Collective Action and Subordinate Group Identity in a Simulated Society Game

2005 Japanese Psychological Association. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Japanese Psychological Research

2005, Volume 47, No. 1, 1221

Munksgaard

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Collective action and group identity in SIMSOC

Collective action and subordinate group identity in a simulated society game

YUKIO HIROSE

1

and YUMIKO TARESAWA

Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan

TATSUYA OKUDA

Department of Human Science, Tokai Gakuen University, Nakahira, Tenpaku-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan

Abstract:

This research examined the effects of upward mobility and resource disparityon subordinates collective action and group identity in a context of intergroup negotiationby using a simulated society (SIMSOC) game. According to the social identity theory, it washypothesized that when individual mobility opportunities for a subordinate group increase,the members of the subordinate group are less likely to participate in collective actions and toappreciate the merits of their own group identity. Four hundred and fifty-four undergraduatesparticipated in 12 separate SIMSOC games. For each game, approximately 40 undergraduateswere divided into dominant and subordinate groups. Each of the four combinations of high/ lowlevels of upward mobility and large/small resource disparity was played out three times.Subordinates in the low-mobility condition acted collectively more frequently and evaluatedtheir own group more positively than those in the high-mobility condition. A signifificant positivecorrelation between the frequency of subordinates collective action and in-group favoritismwas found.

Key words:

group identity, collective action, individual mobility, simulated society (SIMSOC).

There is much evidence of intergroup conictbetween dominant and subordinate groupswithin a stratied society in which unequaldistribution of scarce resources prevails.Members in the dominant group have manyadvantages in achieving their own goalsbecause they have access to plenty of resources.They also enjoy a positive group identity as aresult of comparison with other groups. Incontrast, members in the subordinate grouphave many disadvantages in achieving theirown goals, and also suffer from a negativesocial identity. How can subordinate memberssucceed in achieving both their own goals anda positive group identity? What conditions

facilitate or block the subordinate groupscollective actions? The purpose of this study isto answer these questions by using a simulatedsociety (SIMSOC) game.

According to social identity theory (Tajifel& Turner, 1979), subordinates cope with anegative, threatening social identity by adoptingeither individual upward mobility or collectiveaction. Tajifel and Turner (1979) hypothesizedthat the former breaks up subordinate groupcohesion and intensies the negative identity,while the latter is assumed to strengthen thegroup solidarity by providing the members witha sense of superiority over dominant groupson some dimensions.

1

Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to: Yukio Hirose, Graduate School of Environmental Studies,Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan. (Email: [email protected])

Japanese Psychological Association 2005.


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Furthermore, Tajifel and Turner (1979) pro-posed that the degree of individual mobilityperceived by subordinate members is themajor determinant in choosing either indi-vidual mobility or collective action. Those whohave the ability to move upward are not likelyto join collective actions in their own group.They also hypothesized that perceived injusticeand perceived instability of status differencesbetween dominant and subordinate groupsfacilitates subordinates participation in collec-tive actions.

Many studies (e.g., Commins & Lockwood,1979; Lemaine & Kastersztein, 1972; Turner &Brown, 1978) have reported a consistent ndingthat the perceived injustice of status differencesamplied in-group favoritism as an index ofthe positive group identity of subordinatemembers. However, the effect of instabilityin the social status on subordinates in-groupfavoritism has not been conrmed (e.g., Turner& Brown, 1978). We suggest that one of thereasons for the unconrmed effect of instabil-ity is a result of the mediating function of col-lective action between instability and in-groupfavoritism. We dene the perceived instabilityof the status system as the groups perceptionthat their respective status positions can bechanged or even reversed. Increasing instabil-ity in the social status induces subordinates toevaluate the effectiveness of collective actionto improve their group status, and thus theirsuccessful collective action strengthens theirpositive in-group identity. Unstable status dif-ferentials are not likely to strengthen in-groupfavoritism without collective action. Meanwhile,even without collective action, perceived injus-tice provokes dissatisfaction and anger againstthe dominant groups, which leads to enhancedin-group favoritism.

