Deviant Ingroup Protection Effect Study 2

This is Study 2 reported in a paper by Abrams, Travaglino et al. on the Deviant Ingroup Protection Effect, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Methods complied with APA ethical standards and were approved by the University of Kent’s Psychology ethics board (ID 2011855) The data are in an SPSS .sav file called DIP_Study2_Tax

Design

Participants viewed and evaluated either six In-Category or six Out-Category groups. Measures for the four 'consolidator'groups were averaged so that data were analysed in a 2 (Category: In-Category vs Out-Category) x 3 (Group: accentuator, consolidator, attenuator) design with repeated measures on the Group factor.

Participants

One-hundred-and-sixty-five US residents were recruited from the crowdsourcing platform Academic Prolific. To ensure there were equal numbers of participants in our Norm Validity factor (In-Category Valid vs. Out-Category Valid), participants were first pre-screened and answered the subjective validity measures from Experiment 1 to assess whether they thought US or EU norms on taxation were more valid. Participants were classified as belonging to the in-category valid condition if their mean score on the US subjective validity measure was greater than their score on the EU subjective validity measure. There were 80 participants in the in-category valid condition and 85 in the out-category condition. Participants were then randomly assigned to condition (85 in the In-Category condition, 80 in the Out-Category condition). Group Position (Attenuator, Consolidator, Accentuator) was the within participants factor. There were 94 males, 67 females, and four participants who identified as other.

Procedure

Participants read a short article on previous survey research on personal income tax that set out the views of the US and EU. The US was positioned as adopting a more liberal perspective on taxation, which gave citizens the right to spend their money as they pleased and limited the amount taken by Government. The EU was positioned as placing higher levels of taxation on citizens, which limited personal freedom but provided wider access to public services. Participants were informed that among a survey of American states, Americans generally supported low taxes and preferred reductions in tax levels. Among a survey of European Union countries, Europeans were comfortable with higher taxes and supported increases in taxation levels.

To manipulate the norm within each category, participants were displayed a color chart which ranged from 0% tax (labeled as Very Low Taxation and colored Yellow) to 14% tax (Medium Taxation: Red) to 28% (Very High Taxation: Blue). In the in-category condition, each group was labeled as 1-6, with state 2 as the accentuator group (0% taxation) and state 5 as the attenuator group (14% taxation). The consolidator groups (states 1, 3, 4, and 6) ranged from 6-8% taxation levels, with the mean as 7%. In the out-category condition, each group was labeled as country 1-6, with country 2 as the accentuator group (28% taxation) and country 5 as the attenuator group (14% taxation). The consolidator groups (countries 1, 3, 4, and 6) ranged from 20-22% taxation, with the mean as 21%. As with Experiment 1, the attenuator group for both the in-category and out-category condition adopted the same position.

Summary of measures:

Category Evaluations

After reading the general introduction, participants evaluated US and EU by responding to the question: “How favorable do you feel towards [States in the US; Countries in the EU” (1 = not at all, 7 = extremely).

Policy orientation check.

Participants were then asked to report the policy orientation of groups A to F by asking “to what extent does each group support a lower or a higher taxation policy (1 = lower, 7 = higher). This was to ensure that they accurately perceived the magnitude of differences among the groups.

Evaluations of groups. To measure evaluations of groups, participants then rated how favorable they felt towards each group. Groups labeled A to F were presented in rows in a matrix table and participants were asked: “Please, indicate how favorable you feel towards each group [A to F] in the US [EU] category (1 = not at all, 7 = extremely).

Category Subjective Validity.

Two sets of items (one for US, another for the EU) asked participants to rate (1 = not at all, 7 = extremely): “To what extent do you think the [category’s] views are reasonable, fair, and valid (3 items).