Ricerc@Sapienza

Previous research has suggested that the black sheep effect (BSE), i.e., harsher ingroup than outgroup deviants' derogation, mainly occurs in members highly identified with groups or belonging to highly entitative groups. Two studies considered the conjoined effect of identification and entitativity on BSE. In particular, in Study 1 we consider the mediating role of identification on entitativity- BSE relationship and in Study 2 we focused on the importance of the group for the self-esteem as mediator of such relationship.

Using different evaluation targets (i.e., politicians’ pictures, ideological words, items referring to features attributed to political ingroup/outgroup) we characterized the intergroup bias among political groups in the Italian context (Study 1-2-3) and tested a model that may account for the bias itself (Study 3). For all evaluation targets, left-wing participants -compared to right wing participants - showed a greater intergroup bias, expressing more negative emotions towards the outgroup. The process was influenced by a greater perceived threat of the outgroup.