
Tamar SaguyReichman University | IDC · School of Psychology
Tamar Saguy
Ph.D
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121
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (121)
The experience of privilege can trigger psychological conflict among advantaged group members. Nonetheless, little work has explored strategies that advantaged group members use to manage their identities as privileged actors. Building on Knowles et al.’s framework and theories of intergroup relations, we address the conceptualization and measureme...
What shapes our emotional responses to socio-political events? Following the social identity approach, we suggest that individuals adjust their emotional responses to socio-political stimuli based on their ideological out-group's responses , in a manner that preserves the comparative and normative fit of ideological in-group-out-group categories. I...
Among the main factors considered as predictors of humanness attribution were agency and communion. Agency constitutes an ability to affect one's own situation and communion an ability to form meaningful relationships with others. Seen as a cross-culturally universal framework for how people construe the world, these dimensions have been theorized...
Decades of research in social identity have shown that people instinctively hold positive attitudes towards ingroup members and negative attitudes towards outgroup members. However, it remains unclear how people respond to individuals explicitly identified with both one’s ingroup and outgroup. We propose that when people are exposed to dual-identif...
Everyday expression of prejudice continues to pose a social challenge across societies. We tend to assume that to the extent people are egalitarian, they are more likely to confront prejudice—but this might not necessarily be the case. We tested this assumption in two countries (US and Hungary) among majority members of society, using a behavioral...
Recent conservative political rhetoric support women having careers but emphasize that this should not be an obstacle to having children. We propose that this sentiment reflects the hierarchy of gender norms in today's society whereby motherhood is the ultimate role that women are expected to fulfil and denying such role evokes social penalties, ab...
The current research examines joint collective action between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, from the perspective of the latter. We hypothesize that joint action poses a dilemma which lies in the tension between perceived instrumentality of joint action (i.e., ability to promote the disadvantaged’s goals) and perceived normalization (i.e., it...
We examined the role that witnesses play in triggering humiliation. We hypothesized that witnesses trigger humiliation because they intensify the two core appraisals underlying humiliation: unfairness and internalization of a devaluation of the self. However, we further propose that witnesses are not a defining characteristic of humiliating situati...
While most people believe they would speak up against prejudice, many fail to do so. We identify a harmful consequence of such inaction through examining its impact on bystanders’ own prejudice. Across four studies in two countries (N = 1,003) using a behavioral paradigm and experimental pretest–posttest design, participants witnessed prejudice and...
Humiliation is a strong negative emotion that arises when a person is forced to internalize an unjust devaluation of the self. Based on theory positing agency as a key factor for self-esteem, we conducted three experiments to investigate whether enhancing the agentic capacity of people facing humiliating situations down-regulated the intensity of t...
We tend to associate certain type of action with certain ideologies, like we might assume that confronting prejudice towards a minority group is associated with egalitarian values. In the present research, we tested this assumption and proposed an aversive bystander effect, predicting that egalitarian values are weakly associated with confronting b...
Violent intergroup conflicts continue to be one of the most pressing issues of our time. One key factor that instigates and perpetuates conflict is people’s support for violence against the outgroup. Thus, understanding the psychology behind such support is essential for developing strategies to reduce conflict. In this Review, we offer a new umbre...
Even though gender inequality is evident across life domains, women often justify the gender hierarchy. We examined whether the very closeness that heterosexual women share with their male romantic partners predicts their justification of gender inequality. We drew on intergroup-related research, showing that positive perceptions that minority grou...
Despite the social relevance of how members of historically advantaged groups understand and manage their advantaged identity, this topic has received surprisingly little empirical research attention within social psychology. However, Knowles et al., (2014) recently proposed a theoretical framework for understanding how white Americans manage their...
Significance
The effects of recent protests for racial equality, particularly when they included violence, are currently of public and academic interest. To better understand these effects, we combine a dataset of all 2020 BlackLivesMatter protests with survey data containing measures of prejudice and support for police reform. Protests were not as...
While most people believe they would speak up against prejudice, many fail to do so. We identify a harmful consequence of such inaction through examining its impact on bystanders’ own prejudice. Across four studies in two countries (N=1003), using a behavioral paradigm and experimental pretest-posttest design, participants witnessed prejudice and d...
In three studies conducted in the United States, we examined whether a perceived moral violation motivates willingness to engage in normative and more radical collective action. Based on value-protection and identity-formation models, we explored whether increased endorsement of moral convictions and relevant opinion-based group identification coul...
Gender inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our time. A core factor that feeds gender inequality is people's gender ideology—a set of beliefs about the proper order of society in terms of the roles women and men should fill. We argue that gender ideology is shaped, in large parts, by the way people make sense of gender differences. Spec...