Furthermore, studies that have investigatedthe effect of upward mobility on attitudes(e.g., in-group favoritism) and actions (e.g.,collective action) shown by subordinates areboth few and unclear. The summer campexperiment by Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood,and Sherif (1961) suggested that the defeatedgroups members maintained prominent in-group favoritism at the end of the second

week when intergroup mobility was blocked,but they had decreased in-group favoritism incomparison with the other members who won,at the end of the third week when the groupboundary was almost eliminated. Ellemers,van Knippenberg, de Vries, and Wilke (1988)found that while subordinate group membersshowed negative group identity with and with-out upward mobility, the upward mobilityinduced subordinates to magnify the degree oftheir negative group identity. Wright, Taylor,and Moghaddam (1990) found that subordinatespreferred the option of individual mobility tocollective action even if the upward mobilitywas minimal.

In accordance with these studies, we pro-pose that subordinate members who perceivethe social status between dominant and sub-ordinate groups as stable and/or individualopportunities for upward mobility as limited,but not impossible, are still willing to chooseupward mobility as an individual option andthus fail to achieve both collective action asa group option and a positive group identity.However, when the social status is unstableand/or the opportunities for upward mobilityare very limited, then members will join thecollective action and be able to forge a posi-tive group identity. The behavioral commit-ment to the collective action enables them todo this.

Despite the theoretical importance, empiricstudies have so far not examined the rela-tionship between subordinates group identityand various alternative actions chosen by sub-ordinate members. Most of the previous studieshave focused only on the evaluations, such asin-group favoritism or behavioral intention,rather than on the actions of the subordinatemembers. The laboratory experiment methodsare difcult to implement in an experimentalsituation in which subjects are able to volun-tarily choose their strategy from inaction,upward mobility, and collective action. In con-trast, a game simulation like SIMSOC makesit possible to simulate a social situation inwhich players can freely take any actionamong many alternatives. In addition, the sim-ulation allows the creation of a social system


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Y. Hirose, Y. Taresawa and T. Okuda

that subordinate groups perceive not onlyas unjust and unstable, but also insufcient inpotential mobility to a dominant group.

In SIMSOC (Gamson, 1978), two dominantgroups control major resources on arbitrarygrounds that are not justied. The two sub-ordinate groups may challenge the unfair andunequal share of resources. Furthermore, theyhave to take either individual or collectiveaction to achieve their own individual goals,for example, for property, power, or popu-larity. The former is individual migration,as upward mobility from their own group intothe dominant group or an individual attemptto get resources from the dominant group inorder to improve their condition of individualwelfare. The latter is collective action taken bya group of people in a region to solve theircommon problems.

In this experiment, we set the unjust socialsituation as constant, and examined the effectsof individual upward mobility and instability ofgroup status on the actions and evaluationsof subordinate members. Individual mobilityand instability of group status can be treatedas orthogonal variables. We, for example, canimagine a situation in which a subordinatemember can move upward individually beyondthe large and stable status gap between thedominant and subordinate groups (e.g., pass-ing by blacks who have white skin), andanother situation in which subordinates per-ceive that their group status can be improvedcollectively, but also that they can not changetheir group memberships (e.g., the feminismmovement).

The variable of upward mobility is mani-pulated by the degree to which intergroupcommunication is available at the individuallevel. If subordinate group members have areasonable degree of upward mobility, thenthey are likely to attempt to be accepted by thedominant groups or to attempt to get resourcesindividually from the dominant group, andthus are not likely to participate in collectiveaction and so forge their in-group favoritism.If the subordinates have a little upward mobil-ity under the unjust distribution of resources,then they are likely to participate in collective

action and thus express prominent in-groupfavoritism.

