The Advantage of Fitting the Ingroup: Ingroup Prototypicality and Attributed Occupational Success

Marc-André Reinhard, Simon Schindler, Dagmar Stahlberg and Ann Seibert

International Journal of Psychological Studies, 2014, vol. 6, issue 3, 129

Abstract: According to social identity theory people are viewed as prototypical of a group to the extent that they possess ingroup characteristics but not outgroup characteristics. Based on this, previous research demonstrated that high-status group members (e.g., in the occupational field- men) may profit from failure in low-status domains, that is, domains in which members of a low-status group (e.g., in the occupational field- women) outperform high-status group members. In this case individual failure of a high-status group member appear highly prototypical for the high-status ingroup and therefore leads to the attribution of future occupational success (so called Failure-as-an-Asset effect). The current work extends this reasoning, by taking into account that perceived prototypicality of an individual group member is assumed to depend on meta-contrast based perception, meaning the ratio of differences between in- and outgroup characteristics and similarities of the ingroup and the respective group member. Therefore, the present study investigated how manipulated differences in ingroup prototypicality (i.e., meta-contrast quotient) of a failing male individual affect attributed occupational success. Thus, we predicted perceived prototypicality to moderate the Failure-as-an-Asset effect. In line with our hypothesis, we found that increased ingroup prototypicality lead to higher attributed occupational success.

Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ibn:ijpsjl:v:6:y:2014:i:3:p:129

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