Gender inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our time. A core factor that feeds gender inequality is people’s gender ideology - a set of beliefs about the proper order of society in terms of the roles women and men should fill. We argue that gender ideology is shaped, in large parts, by the way people make sense of gender differences. Sp...
How does the competitive relation between ideological groups shape group members’ emotional responses to their shared political reality? Inspired by the social identity approach, we propose that ideological in-group members adjust their emotional responses to political stimuli based on the perceived emotional response of their ideological out-group...
Collective action research tends to focus on motivations of the disadvantaged group, rather than on which tactics are effective at driving the advantaged group to make concessions to the disadvantaged. We focused on the potential of nonnormative nonviolent action as a tactic to generate support for concessions among advantaged group members who are...
One way social movements can achieve change is through impacting public opinion, yet research testing effects of real-world collective action is scarce. In this research, we investigated both short and long-term impact of #MeToo, a global social media movement. We tracked changes in dismissal of sexual assault with self-report surveys among US part...
Moral vitalism refers to a tendency to view good and evil as actual forces that can influence people and events. The Moral Vitalism Scale had been designed to assess moral vitalism in a brief survey form. Previous studies established the reliability and validity of the scale in US-American and Australian samples. In this study, the cross-cultural c...
While we have a rich understanding of the motivations of disadvantaged group members to act collectively with their group, especially the important role played by identification, we know less about the disadvantaged’s motivations to engage in joint action with the advantaged. This research examines the role of identification in predicting joint and...
Recent research on intergroup contact has shown how interactions with outgroup members may both decrease and increase motivations to achieve social equality. Similarly, social identity theory has identified the conditions that lead individuals to challenge unequal social systems. Integrating these two major theories, the current study examined the...
Research shows that inclusive identities are effective for improving intergroup relations. Little work, however, asked what happens once a sense of common identity is formed, but then lost. Given increasing diversity and integration attempts that might fail, this question is realistic and timely. We studied a religious minority in Israel, Arab-Druz...
Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vita...
In the present research, we tested whether the prospect of moral failure or moral gain can motivate (some) people to confront racism. We investigated the influence of moral loss and moral gain mindset on people’s tendency to contest racism as a function of their moral commitment to non-prejudice. Drawing on research on regulatory focus, we predicte...
The current research examines joint collective action (e.g., between Blacks and Whites) from the perspective of disadvantaged group members, for whom such action reflects a dilemma of whether to “sleep with the enemy.” Integrating insights from research on intergroup contact, helping, and collective action, we suggest that an important part of this...
We test the notion that the presence of a dual identity group, which partially shares both the ingroup and a relevant outgroup identity, can decrease intergroup prejudice. Previous research has demonstrated that such dual identity groups can act as a possible gateway between the groups that represent the respective sources of the dual identity. The...
Objective
This study examines the conditions under which exposure to internal criticism among one's rival in conflict is effective in facilitating more positive views toward the rival.
Methods
In two experiments, Jewish Israelis were exposed to a Palestinian criticizing Palestinians for violations of either “binding” or “individualizing” moral val...
We propose that because members of discriminated (vs. advantaged) groups have a history of dealing with injustice, majority group members expect them to be more committed to social justice. By commitment to social justice, we mean supporting, and caring for, the basic rights of virtually any marginalized group. Studies 1a (N = 145) and 1b (N = 120)...
Gateway Groups are characterized by a unique social categorization which enables them to be identified with two or more groups within the context of intergroup relations. Due to their strategic situation, Gateway Groups have been found to have the potential to improve the relations between their distinct social counterparts. In this paper we attemp...
We propose that because members of discriminated (vs. advantaged) groups have a history of dealing with injustice, majority group members expect them to be more committed to social justice. By commitment to social justice we mean supporting, and caring for, the basic rights of virtually any marginalized group. Study 1 (a; N=145 and b; N=120) reveal...
Despite their pernicious effect on intergroup conflict, collateral casualties are seen as inevitable and justified by many members of the groups involved, particularly those who endorse a right-wing ideology. Drawing on social psychological literature, we examined whether a perception of commonality between in-group and out-group can be beneficial...
The current research examines joint collective action (e.g., between Blacks and Whites), which poses a dilemma for disadvantaged group members on whether to "sleep with the enemy." Integrating insights from research on intergroup contact, helping, and collective action, we propose that much of the dilemma lies in the tension between two motivations...
Even though social change efforts are largely aimed at impacting upon public opinion, there is an overwhelming scarcity of research on the potential consequences of collective action. We aimed to fill this gap by capitalizing on the widespread 2017 Women’s March that developed across the US and worldwide in response to Donald Trump’s inauguration....
Hope is viewed as a positive emotion associated with the motivation to change existing conditions. As such, it is highly relevant for social change, particularly when considering the disadvantaged position of some groups. We here propose that, in the context of asymmetrical intergroup relations, hope may actually undermine motivation for change amo...
