Imagine The Impact Of Contact And Group Identity On The Victimization Of Competition

In intergroup conflicts, competitive victimhood refers to the belief that one's own ingroup has suffered more than the outgroup. Although the belief can increase ingroup cohesion, it decreases the level of intergroup forgiveness, which is not helpful neither to reduce intergroup conflicts nor to improve intergroup relations. On the contrary, competitive victimhood plays a crucial role in resolving intergroup conflicts. However, few domestic and foreign research has been conducted to explore ways to reduce competitive victimhood.The Han Chinese are the biggest ethnic group, and the Tibetan people are one of the most important ethnic minority groups in China. However, the relations between these two ethnic groups are constantly complex, with overall harmony but partial conflicts. Therefore, using the Han Chinese and Tibetan people as participants to investigate competitive victimhood can provide new perspective for research on ethnic relations.The present research is based on correspondent theories with around 350 Han Chinese and Tibetan people in Jiangsu and Tibet enrolled as participants. Three studies were conducted to investigate competitive victimhood and factors that influence it. Results showed that (1) in intergroup conflicts, competitive victimhood existed between Han Chinese and Tibetan people; (2) in intergroup conflicts, imagined interaction influenced competitive victimhood; and compared to neutral imagination, the level of competitive victimhood is lower among participants who had positive imagined interaction; (3) in intergroup conflicts, ethnic variable and imagined interaction didn't have interaction which meant that compared to neutral imagination, the level of competitive victimhood is lower among both Han Chinese and Tibetan participants who had positive imagined interaction; (4) in intergroup conflicts, group identification significantly predicted competitive victimhood; and the level of competitive victimhood was lower when activating superordinate identification than that of the control group; (5)in intergroup conflicts, the interaction was significant between ethnicity and group identification; for Han Chinese participants, the level of competitive victimhood was lower when activating superordinate identification than that of the control group; but for Tibetan participants, the level of competitive victimhood was higher when activating superordinate identification than that of the control group.