SOCIAL CREATIVITY

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SOCIAL CREATIVITY SOCIAL CHANGE INVERSE
ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN INTRA- AND INTERGROUP
RESPONSES TO DEVALUATION AND COLLECTIVE ACTION

• Shaun Wiley, The College of New Jersey

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Acknowledgments

• Russell Sage Foundation grant 88-08-06
• Everyone at organizations represented in this
  study
• Kay Deaux, CUNY Graduate Center
• Demis Glasford, John Jay College CUNY Graduate
  Center

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Social Identity Theory

• Individuals strive to achieve or maintain
  positive social identity
• based on favorable comparisons with relevant
  outgroup on salient comparison dimensions.
• Belonging to a devalued group threatens positive
  social identity people aim to restore it

(Tajfel Turner, 1979, 1986)
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Establishing a positive identity

• When group boundaries are impermeable, two
  collective strategies allow people to establish a
  positive social identity (Ellemers et al., 1993
  Jackson et al., 1996)
• Social creativity (Blanz et al., 1998 Jackson et
  al., 1996 Jetten et al., 2005 Tajfel Turner
  1986)
• Social competition (Tajfel Turner, 1986)

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Social creativity social competition

• Social creativity can focus on positive aspects
  of membership
• Intragroup respect (Jetten et al., 2005)
• status within ingroup and positive evaluation
  from interacting with other group members
• New comparison dimensions (Blanz et al., 1998)
• shared values that are more important to the
  ingroup than the outgroup

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Social creativity social competition

• Social competition establishes positive identity
  by challenging groups position in society
• Collective action
• . . .acting as a representative of the group
  and the action is directed at improving the
  conditions of the entire group, (p. 995 Wright,
  Taylor, Moghaddam, 1990).

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Relationship between social creativity and
collective action?

• Direct strategies unlikely to be immediately
  effective in improving a groups position
• In the interim, more indirect strategies may be
  necessary to maintain a positive identity

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Relationship between social creativity and
collective action?

• This raises a potential conflict
• Social creativity strategies may establish a
  positive identity, a foundation for collective
  action
• They also may make people feel better about
  groups position restoring positive identity at
  the expense of motivation to engage in collective
  action (Jetten et al., 2005)

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Relationship between social creativity and
collective action?

• Which social creativity strategies increase and
  decrease support for collective action?
• Intragroup respect more likely to maintain
  support for collective action than new comparison
  dimensions
• Why?
• Relationship to activist identification and
  collective efficacy

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Antecedents of collective action

• Identification, particularly with activist
  organizations (Simon et al., 1998 van Zomeren et
  al., 2008)
• Collective efficacy (Mummendey et al., 1999 van
  Zomeren et al., 2008)
• Relationship between social creativity strategies
  and collective action may be linked to both.

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Intragroup respect should be tied to greater
collective action support

• because
• bolsters importance of identification with
  specific activist organizations (Simon et al.,
  1998 van Zomeren et al., 2008)
• knowing that they have ingroup support should
  foster collective efficacy (Drury Reicher,
  1999 Mackie et al., 2000 Mummendey et al., 1999)

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Favoring new dimensions should be tied to less
collective action support

• because
• it diminishes need to identify with specific
  activist organizations
• Affirming existing status relations makes people
  perceive lower levels of collective efficacy
  (Galinsky et al., 2003)

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Summary of hypotheses

• When perceived group status is low
• Intragroup respect
• organizational identification
• collective action via collective efficacy
• New comparison dimensions
• organizational identification
• collective action via collective efficacy

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The context of immigration

• Latino immigrants face devaluation relative to
  native-born Whites on basis of race, nationality,
  language, and documented status

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Position of Dominican Mexican immigrants

• Dominicans
• Devaluation based on Black categorization by
  others as Black, though not by themselves
  (Bailey, 2001 Gramsuck Pessar, 1991 Itzigsohn
  Giorguli-Saucedo, 2005)
• Largest immigrant group in NYC (800k as of 2000
  census)
• Mexicans
• Devaluation based on mestizo phenotype and
  association with illegal label (Massey, 2008
  Portes Rumbaut, 2001)
• Largest group in U.S., 3rd-largest, but
  2nd-fastest-growing in NYC (250k as of 2000
  census)