Exposure to an outgroup member voicing criticism of his or her own group fosters greater openness to the outgroup’s perspective. Research suggests that this effect owes its influence to a serial process in which participants’ perception of the risk involved in voicing internal criticism leads to an increase in the perceived credibility of the speak...
The origin of the tendency for men to value wealth more than women can be explained by both social role theory and evolutionary theory. We integrate these two perspectives to provide insight into a unique cultural context, the Jewish ultra-Orthodox community in Israel, where social roles are reversed, such that women are the primary breadwinners in...
Prior work has shown that the experience of group-based emotions can motivate disadvantaged group members to engage in collective action. In the current research, we tested whether such action can also be driven by the motivation to induce certain emotions among the outgroup, to the extent that disadvantaged group members believe this would help th...
In the present research, we examined the role of leaders’ domain-specific expertise and gender as affecting individuals’ evaluation of proposals related to intergroup conflict. Across three studies, conducted in two different conflict-related contexts (Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the refugee crisis in Europe), we showed that men and women do n...
When transgressions are committed by a group, those highly identified with the group are often least likely to recognize the transgressions, feel collective guilt, and engage in action to address them. We hypothesized that especially among high identifiers, demonstrating that ingroup transgressions threaten the group’s image can induce normative co...
Dehumanization is the denial of full human potential to an individual or a social group. Although it is widely seen as a grave social ill, the psychological roots of dehumanization are not yet clear. In the present research, we examined the role of agency and communion. These dimensions are pivotal to how we perceive other people, and we hypothesiz...
Even though gender inequality remains an important challenge across societies, many believe it to be long gone (Marken, 2016). Thus, it is essential to publicly address issues related to gender inequality as a first step towards advancing change in this domain. However, those who address gender inequality may encounter personal costs. In the curren...
Bisexuals are an invisible sexual minority. However, at the same time, bisexuals are stereotypically associated with confusion and promiscuity. Stereotype learning theories suggest that individuals who are unfamiliar with a social group are less likely to have stereotypical beliefs about its members. In contrast, it has been recently hypothesized t...
The bias against women in academia is a documented phenomenon that has had detrimental consequences, not only for women, but also for the quality of science. First, gender bias in academia affects female scientists, resulting in their underrepresentation in academic institutions, particularly in higher ranks. The second type of gender bias in scien...
The present research addresses the question of whether two characteristics of the situation (the hostility of a perpetrator and his/her status vis-à-vis the target) are critical in triggering humiliation (versus shame and anger). In Study1, participants described an autobiographical episode that elicited either humiliation, shame, or anger. Humilia...
For decades, reconciliation efforts have relied on models of cooperative and positive interactions between members of groups in conflict. Such interactions do improve attitudes and emotions across group lines—outcomes considered pivotal for promoting more harmonious, less conflictual, relations between groups. More recently, research has begun to r...
Research suggests that hearing an outgroup member voice internal criticism increases individuals’ openness to the outgroup's perspective. We replicate and extend these findings in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Israeli participants exposed to a Palestinian official voicing internal criticism reported more openness to the Palestini...
Recent research highlighted that intergroup contact can inadvertently undermine social change. However, relatively little work had linked experiences of contact to motivation for social change among advantaged groups. We develop the hypothesis that the association between amount of intergroup contact and motivation for social change depends on the...
Research on intergroup emotions has largely focused on the experience of emotions and surprisingly little attention has been given to the expression of emotions. Drawing on the social-functional approach to emotions, we argue that in the context of intergroup conflicts, outgroup members’ expression of disappointment with one’s ingroup induces the c...
The modern era of globalization has been accompanied by a massive growth in interconnections between groups, and has led to the sharing of multiple identities by individuals and groups. Following these developments, research has focused on the issue of multiple identities, and has shed important light on how individuals who hold these complex forms...
After 2 decades of extensive empirical studies on affective intergroup processes, it is now clear that emotional processes play a critical role in the dynamics of intergroup conflict. However, it seems that much of the research in this domain views intergroup relations in a dichotomous manner of pure in-groups and out-groups despite the development...
Collective action is typically studied in social protest contexts and predicted by different motivations (i.e., ingroup identification and efficacy beliefs, and outgroup‐directed anger). Assuming that voting to some extent reflects a form of collective action, we tested whether these three different motivations predicted voting in Dutch, Israeli, a...
Numerous studies point to the potential of intergroup contact for reducing prejudice and intergroup tension. However, this potential can be realized only when group members are willing to engage in intergroup contact. The goal of the current article is to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the barriers and the motivations that explai...
Creating a sense of interpersonal similarity of attitudes and values is associated with increased attraction and liking. Applying these findings in an intergroup setting, though, has yielded mixed support. Theorizing from a social identity perspective suggests that highlighting intergroup similarity may lead to increased antipathy to the extent tha...
