Appeasement: Pro-Hierarchy Dominant Group Members’ Strategic Support for Affirmative Action

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind M. Chow ◽  
Brian S. Lowery ◽  
Caitlin M. Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Strategic Support

Appeasement

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind M. Chow ◽  
Brian S. Lowery ◽  
Caitlin M. Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Intergroup Threat ◽  
Redistributive Policies ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Hierarchical Status

This article explores the possibility that dominant-group members will attempt to appease subordinate groups to protect the hierarchy. In four studies, we find that (a) prohierarchy Whites perceive more intergroup threat when they believe ethnic minorities hold Whites in low regard, (b) prohierarchy Whites respond to ethnic minorities’ low regard for Whites by increasing their support for redistributive policies (e.g., affirmative action), (c) the increase in support only occurs when prohierarchy Whites perceive the hierarchy to be unstable, and (d) prohierarchy Whites perceive the hierarchy to be more stable if they believe Whites support redistributive policies. These results suggest that prohierarchy dominant-group members’ support for redistributive policies can stem from a concern about maintaining the hierarchical status quo, and provides evidence that support for redistributive policies can be a hierarchy-enhancing strategy.

scholarly journals Climate and the distribution of cooperative breeding in mammals

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 160897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Lukas ◽  
Tim Clutton-Brock
Keyword(s):  
Cooperative Breeding ◽  
Breeding Systems ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Alloparental Care ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Social Monogamy ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Group Members

Cooperative breeding systems, in which non-breeding individuals provide care for the offspring of dominant group members, occur in less than 1% of mammals and are associated with social monogamy and the production of multiple offspring per birth (polytocy). Here, we show that the distribution of alloparental care by non-breeding subordinates is associated with habitats where annual rainfall is low. A possible reason for this association is that the females of species found in arid environments are usually polytocous and this may have facilitated the evolution of alloparental care.

scholarly journals Co-Cultural Theory and Communication

Communication ◽  
2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Group Status ◽  
Group Members

Co-cultural communication theory, or co-cultural theory for short, emerged from the scholarly research of Mark Orbe in the 1990s. A co-cultural theoretical approach provides a lens to understand how traditionally underrepresented group members communicate within societal structures governed by cultural groups that have, over time, achieved dominant group status. The theory’s foundation was established by Orbe and colleagues by exploring the communicative lived experiences of underrepresented group members in the United States; the earliest work engaged the communication of co-cultural groups defined through race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, disability, and sexual orientation. The theory centralizes the lived experiences of co-cultural group members and focuses on instances when cultural difference is regarded as salient. At its core, co-cultural theory explores one basic question: How do co-cultural group members use communication to negotiate their cultural identities with others (both like and unlike themselves) in a societal context where they are traditionally marginalized? Through discovery-oriented qualitative research, six factors emerged (field of experience, abilities, perceived costs and rewards, communication approach, preferred outcome, and situational context) as central to the selection of specific co-cultural practices. Since its inception, co-cultural theory has been embraced as a core theory for individuals interested in studying the intersection of culture, power, and communication.

Entitlement Makes People Ignorant, Egocentric, and Mean

2021 ◽  
pp. 145-175
Author(s):  
Kristin J. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Better Than

This chapter explores the ways in which entitlement facilitates ignorance, egocentrism, and inconsiderateness. People with power tend to engage in shoddy information processing. Compared to those who are marginalized, dominant group members think in shortcuts. Power emboldens people to be careless about repercussions, at least compared to those without power. Power holders do not feel compelled to view things from another person’s perspective and they do not feel obliged to know much about people with less power. For marginalized people, their very lives depend on understanding the idiosyncrasies of power holders and they understand these dynamics much better than powerful people. Power entitles people to conveniently and self-servingly assume they know more than they actually do when it comes to telling women and people of color how to think about sexism and racism (e.g., mansplaining and whitesplaining). At the same time, power entitles people to claim they know less than they actually do when they are called to account for sexual violence.

