The Groupy Shift: Conformity to Liberal In-Group Norms as a Group-Based Response to Threatened Personal Control

Abstract

Testing a model of group-based control, we hypothesized that, as a response to threatened control, people strive for collective agency, leading to increased in-group norm conformity. To distinguish this mechanism from possible conservative shift we investigated liberal norms (i.e., change and anti–right-wing norms). In a field experiment (N = 82), salient personal control increased managers’ commitment to organizational change under conditions of a pro-change in-group norm. Two laboratory experiments showed control threat to heighten students’ support for educational innovations when salient in-group norms were supportive but not when they were ambivalent (N = 152), or when only out-group norms were supportive (N = 170). Applying this logic, perceived terrorist threat after a major attack predicted German students’ intention to support anti–right-wing protests for those who perceived a strong anti–right-wing norm among students (N = 74). We discuss implications for both theory and societal polarization (instead of conservative shift) in times of threatened control.