Existential threat lies at the heart of intergroup conflict, but the literature on existential concerns lacks clear conceptualization and integration. To address this problem, we offer a new conceptualization and measurement of existential threat. We establish the reliability and validity of our measure, and to illustrate its utility, we examine wh...
Much of what is currently known about the emotional dimension of parental interactions concerns the role of congruent processes, in which partners experience similar emotions. Far less is known about non-congruent processes, in which partners regulate their emotions to balance out their partner's emotional responses. We define such “balancing out”...
Research on dual identity focuses mainly on how dual identifiers feel and behave, and on the reactions they elicit from others. In this article we test an unexplored aspect of dual identity: the dual identity group's potential to act as a possible gateway between the groups that represent the respective sources of the dual identity (e.g., Israeli A...
Creating a sense of interpersonal similarity of attitudes and values is associated with increased attraction and liking. Applying these findings in an intergroup setting, though, has yielded mixed support. Theorizing from a social identity perspective suggests that highlighting intergroup similarity may lead to increased antipathy to the extent tha...
When only a handful of members from a disadvantaged group occupy positions of power, they are considered tokens. Previous research suggests that observers tend to consider tokenism as an egalitarian practice. Given its ambiguous nature, we hypothesized that reactions to tokenism would be shaped by individuals' sensitivity to inequality. In Study 1,...
This article discusses how seemingly well-intended policies and interventions to reduce intergroup bias by emphasizing colorblindness through overarching commonalities between groups may, either unintentionally or strategically, inhibit efforts to address group-based inequities. First, we discuss the roots of bias in social categorization process,...
Across countries, common mental disorders are often more prevalent and/or more
persistent among members of disadvantaged (e.g., ethnic minorities) compared with
advantaged group members. Although these disparities constitute a heavy challenge to
national health organizations, there is little empirical evidence to help account for the
mechanism unde...
Dovidio, J. F., Gaertner, S. L., Ufkes, E. G., Saguy, T., & Pearson, A. R. (in press). Included but invisible? Subtle bias, common identity, and the darker side of “we”. Social Issues and Policy Review.
A current debate surrounds the issue of whether prejudice-reducing interventions such as intergroup contact may reduce resistance to unequal intergroup relations among disadvantaged groups. Addressing this question, this research investigates how positive contact with members of the advantaged group shapes action strategies to cope with disadvantag...
Women receive lower monetary compensation than men in all occupations and across all ranks. For managers, this gender pay gap is substantially higher than in average working populations. The goal of this chapter is to enhance our understanding of the managerial gender pay gap and its particularities. We first outline the problem using archival evid...
Group-based guilt and acknowledging responsibility for collective moral transgressions are an important part of conflict resolution. However, they are not a common phenomenon. This is particularly true during intergroup conflict, and among those group members who glorify their group and see it as superior to others. In the current research we inves...
Dehumanizing the enemy is one of the most destructive elements of intergroup conflict. Past research demonstrated that awareness of harm that the in-group imposed on a specific out-group can increase out-group dehumanization as means of justifying the harm. In this research, we examined whether the opposite process would occur when people become aw...
Despite growing attention the study of humiliation is receiving, there is little consensus as to how humiliation differs from other related emotions. We here argue that humiliation shares central characteristics with anger, shame, and embarrassment, but also differs from these emotions in meaningful ways. In Study 1, participants read about a profe...
Although overt racism still adversely affects the well-being and advancement of Black Americans, subtle racism also has a pervasive influence. Color-blind racism, a form of subtle racism, rationalizes the current disadvantaged status of Black Americans and institutionalizes practices that perpetuate the disadvantage. The present article, adopting a...
Substantial work in social psychology has focused on reducing intergroup conflict and promoting positive intergroup attitudes. These interventions to reduce intergroup bias frequently emphasize the importance of inclusiveness and overarching commonalities among groups. However, a strict focus on harmony may sometimes have the unintended consequence...
In no country in the world women’s wages equal men’s. Although the gender pay-gap is extensively documented, little research provided experimental evidence for biased decisions regarding pay among managers. In two experiments, conducted in the field, we presented male and female managers with either a male or a female engineer, who was up for a pay...
This review places intergroup encounters in a broad framework which considers the context in which such encounters take place, and in particular, the power dynamics at play. We address different forms of encounters, spanning from interpersonal interactions (not focused on intergroup aspects) to political negotiations between the groups’ representat...
The goal of the current project is to integrate psychological research on emotion regulation with the study of democratic practices in general and political intolerance in particular. We hypothesized that the use of a well-established emotion regulation strategy, cognitive reappraisal, would be associated with lower levels of group-based negative e...