UC Santa Barbara

Behaviors enacted on behalf of an ingroup, from flying the American flag to donating money to one’s alma mater, occur quite frequently. Group identification has typically been used to explain such behaviors. However we propose that emotions towards one’s ingroup might be better predictors of such behaviors. As a first step in providing evidence for this idea, we asked participants to report emotions they felt as a group member, emotions they felt about belonging to the group, and emotions they felt toward other ingroup members, in reference to one ingroup (Democrats, Americans, or UCSB Students). Participants were also asked about their level of group identification toward the same group. Although group identification profiles were relatively similar across the three groups, the profiles of the different types of ingroup-directed emotions were much more differentiated across groups. These findings suggested that emotions felt towards and about one’s ingroup were conceptually different from group identification, and thus might be a new and important tool for predicting ingroup-relevant behaviors.