Sauer, Felix (2022) The Effect of Social Identity Threat on Subjective Ambivalence in a Societal Debate. Master thesis, Psychology.
|
Text
Master Thesis_Felix Sauer.pdf Download (823kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Dominant groups often show little interest in participating in societal debates, thereby passing on important situations of showing allyship towards marginalized groups and fostering social change. In this study, we argue that such apathy might be explained by subjective ambivalence. It is investigated whether subjective ambivalence can arise as the result of social identity threat, specifically through stereotype and group-image threat which could result in opposing attitudinal consequences. A group of 81 German-speaking men participated in a study about a societal debate on gender-fair language. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the experimental condition, the debate was presented in a way that induced social identity threat, whereas, in the control contrition, the debate was described in a more neutral way. Afterwards, subjective ambivalence was measured. The results showed that subjective ambivalence could not be explained by a main effect of social identity threat alone, nor by an interaction between social identity threat and perceived male privilege. However, there was a significant interaction between social identity threat and male identification. This suggests that participants who highly identified as male felt more ambivalent when they experienced social identity threat while for low identified participants the opposite was true. This indicates that subjective ambivalence can be caused by social identity mechanisms. However, this effect depends on the degree to which an individual identifies with the group that is targeted by the threat. Implications of these findings and their potential revenue for future research are discussed.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Ton, G.M. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | Applied Social Psychology (ASP) [Master Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 31 Jan 2022 15:54 |
| Last Modified: | 31 Jan 2022 15:54 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/108 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |