The effect of threat to competence on perception of group entitativity

Abstract

The literature suggests that self-esteem regulation mechanisms are interchangeable; people whose self-esteem is threatened in one domain utilize self-maintenance strategies that are effective in unrelated domains to cope with the original threats. From this perspective, we predicted that self-esteem threats in the dimension of academic competence would instigate the strengthening of one’s sense of belonging through the activation of group membership and the heightened perception of group entitativity. Two experimental studies were conducted with undergraduates using a reliving task (Study 1) and a bogus feedback paradigm (Study 2) to manipulate levels of self-esteem threats. Results from Study 2 demonstrated that self-esteem threats in the competence dimension led to heightened entitativity ratings for any relevant group, regardless of trait self-esteem levels, while those from Study 1 indicated that this tendency was observed only among participants with relatively high trait self-esteem. Generalizability of the cross-domain compensation in self-esteem maintenance is discussed.