The variable of instability of status differ-ences is manipulated by the degree of resourcedisparity between dominant and subordinategroups at the group level. When the resourcedisparity is large, the subordinates attemptsto express in-group favoritism become moredifcult. If the dominant groups control mostof the scarce resources, then it is unavoidablefor the subordinate groups to depend on thedominant groups. It is also difcult for mem-bers of the subordinate groups to join incollective actions aimed at challenging theunequal distribution of resources betweengroups and thus difcult for them to forge apositive identity. In contrast, if the subordin-ate groups have enough resources to subsistwithin their own groups, then members ofthese groups will be able to join in collectiveactions and then forge a more positive identity.The large resource disparity may also increasethe social distance and reduce the perceivedsimilarity between the dominant and subordin-ate groups; it inhibits comparisons betweendifferent status groups (e.g., Festinger, 1954;Kidder & Stewart, 1975). Although there mightbe the opposite possibility, that the resourcedisparity in status differences between thedominant and subordinate groups motivatescompetition and increases collective action(e.g., Coser, 1956; Emerson, 1962), we tentativelyhypothesize that resource disparity decreasescollective action.

The action of the subordinate members ismeasured by the degree of participation in thevarious collective actions in their own region.The in-group favoritism that functions as anindex of positive group identity is measured bythe evaluation of ones own region and otherregions on status-related and status-unrelateddimensions. Previous studies have demon-strated that the subordinate groups deferred tothe dominant out-group on the status-relateddimension, but favored the in-group on the status-unrelated dimension (Reichl, 1997; Cadinu &Cerchioni, 2001).

Following these arguments, we examinedtwo hypotheses, outlined as follows:



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Hypothesis 1a: The subordinates willparticipate in collective actions in the lowupward-mobility condition more frequentlythan those in the high upward-mobilitycondition.

Hypothesis 1b: The subordinates will ex-press more prominent in-group favoritismon a status-unrelated dimension in the lowupward-mobility condition than those inthe high upward-mobility condition.

Hypothesis 2a: The subordinates willparticipate in collective actions in the smallresource-disparity condition more than thosein the large resource-disparity condition.

Hypothesis 2b: The subordinates will expressmore prominent in-group favoritism ona status-unrelated dimension in the smallresource-disparity condition than those inlarge resource-disparity condition.

Method

Overview of the design

The experimental design was a between-subjects factorial combination of two levelsof upward mobility (high/ low), two levels ofresource disparity (large/small), and two levelsof region (dominant/subordinate).

Participants

Four hundred and fty-four female and maleundergraduate students participated in orderto fulll the requirements of their social psycho-logy course. Twelve groups of 3642 studentsof both sexes each participated in a SIMSOCgame simulation.

Procedure

Time schedule of the game simulation.

It took2 days to nish all of the eight sessions (1 h persession) of the game simulation, includingafter-game discussion. We ran the rst to thirdsessions in the morning and the fourth to sixthsessions in the afternoon of the rst day andthe seventh to eighth sessions and after-gamediscussion on the second day.

Setting of the game simulation.

The gamesimulation was a modication of a SIMSOC

developed by Gamson (1978). The SIMSOCinvolved two dominant regions (two roomscalled Green and Yellow) and two subordinateregions (two rooms called Blue and Red).These regions were isolated from each other insuch a way that the only means of communica-tion was by traveling from one region to another.The dominant regions were given major infra-structures (industry and political party) andabundant resources (food, money, and meansof travel) and the subordinate regions weregiven minor infrastructures (mass media andlabor union) and scarce resources. From thebeginning of the game, there existed an inequa-lity of infrastructures and resources betweenthe dominant and subordinate regions.

Participants were evenly and randomlyassigned to one of the four regions in advance.Each region had 811 players. It was empha-sized that the assignment of regions was basednot on any traits of the participants but onchance. Participants were required to achievethe individual goal of gaining as much money,power, and popularity as possible. They werealso instructed that they could exchange tokenmoney for equivalent goods and that some ofthe players who were best at winning powerand popularity would be given special honorswith valuable awards at the end of the game.In order to reach these goals players had toexchange their resources with other playersof their own and other regions individually orcollectively. Players with means of travel couldcommunicate with other regions, but playerswithout these means had to remain withintheir own regions and could not initiate inter-regional negotiations. Therefore, players inthe dominant regions could achieve their goalsmore easily than those in subordinate regions.

Manipulation of upward mobility.

