ESTRUCTURA PRODUCTIVA

Before beginning a discussion of how individuals cope with marginal ingroup status, it is important to first consider why feeling marginal would be consid- ered to be unpleasant and aversive for group members. Research on the need to belong (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Gardner, Pickett, & Brewer, 2000; Nezlek, Kowalski, Leary, Blevins, & Holgate, 1997) suggests that individuals require connectedness and belonging with others in order to function opti- mally. Rejection and exclusion from social relationships takes a toll on its targets and can lead to anxiety (Baumeister & Tice, 1990), negative affect (Marcus & Askari, 1999; Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000) and depressed self-esteem (Leary, 1990; Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995). When this rejection occurs over long periods of time loneliness (Jones, 1990; Jones, & Carver, 1991; Peplau & Perlman, 1982) and depression (Leary, 1990) may result. The clear message from these various lines of research is that without belonging and con- nectedness with others, humans experience adverse consequences in terms of their health, adjustment, and well-being (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Thus, marginal ingroup status may be distressing because it signals that a source of belongingness is threatened and may be stripped from the individual.

Attachment theorists such as Bowlby (1969) argued that individuals have a strong need to form interpersonal attachments and require intimate contact with others in order to feel a sense of security. Although focusing on the mother-child pair specifically, Bowlby (1969) argued that a “dynamic equilib- rium” (p. 236) exists between the mother and child such that distance between the two is allowed to develop, but whenever the distance becomes too great, either the mother or the child is likely to become upset and act in ways to reduce that distance. A similar type of dynamic exists within groups. Membership in a group typically engenders a sense of similarity with the other members of the group and the knowledge (at least implicitly) that some tie or connection exists between the members of the group. These ties often imply an obligation to the group (i.e., that as a member you are expected to work in ways to promote and help the group). But these ties also imply that as a group mem- ber, one can rely on the other members of the group for support, security, and safety. For this reason, too much distance (psychologically or physically) between the self and the group can lead to distress, as it implies a lack of self- ingroup attachment and the potential loss of the ingroup as a source of support. Following this logic, Smith, Murphy, and Coats (1999) recently applied an attachment-theory perspective to social groups. Smith et al. proposed that two dimensions underlie attachment to groups––attachment anxiety and avoidance. Secure ingroup attachment involves being low in attachment anxiety (i.e., feel- ing like a worthy group member and expecting groups to be accepting) and being low in avoidance (i.e., accepting of dependency and intimacy within groups). In other words, security within groups involves both the willingness to rely on the group and the belief that the group will be supportive of the self in times of need. What is important to note about Smith et al.’s analysis is that they argued that individuals differ in how they relate to their ingroups and that issues of attachment (the extent to which one is accepted within the group and the extent to which one feels worthy of that group membership) can be more or less problematic for group members. For a variety of reasons (which may or may not be based in reality) group members may feel that they are not truly accepted or valued in the group. These feelings and insecurities should lead to actions that would enhance belonging, for example, finding ways to please the group and conforming to group norms. Interestingly, Smith et al. note that a person who scores low on their scale of avoidance (meaning that the person desires closeness with the group) and who is high in group identification, that is, considers the group to be an important part of the self, might also be high in attachment anx- iety. In other words, this person’s experience with the group might be charac- terized by worries of acceptance and fears of rejection by the group, and this person should be quite vigilant for anything that signals the potential loss of the security that the group provides. It is this worry and fear that is predicted to lead to behaviors that would increase belonging in order to reduce this anxiety.

The attachment theory model offered by Smith et al. (1999) presumes that the various attachment styles represent relatively stable individual differences

and that group members may differ from each other in their scores on the attachment anxiety and avoidance scales, and thus differ in their attachment styles. However, it is also possible to consider differences in the desire for ingroup inclusion and belonging in terms of intraindividual variation. In differ- ent situations and at different points in time, the same individual may require more or less ingroup inclusion. This is the perspective taken by optimal dis- tinctiveness theory (ODT; Brewer, 1991, 1993; Brewer & Pickett, 1999). According to ODT, the need for assimilation is a fundamental human motive. But unlike theories that suggest that individuals achieve a sense of belonging through interpersonal relationships and similarity to other individuals (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Codol, 1984; Snyder & Fromkin, 1980), ODT stresses the importance of social identities as a basis for assimilation need sat- isfaction. Identification with social groups involves the depersonalization of the self (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) such that the self becomes defined by the group’s attributes, and the most salient features of the self-concept are those that the person has in common with the other members of the group (Brewer, 1991). Because of this depersonalization, group identifi- cation can be thought of as the expansion of the self to include others, which results in feelings of similarity and closeness to the other members of the group. Because of the role that group identities serve in meeting individuals’ need for assimilation, marginal group status should be distinctly threatening because it implies that the group member may not really be that similar or close to the other members of the group, which would then lead to less need satis- faction. Thus, as an individual’s status in the group changes, his or her need for assimilation should also vary accordingly.

Taken together, this body of research suggests that group memberships are quite important because they meet individuals’ needs for belongingness, secu- rity, and assimilation. When a member of a group is led to believe that he or she is not a typical group member or is not fully accepted as part of the group, the person should experience distress to the extent that the person relies on that particular group for the satisfaction of belongingness, security, or assimilation needs. The question that we now turn to is what can group members do to attempt to reestablish secure ingroup standing. We will focus first on some fairly routine methods for achieving greater inclusion, and then examine how the exclusion of others may also be used to achieve this end.