Person-Organization Congruence and the Maintenance of Group-Based Social Hierarchy: A Social Dominance Perspective

Using vocational choice theory and social dominance theory as guiding frameworks, this paper examines the interrelationships between the types of social institutions that a person occupies, on the one hand, and the sociopolitical attitudes and behavioral predispositions that a person displays, on the other. Beginning with Holland (1959, 1966), numerous researchers have documented the fact that people’s work-related values tend to match the values of their work environments. Researchers have also found, as we might expect, that this value match yields superior job performance and greater employee satisfaction. Social dominance theory has proposed an important expansion of this research: people’s sociopolitical attitudes (e.g. anti-egalitarianism) should also be compatible, or congruent, with their institutional environments (e.g. schools, workplaces). A growing body of research supports this claim. Specifically, recent research has shown that hierarchy-enhancing (HE) organizations (e.g. police forces) tend to be occupied by those with anti-egalitarian beliefs, while hierarchy-attenuating (HA) organizations (e.g. civil liberties organizations) tend to be occupied by those with relatively democratic beliefs. This research has also provided evidence for five (non-mutually exclusive) processes underlying this institutional assortment: self-selection, institutional selection, institutional socialization, differential reward, and differential attrition. This paper reviews the literature bearing on each of these processes, and suggests key paths for future research

Ethnic and National Attachment in the Rainbow Nation: The Case of the Republic of South Africa

Previous work concerning the interface between racial and national identification within multiracial states has suggested that dominant racial groups tend to express a firmer grip on ownership of and identification with the nation than is the case for racial minorities. This can occur despite inclusionary political rhetoric to the contrary and within nations regarded as civic rather than ethnic states. In this article, we explored the degree to which there were asymmetries in the interface between racial and national identities within the nation of South Africa, a state whose current political dispensation was founded on the principles of racial pluralism. We examined a large sample of South African citizens from the four officially recognized racial categories: Africans, Whites, Coloreds, and Indian/Asians. The results showed mixed support for the idea of South Africa as a “Rainbow Nation.”Psycholog

We will hunt them down: how social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism fuel ethnic persecution of immigrants in fundamentally different ways

"Despite the fact that SDO and RWA are correlated with one another and both predict support for ethnic persecution of immigrants, it is argued that this aggression is provoked for very different reasons. For authoritarians, outgroup aggression against immigrants should primarily be provoked by immigrant refusal to assimilate into the dominant culture because this violates ingroup conformity. In contrast, SDO should be associated with aggression against immigrants who do assimilate into the dominant culture because this blurs existing status boundaries between groups. Using samples of American and Swiss college students, the data were consistent with this status boundary enforcement hypothesis regarding social dominators and largely consistent with the ingroup conformity hypothesis regarding authoritarians. National and ethnic identification did not account for these results. The results further support the argument that outgroup prejudice and discrimination is most fruitfully seen as an interactive function of individual differences and situational constraints." [author's abstract

Vladimir's Choice and the Distribution of Social Resources

`Vladimir's choice' refers to the tendency for people to favor the ingroup relative to the outgroup—even when doing so requires that people sacrifice ingroup profits in absolute terms. We investigated correlates of this tendency by asking a sample of White undergraduates to complete an allocation task using a resource allocation matrix. While there was a slight tendency for Vladimir's choice to increase with increasing levels of ethnic identification, this tendency disappeared when other factors were considered. Consistent with realistic group conflict theory and social dominance theory, the tendency to make Vladimir's choice increased with increasing levels of perceived intergroup competition and social dominance orientation

Reactions to Crime as a Hierarchy Regulating Strategy: The Moderating Role of Social Dominance Orientation

Across two studies, we demonstrated that support for group-based hierarchies differentially affects evaluation of ingroup and outgroup criminal offenders and that this effect generalizes to overall evaluations of their respective groups. Drawing on social dominance theory, our results show that differential judgments of national ingroup and immigrant outgroup offenders reflect hierarchy regulating strategies. Study 1 (N=94) revealed that egalitarians (low on SDO) were more lenient toward outgroup offenders and their ethnic group (Arab immigrants) when compared to ingroup offenders and their national group (Swiss citizens). The opposite was true for social dominators (high on SDO). Study 2 (N=88) replicated the results of Study 1 and further demonstrated that the socio-economic status of the perpetrator did not affect perpetrator group evaluations suggesting that the arbitrary sets of ethnicity or nationality, not education level and employment status, were the important cues for hierarchy-regulating judgments of criminal offender

“Not one of us”: predictors and consequences of denying ingroup characteristics to ambiguous targets

We investigated individual difference predictors of ascribing ingroup characteristics to negative and positive ambiguous targets. Studies 1 and 2 investigated events involving negative targets whose status as racial (Tsarnaev brothers) or national (Woolwich attackers) ingroup members remained ambiguous. Immediately following the attacks, we presented White Americans and British individuals with the suspects’ images. Those higher in social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA)—concerned with enforcing status boundaries and adherence to ingroup norms, respectively—perceived these low status and low conformity suspects as looking less White and less British, thus denying them ingroup characteristics. Perceiving suspects in more exclusionary terms increased support for treating them harshly, and for militaristic counter-terrorism policies prioritizing ingroup safety over outgroup harm. Studies 3 and 4 experimentally manipulated a racially ambiguous target’s status and conformity. Results suggested that target status and conformity critically influence SDO’s (status) and RWA’s (conformity) effects on inclusionary versus exclusionary perceptions

Shaping the Development of Prejudice: Latent Growth Modeling of the Influence of Social Dominance Orientation on Outgroup Affect in Youth

Social dominance orientation (SDO) has been theorized as a stable, early-emerging trait influencing outgroup evaluations, a view supported by evidence from cross-sectional and two-wave longitudinal research. Yet, the limitations of identifying causal paths with cross-sectional and two-wave designs are increasingly being acknowledged. This article presents the first use of multi-wave data to test the over-time relationship between SDO and outgroup affect among young people. We use cross-lagged and latent growth modeling (LGM) of a three-wave data set employing Norwegian adolescents (over 2 years, N = 453) and a five-wave data set with American university students (over 4 years, N = 748). Overall, SDO exhibits high temporal rank-order stability and predicts changes in outgroup affect. This research represents the strongest test to date of SDO’s role as a stable trait that influences the development of prejudice, while highlighting LGM as a valuable tool for social and political psychology

National and Ethnic Identity in the Face of Discrimination: Ethnic Minority and Majority Perspectives

Does the United States afford people of different backgrounds a sense of equal identification with the nation? Past research has documented ethnic/racial group differences on levels of national identity but there has been little research examining what psychologically moderates these disparities. The present research investigates how perceived group discrimination is associated with national and ethnic identification among ethnic majority and minority groups. Study 1 examines whether perceived group discrimination moderates subgroup differences on national and ethnic identification. Study 2 makes salient group discrimination-via an item order manipulation-and examines the effects on national and ethnic identification. In general, the 2 studies demonstrate that for most ethnic minorities higher perceptions of group discrimination are related to lower levels of national identity and higher ethnic identity. Conversely, among majority group members, higher levels of perceived discrimination predict higher levels of national identity with little influence on ethnic identification

Why do white Americans oppose race-targeted policies? Clarifying the impact of symbolic racism

Measures of symbolic racism (SR) have often been used to tap racial prejudice towar