The rules ofthe game were set up so that approximatelyone-quarter of the players in the subordinateregions could immigrate to one of two domin-ant regions if they were accepted consensu-ally by the dominant region. In order to do this,players had to get travel tickets as the meansof communication with other regions and tonegotiate their immigration with the dominant


16


regions. The players in the subordinate regionsalso needed travel tickets in order to getresources individually from the dominantregions. As the subordinate regions have notravel tickets, it is very hard, but not impos-sible, to obtain a chance either to migrate, or toinitiate negotiation with the dominant regions.In a high upward-mobility condition, thedominant regions (Green and Yellow) were given10 travel tickets each and the subordinateregions (Blue and Red) were given ve eachin every session. In a low upward-mobilitycondition, the dominant regions were givenve travel tickets each and the subordinateregions were given no travel tickets in everysession.

Manipulation of resource disparity.

Resourcedisparity between the dominant and sub-ordinate regions was manipulated by creatinga difference in the number of infrastructuresthat were provided to each region at thebeginning of the game and in the numberof food coupons that were supplied to eachregion in every session. In the large resource-disparity condition, one dominant region (Green)was given two major infrastructures (industryand political party) and one minor infrastruc-ture ( judicial council) and was supplied 1.5times enough food coupons for the members.Another dominant region (Yellow) was giventwo major infrastructures (industry and poli-tical party) and just enough food coupons forthe members. In contrast, one subordinateregion (Blue) was given two minor infrastruc-tures (mass media and labor union) and wassupplied with half the needed food coupons.Another subordinate region (Red) was givenneither infrastructure nor food coupons. In thesmall resource-disparity condition, both of thedominant regions (Green and Yellow) weregiven two major infrastructures (industry andpolitical party) and just enough food coupons.In contrast, one subordinate region (Blue) wasgiven two minor infrastructures (mass mediaand judicial council), while the other subordinateregion (Red) was given one minor infrastructure(labor union). Both were supplied with half theneeded food coupons.

Measures

In-group favoritism.

After the sixth session,the game was interrupted and the players wereprompted to indicate their rating of their ownand the other regions on a ve-point bipolarscale. The ratings included four scales of status-related dimension (dominant-submissive; active-passive; strong-weak; aggressive-nonaggressive)and four scales of status-unrelated dimension(trustworthy-untrustworthy; friendly-unfriendly;warm-cold; altruistic-selsh).

Subordinates participation in collective action.

Players had to decide whether they would actindividually or collectively in each case of theimportant issues during the game. The issuesincluded: (a) acquisition of food coupons andtravel tickets; (b) negotiation of the conditionsof industry-labor and supporting party; and (c)management of incoming and outgoing money.Players were instructed to record the main resultsof these issues throughout the game. Based onthese records, each players participation in thecollective action for each issue was evaluated.The total number of the above-mentioned actionsformed the index of each players participationin the collective action in their region.

Results

Checks on the manipulation

The efcacy of the upward-mobility manipula-tion was evaluated using a 2(upward mobility)

2 (resource disparity)

2 (dominant vs. sub-ordinate region) ANOVA on players frequencyof travel to other regions. As expected, playersunder the high upward-mobility conditiontraveled more (

M

= 3.7) than players underthe low upward-mobility condition (

M

= 2.5),

F

(1,378) = 5.13,

p

< 0.05. In addition, playersin the dominant regions traveled more (

M

=3.6) than those in the subordinate regions(

M

= 2.4),

F

(1,378) = 4.39,

p

< 0.05. There weretwo cases of upward migration in 12 subordinateregions under the high-mobility condition, but nocases under the low-mobility condition.

Evaluative ratings of in-group favoritism

Eight evaluative ratings for in-group favoritism



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and the two for the out-group favoritismwere converted into two evaluation indexes ofin-group favoritism by means of factor analysis.A principal components analysis with ortho-gonal varimax rotation revealed two factorswith an eigenvalue >1, accounting for 82%of the overall variance. Factor 1 (eigenvalue2.21) was highly loaded by aggressive (0.80),dominant (0.76), active (0.73), and strong (0.65)components, and seems to indicate the status-related dimension of dominance. Factor 2(eigenvalue 2.03) was highly loaded by trust-worthy (0.82), warm (0.78), friendly (0.73), andaltruistic (0.68) components and seems toindicate the status-unrelated dimension oftrustworthiness.