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The context of immigration

• Latino immigrants face devaluation relative to
  native-born Whites on basis of race, nationality,
  language, and documented status
• Immigrant ethnic communities provide resources to
  manage devaluation

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Social creativity in Latino immigrant communities

• Intragroup respect
• Participation in ethnically-relevant
  organizations allows immigrants to bracket
  their status in the United States (Itzigsohn
  Giorguli-Saucedo, 2005 Jones-Correa, 1999)
• New comparison dimensions
• Mexican immigrant parents emphasize Whites high
  economic status but their groups moral
  superiority (Reese, 2001)

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The context of immigration

• Latino immigrants face devaluation relative to
  native-born Whites on basis of race, nationality,
  language, and documented status
• Communities provide resources to manage
  devaluation
• Organizations provide social capital to engage in
  collective action (Klandermans, van der Toorn,
  van Stekelenburg, 2008)

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Present research

• Inverse links between intragroup respect and new
  comparison dimensions and collective action
• Roles of organizational identification and
  collective efficacy
• Community sample of Dominican Mexican
  immigrants

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Participants

• N 188 (95 Dominican, 93 Mexican)
• 75 questionnaires in Spanish
• 83 first generation
• 62 female
• Mean age 33
• Mean length of time in U.S. (1st generation) 16
  years (SD 9)

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Procedure

• Recruitment
• Spoke Spanish
• meetings, events and rallies, English or
  citizenship classes, or in offices
• for my thesis and to help organization learn more
  about members
• 10 for participating
• Questionnaire completed in
• 20-30 minutes, while I was present to answer
  questions
• Spanish or English (participant option)

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Questionnaire

• Translated and back-translated by 2 professors of
  Spanish
• one native-English speaker from U.S.,
• one native-Spanish speaker from Mexico
• Piloted in focus groups and adapted to sample
• Order Status, social creativity, identification,
  collective efficacy, and collective action
  support

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Questionnaire Measures

• Relative group status (1 item)
• Compared to Whites in the United States,
  Dominicans/Mexicans in the United States have.
  . . 1 very low status 4 same status 7
  very high status
• Intragroup respect (4 items Deaux, Reid,
  Mizrahi, Cotting, 1999 a.82)
• Example I feel respected by others in my
  organization.

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Questionnaire Measures

• New comparison dimensions (adapted from Blanz et
  al., 1998 Mummendey et al., 1999)
• Difference between rating of relative import of
  family relationships and religion vs. economic
  status for the ingroup compared to their
  perceived value for Americans in general.
• Higher scores indicate greater value of
  alternative dimensions relative to
  status-relevant dimensions for their own group
  relative to Americans in general.

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Questionnaire Measures

• Collective efficacy (4 items adapted from van
  Zomeren et al., 2004 a.86)
• Example I think together Dominicans/Mexicans
  will be able to change our situation in the
  United States.
• Organizational identity importance (4 items
  adapted form Luhtanen Crocker, 1992 identity
  subscale a.70)
• Example The organization I belong to is an
  important reflection of who I am.
• Collective action support (8 items Lalonde
  Cameron, 1993 a.84)
• Example I would participate in a demonstration
  to improve the position of Dominicans/Mexicans
  in the United States.

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Intragroup respect importance of
organizational identification
.41
.02
Low intragroup respect
High intragroup respect
Respect x status ß -.11, plt.05
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New comparison dimensions importance of
organizational identification
-.22
New dimensions x status ß.09, plt.01
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Sobels test for org id z3.13, plt.01 new
dimensions z2.50, p.01
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General discussion

• Some aspects of ingroup identity are more
  effective in fostering commitment and mobilizing
  action than others.
• intragroup respect has positive relationships
  with organizational identification and collective
  action support
• new comparison dimensions has negative
  relationships.
• Role of collective efficacy

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Limitations

• Cross-sectional data
• No behavioral outcomes
• All participants in an organization
• However, mean level of organizational
  identification was near the midpoint of scale
• Length of membership and amount of participation
  varied
• Comparison with higher-status groups?

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Future research

• Who emphasizes intragroup respect and alternative
  dimensions? When and why?
• Status within ingroup?
• Audience? Ingroup or outgroup? Who affirms new
  comparison dimensions?
• Other forms of collective action?

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• Thank you!

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New comparison dimensions

• (familyD religionD)-economic statusD
• (familyA religionA)-economic statusA