Me and My Group: Cultural Status Can Disrupt Cognitive Consistency

Yale undergraduates implicitly preferred their university to a competitor. However, implicit preferences for smaller residential colleges (RCs) within the university reflected the status of the RC in the local culture, despite the fact that RC membership was randomly assigned. Consistent with system justification theory, members of lower-status RCs showed depressed implicit ingroup preference. Implicit cognitions related to university adhered to principles of balanced cognitive consistency. However, implicit cognitions related to residential colleges did not show cognitive consistency. These data suggest that although group membership predisposes one to favor the ingroup, implicit ingroup preferences can be attenuated when the ingroup is not culturally valued. Moreover, differences in group status can disrupt the tendency to maintain consistency among self- and group-related cognitions.