Beyond prejudice: Relational inequality, collective action, and social change revisited

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 451-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dixon ◽  
Mark Levine ◽  
Steve Reicher ◽  
Kevin Durrheim
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Intergroup Relations ◽  
Prejudice Reduction ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Main Target ◽  
Subordinate Group ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Intergroup Inequality

AbstractThis response clarifies, qualifies, and develops our critique of the limits of intergroup liking as a means of challenging intergroup inequality. It does not dispute that dominant groups may espouse negative attitudes towards subordinate groups. Nor does it dispute that prejudice reduction can be an effective way of tackling resulting forms of intergroup hostility. What it does dispute is the assumption that getting dominant group members and subordinate group members to like each other more is the best way of improving intergroup relations that are characterized by relatively stable, institutionally embedded, relations of inequality. In other words, the main target of our critique is the model of change that underlies prejudice reduction interventions and the mainstream concept of “prejudice” on which they are based.

scholarly journals Rapid juvenile hormone downregulation in subordinate wasp queens facilitates stable cooperation

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1872) ◽  
pp. 20172645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Tibbetts ◽  
Michelle L. Fearon ◽  
Ellery Wong ◽  
Zachary Y. Huang ◽  
Robin M. Tinghitella
Keyword(s):  
Juvenile Hormone ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Reproductive Hormones ◽  
Reproductive Capacity ◽  
High Fertility ◽  
Cooperative Groups ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Polistes Dominula ◽  
Group Members

In many cooperatively breeding animals, subordinate group members have lower reproductive capacity than dominant group members. Theory suggests subordinates may downregulate their reproductive capacity because dominants punish subordinates who maintain high fertility. However, there is little direct experimental evidence that dominants cause physiological suppression in subordinates. Here, we experimentally test how social interactions influence subordinate reproductive hormones in Polistes dominula paper wasps. Polistes dominula queens commonly found nests in cooperative groups where the dominant queen is more fertile than the subordinate queen. In this study, we randomly assigned wasps to cooperative groups, assessed dominance behaviour during group formation, then measured levels of juvenile hormone (JH), a hormone that mediates Polistes fertility. Within three hours, lowest ranking subordinates had less JH than dominants or solitary controls, indicating that group formation caused rapid JH reduction in low-ranking subordinates. In a second experiment, we measured the behavioural consequences of experimentally increasing subordinate JH. Subordinates with high JH-titres received significantly more aggression than control subordinates or subordinates from groups where the dominant's JH was increased. These results suggest that dominants aggressively punished subordinates who attempted to maintain high fertility. Low-ranked subordinates may rapidly downregulate reproductive capacity to reduce costly social interactions with dominants. Rapid modulation of subordinate reproductive physiology may be an important adaptation to facilitate the formation of stable, cooperative groups.

Enraged, Rattled, and Wronged

2021 ◽  
pp. 176-217
Author(s):  
Kristin J. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
White People ◽  
Group Position ◽  
Working People ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Divide And Rule

Chapter 6 explores the backlash to social progress by the entitled. Dominant group members are not accustomed to being bossed around. They tend to be ill-equipped to adapt to changing circumstances, and their resistance to change comes in many forms, with a range of consequences to themselves and others. Dominant group members are both highly sensitive to criticism and object to being sidelined. The history of divide and rule by elites toward poor and working people begins Chapter 6. This history helps us understand why a less-educated working- or middle-class White person comes to share a sense of the same group position to that of wealthy and influential Whites rather than working- or middle-class people of color. Some White people have so internalized their superiority over people of color, that even Whites who are in economic distress support legislation and politicians that have no intention of aiding them. They reject government assistance that they desperately need, they refuse to sign up for the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) because they believe that these initiatives help undeserving minorities. These White people are dying of Whiteness. And politicians capitalize on this White racial resentment. The entitled resentment of those who feel their superior status is undermined manifests in various ways. White fragility and fragile masculinity are emotionally hyperbolic reactions by dominant group members when they are asked to acknowledge the existence of racism and sexism.

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