title: Perceived entitativity and the black-sheep effect: when will we denigrate negative ingroup members?
abstract: Although ingroup favoritism is a robust effect, there are notable exceptions. For example, the outgroup extremity effect indicates outgroup derogation, whereas the black-sheep effect indicates ingroup derogation. We propose that perceived entitativity, the degree to which a group is viewed as a unified social entity, may help explain ingroup derogation. Negative ingroup members from high perceived entitativity groups may pose a meaningful threat to the perceiver's social identity that can be alleviated by denigrating the target (i.e., the black-sheep effect). Participants evaluated high or low quality essays attributed to ingroup and outgroup members. Participants did not differentiate based on ingroup/outgroup membership for low perceived entitativity groups. However, when rating high perceived entitativity groups, ingroup extremity emerged. These results confirm and provide explanations for ingroup denigration.
authors.affiliation: Breech School of Business, Drury University, 900 North Benton Avenue, Springfield, MO 65802, USA. aclewis@drury.edu
authors.forename: Amy C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: Steven J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Sherman
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D015146:Midwestern United States; D009938:Organizations; D011287:Prejudice; D012928:Social Desirability; D012933:Social Identification