Part 3 (Studies 3–4) we explore the cognitive and behavioral consequences of TIV. Specifically, we examine the relationships between TIV, negative attribution and recall biases, and the desire for revenge (Study 3), and the effects of TIV on behavioral revenge (Study 4). The findings highlight the importance of understanding, conceptualizing, and empirically testing TIV, and suggest that victimhood is a stable and meaningful personality tendency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of group membership on perceptions of outgroup members has been extensively studied in various contexts. This research has indicated a strong tendency for ingroup bias - preferring the ingroup over the outgroup. We seek to further expand on the growing literature regarding the effects of group membership within healthcare contexts. Focusing on the Arab-Jewish context in Israel, the present study explored the influence of group membership on Israeli-Jewish participants' evaluations when exposed to potential malpractice. Specifically, participants ( n  = 165) read a description of an Israeli-Jewish or Israeli-Arab physician who was either culpable or non-culpable of malpractice. Consistent with our predictions, findings generally indicated more negative evaluations of the Israeli-Arab physician, regardless of objective culpability. We conclude by discussing the study's limitations and implications., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Graham, Halabi and Nadler.)

On the basis of expectation states theory and Weiner's attributional model of help giving (Weiner, 1980), we predicted that low-status help seekers would be viewed as chronically dependent and their need as due to lack of ability, leading to the giving of dependency-oriented help (i.e., full solution to the problem). High-status help seekers were expected to be viewed as competent and their request as representing their high motivation to overcome a transient difficulty, resulting in autonomy-oriented help (i.e., tools to solve the problem). Help seeking is viewed as a stigma-consistent behavior that implies weakness when help seekers are low-status individuals and as strength when they are high-status individuals. Three experiments supported these predictions. The 4th experiment indicated that low-status persons who seek autonomy-oriented help are not seen as chronically dependent. Implications of these findings for helping and inequality are discussed.

On the basis of development of the concept of "defensive helping," the authors demonstrated that high ingroup identifiers thwart a threat to group identity through defensive help-giving (i.e., by extending help to an outgroup member whose achievements jeopardize their status). Participants were 255 Israeli high school students (130 boys and 125 girls) ages 16-18. The phenomenon of defensive helping was demonstrated in a minimal group (Study 1) and real-group (Study 2) experiment. Study 3, which examined real groups, supported the extension of the phenomenon of defensive helping to relations between high- and low-status groups, showing that members of a high-status group who perceive status relations with the low-status outgroup as unstable will protect the ingroup's identity by providing dependency-oriented help to the low-status outgroup. Priming for common ingroup identity reversed this pattern, with participants electing to offer autonomy-oriented rather than defensive help. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed with respect to social change, paternalism, and helping between nations.

Guided by the Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation, we hypothesized that being a member of a victimized group would be associated with a threat to the status and power of one's ingroup, whereas being a member of a perpetrating group would threaten the image of the ingroup as moral and socially acceptable. A social exchange interaction through which victims feel empowered by their perpetrators and perpetrators feel accepted by their victims was thus predicted to enhance the parties' willingness to reconcile. Supporting the predictions across two experiments, members of the perpetrator group (Jews in Study 1 and Germans in Study 2) showed greater willingness to reconcile when they received a message of acceptance, rather than empowerment, from a member of the victimized group. Members of the victimized group (Arabs in Study 1 and Jews in Study 2) demonstrated the opposite effect. Applied and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

The authors propose that conflict threatens different psychological resources of victims and perpetrators and that these threats contribute to the maintenance of conflict (A. Nadler, 2002; A. Nadler & I. Liviatan, 2004; A. Nadler & N. Shnabel, in press). On the basis of this general proposition, the authors developed a needs-based model of reconciliation that posits that being a victim is associated with a threat to one's status and power, whereas being a perpetrator threatens one's image as moral and socially acceptable. To counter these threats, victims must restore their sense of power, whereas perpetrators must restore their public moral image. A social exchange interaction in which these threats are removed should enhance the parties' willingness to reconcile. The results of 4 studies on interpersonal reconciliation support these hypotheses. Applied and theoretical implications of this model are discussed., (Copyright 2008 APA, all rights reserved.)

This article examines the role of personality dispositions as determinants of people's reactions to threats to social identity. It is argued that since individuals characterized as high field-dependents have a greater tendency to anchor their identity in the social group than low field-dependents, they will be more affected by threats to social identity, especially when the context is framed as an intergroup context. Threat to social identity was manipulated by inducing intergroup similarity, and intergroup differentiation was measured. The first experiment assessed the hypothesis with minimal groups. The second experiment assessed it with real groups (two rival schools). Findings provided support for the hypotheses. The discussion centers on the role of personality dispositions in the social identity perspective.

Integrating research on social identity processes and helping relations, the authors proposed that low-status group members who are high identifiers will be unwilling to receive help from the high-status group when status relations are perceived as unstable and help is dependency-oriented. The first experiment, a minimal group experiment, found negative reactions to help from a high-status outgroup when status relations were unstable. The 2nd and 3rd experiments, which used real groups of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews, replicated this finding and showed that high identifiers were less receptive to help from the high-status outgroup than low identifiers. The 4th experiment, a help-seeking experiment with real groups of competing high schools, found that the least amount of help was sought from a high-status group by high identifiers when status relations were perceived as unstable and help was dependency-oriented. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed., (Copyright 2006 APA, all rights reserved.)

The present study explores the effects of expressions of empathy for the ingroup's conflict-related suffering and assumed responsibility for causing it by a representative of the rival outgroup on recipient's willingness for reconciliation. It is suggested that such positive expressions by an adversary will have positive effects on reconciliation only in the presence of a basic level of trust in the outgroup. In two studies, Israeli-Jewish participants were exposed to a Palestinian leader who either expressed or did not express empathy and/or Palestinian responsibility for Israelis' suffering. After reading the speech, participants completed a questionnaire that measured their attitudes toward reconciliation with Palestinians. Results of both studies show that whereas expression of empathy led to more positive attitudes when trust was high, it tended to have adverse effects when trust was low. Similar effects were not found for assumed responsibility. Implications for research on intergroup conflict and reconciliation are discussed.