The Intersection of Self-Evaluation Maintenance and Social Identity Theories: Intragroup Judgment in Interpersonal and Intergroup Contexts

In two studies, the authors explore the integration of the self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model and social identity theory (SIT) by focusing on each perspective’s predictions for the evaluation of members of one’s ingroup. SEM’s predictions apply to personal identity concerns, whereas SIT’s predictions are applicable to concerns for a group identity. In Study 1, participants evaluated an ingroup member who highly outperformed them. Highand low-identified participants did not differ in the irratings of the target in an interpersonal context but high identifiers did like the target more than lows in an intergroup context. In Study 2, highly identified participants preferred a poorly performing target in an interpersonal context, but in an intergroup context, they preferred the one who outperformed them. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical overlap between SEM and SIT and how self-categorization theory can help integrate interpersonal and intergroup perspectives on self-evaluation. Article: Festinger (1954) introduced the idea that the performances of others influence one’s own self-evaluation. We attempt to integrate two theoretical perspectives that build on social comparison theory: the self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model (Tesser, 1988) and social identity theory (SIT) (Tajfel &Turner, 1986) .Both theories address the relationship between social comparison processes and self-evaluation. The critical difference, however, is that SEM focuses on interpersonal relations and the evaluation of the self as an individual, whereas SIT focuses on intergroup relations and the self as a group member. In the spirit of Mackie and Smith’s (1998) call for theoretical integration of interpersonal and intergroup phenomena, we present two studies that explore the intersection of SEM and SIT. We focus on the SEM concerns that arise when an ingroup member outperforms the self. An outperforming ingroup member threatens one’s self-evaluation as an individual but it boosts the evaluation of one’s ingroup. We propose that two factors determine how people evaluate the ingroup member in this situation: how the self is categorized (at the interpersonal or group level) and the level of identification with that group when the self is categorized as a group member. Our most basic argument is that when the context is interpersonal, SEM predictions apply, whereas SIT predictions are applicable to intergroup contexts. SELF-EVALUATION IN AN INTERPERSONAL CONTEXT Tesser’s (1988) SEM model ―assumes that (1) persons behave in a manner that will maintain or increase selfevaluation and (2) one’s relations with others will have a substantial impact on self-evaluation‖ (pp. 181-182). Exactly how a relationship with another person affects self-evaluation depends on three interactive factors: the self-relevance of the comparison dimension, the other’s performance on that dimension relative to one’s own, selected for the study. Participants responded to the 15-item gender group identification ( = .85) measure using a 1 to 7 Likert response scale. We also pretested participants for the relevance of creativity to their personal identities using the average response to three items ( = .89) on a 1 to 7 Likert scale (e.g., ―My ability to be creative is relevant to my identity as a person‖). We then selected participants for the study if they were both high in gender group identification (in the top third of the distribution, M = 6.15) and in creativity relevance (the mean of the three items was greater than 5) .Gender group identification and relevance of creativity were uncorrelated. The study design was a 2 (personal vs. group identity context) x 2 (target performance) mixed factorial where the target performance factor was within-subjects.