In order to construct separate dominanceevaluation indexes for in- and out-groups foreach of the participants, we combined four rat-ings loaded on Factor 1 (Cronbachs

= 0.85).Separate trustworthiness evaluation indexesof in- and out-groups were established bycombining four ratings loaded on Factor 2(Cronbachs

= 0.80). The two out-groups of thedominant regions were the two subordinateregions and the two out-groups of the subordin-ate regions were the two dominant regions. Webased indexes of in-group favoritism for bothdominance and trustworthiness evaluation onthe difference between the in-group index andthe average of the two out-group indexes.

The effects of the experimental mani-pulations were examined using ANOVA on theindex of in-group favoritism in the dominancedimension. The main effect of the regions wassignicant,

F

(1,446) = 33.18,

p

< 0.005. Sub-jects in the dominant regions evaluated theirown region as more dominant (

M

= 1.14) thansubjects in the subordinate regions (

M

=

3.31).These results support hypothesis 1. However,the expected main effect of resource disparitywas not signicant,

F

(1,446) < 1,

ns

. Theseresults do not support hypothesis 2.

The ANOVA of the in-group favoritism indexin the trustworthiness dimension revealedthe signicant main effect of upward mobility,

F

(1,446) = 13.85,

p

< 0.001, the signicant maineffect of regions,

F

(1,446) = 9.83,

p

< 0.005,and the signicant interactive effect of upward

mobility and regions,

F

(1,446) = 22.27,

p

< 0.001.The players in the subordinate regions withhigh upward mobility showed less (salient) in-group favoritism (

M

= 1.24) than those withlow upward mobility (

M

= 4.02) and than theplayers in the dominant regions with highupward mobility (

M

= 3.82). The players in thedominant regions with high upward mobilityshowed as much (salient) in-group favoritismas those with low upward mobility (

M

= 3.49).In the dominant regions, in-group favoritismdid not vary with upward mobility. Thisresult supported hypothesis 1. However, theexpected interactive effect of resource disparityand regions was not signicant,

F

(1,446) < 1,

ns

. These results do not support hypothesis 2.In order to examine the reason for a

reduced level of in-group favoritism in thesubordinate players with high upward mobilitythan in those with low upward mobility, theindex of in-group favoritism in the trustworthi-ness dimension was divided back into the evalu-ation indexes of the in- and out-groups. TheANOVA on the in-group index revealed thesignicant main effect of upward mobility,

F

(1,446) = 6.65,

p

< 0.05, the signicant maineffect of regions,

F

(1,446) = 7.23,

p

< 0.005,and the signicant interactive effect of upwardmobility and regions,

F

(1,446) = 8.32,

p

< 0.005.The ANOVA on the out-groups index revealedthe signicant major effect of upward mobility,

F

(1,446) = 7.78,

p

< 0.001, and the signicantinteractive effect of upward mobility andregions,

F

(1,446) = 15.44,

p

< 0.001. These effectsindicate that the players in subordinateregions with high upward mobility were lesspositive about their own regions and morepositive about the dominant regions than thesubordinate regions with low upward mobility.The means relevant to these effects are givenin Figure 1.

Behavioral index of the subordinates participation in the collective actions

We formed the index of subordinates parti-cipation in the collective actions from threeitems (the collective acquisition of food couponsand/or travel tickets; the collective managementof incoming and/or spending money; collective


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negotiation of employment and/or party support).The score on each item ranged from 0 to 2 accord-ing to the number of times a player participatedin the collective actions (0: none; 1: either; 2:both). These three items were combined into anindex (Cronbachs

= 0.81) with scores rangingfrom 0 to 6.

The ANOVA on the index of the collectiveactions revealed the signicant main effect ofupward mobility,

F

(1,222) = 171.10,

p

< 0.001,and resource disparity,

F

(1,222) = 27.39,

p

Documents

Collective Action and Subordinate Group Identity in a Simulated Society Game