Beschreibung:
Merging ideas from optimal distinctiveness theory (M. B. Brewer, 1991) and the self-affirmation literature, we predicted that individuals would have a greater need to affirm memberships in minority groups than memberships in majority groups. Furthermore, ingroup favoritism produced by minority group members, but not by majority group members, was hypothesized to be an act of self-affirmation. Two studies demonstrate that, for minority group members, the need for ingroup affirmation increases as identification for the minority ingroup increases (Experiment 1), that at high identification, minorities have a greater need for ingroup affirmation than majority group members (Experiments 1, 2), and that ingroup favoritism by minority group members acts as an affirmation of the ingroup (Experiments 2)