Ricerc@Sapienza

Although social identity and categorization process motivate members of a group to achieve oneness and uniformity, social groups may be internally divided into subgroups (Hornesey & Hogg, 2000) and in some situations the members of a subgroup may decide to undergo a schism (Liebman, et al., 1988; Worchel, 1984), that is they may leave the parent group either to form a break way group or to join a different group.
Sani (1999, 2000, 2005) posited that a schism stems from a debate concerning the relationship between a new norm and the group identity. Some group members may see the norm as fully consistent with the group identity and may be willing to support it, or, on the contrary, they may see the norm as threatening the group identity and in this case they may oppose the norm to defend the identity, and be more likely to join a schism once the norm is adopted. However, the role of affective and cognitive reactions to a perceived identity threat in predicting intentions to leave a social group has not been addressed yet.
We argue that the decision to break-up with a group may represent a defensive reaction aimed to reaffirm one¿s group¿s identity. In particular, we advance that when a conflict over morality emerges (a critical dimension of one¿s identity), a defensive experience of moral outrage and psychological disengagement are more likely to occur (Tauberne & Zoomer, 2013). These processes have been previously found to reduce the distress from a perceived threat and to reshape the self-concept in a way that reduce the salience of the group¿s identity.
Specifically, the present research is aimed to investigate whether a conflict on moral values trigger outraged feelings that facilitate psychological disengagement and reduce the cognitive dissonance when contemplating leaving intention. A modified version of a group coordination game will be employed and asymmetry results will be manipulated to affect social perception and group membership preferences