Certainty, Self-Esteem, and Reactions to Deviant Ingroup Members

Based on the motivations for group identification suggested by social identity theory and research on the black sheep effect, it was hypothesized that group esteem and uncertainty would affect group members' evaluations of deviant ingroup members, openness to a persuasive message presented by a deviant member, and indirect attitude change. More specifically, lowered group esteem and uncertainty were expected to lead to more derogation of ingroup deviants, less elaboration of a deviant's message, and less indirect attitude change. Data were collected from students at a small, Christian, liberal arts college, with Christians being the salient ingroup. Students were e-mailed a link to a website which contained all of the study materials. Group esteem was experimentally manipulated by asking participants to produce examples of negative or positive things that are believed about Christians. Uncertainty was manipulated by asking participants to produce examples of things that made them feel either certain or uncertain about their lives. After reading a counter-attitudinal message participants were asked to list thoughts they had while reading the message, evaluate the author of the message, and respond to attitude questions indirectly related to the message topic. A 2X2 ANOVA of participants highly identifying with their group revealed an interaction effect on two measures of derogation (scale measuring overall likability: p < .05; scale using list of adjectives: p < .05). Participants evaluated the deviant most positively when faced with both certainty and group esteem threats or when faced with neither certainty nor group esteem threats. Participants evaluated a deviant ingroup member most negatively when threatened on only one of these dimensions. Hypotheses that uncertainty and group esteem would affect elaboration of a deviant's message and indirect influence by a deviant were not supported. The study brings together ideas from research on the black sheep effect, social identity theory, and minority influence research. The underlying assumptions that motives of uncertainty reduction and self-esteem drive the black sheep effect were tested empirically and given some support. The mixed results of the study encourage future research to test whether or not social identity motives are behind the black sheep effect.