Relations-based groupness and the disadvantaged: mutual needs and responsiveness

By virtue of the structural position of their groups, members of different disadvantaged groups are exposed—though at varying degrees of severity and ideological consciousness—to similar stressors and deprivations. The threat to the value of one’s social identity as a member of a low status social group when intergroup comparisons are salient has been the most commonly studied form of these stressors. However, members of disadvantaged groups are also similarly exposed to the risk of being categorized and reduced to insignificant facets of their ingroup identity against their will, of being rejected and excluded, and of seeing their choices and possibilities restricted.

We argue that these concrete experiences and the coping efforts they require can be, regardless of individuals’ representation and internalization of the social stratifications at their origin, a starting point for a bottom-up sense of groupness. Disadvantaged group members may have low awareness of the macro-level stratifications that create their life conditions. However, the situations and experiences that characterize their everyday struggles can in some conditions lead them to recognize the commonalities of their everyday stressors and to

rely on each other for understanding, support and responsiveness. These processes of mutual responsiveness and reciprocity form in turn the precondition for the emergence of a sense of groupness. Kelley and his colleagues argue that people have indeed an implicit ability to recognize patterns of interdependence and to behave accordingly (Kelley et al., 2003). For example, a person who has experienced rejection can recognize a rejected other’s need for respect, acceptance and belonging (Gaines, 2001), and the possibility that on another occasions one can be himself in the situation of the needy. This creates occasions for

“exchange”, common fate situations, where each person will be motivated to “supply what the other needs in exchange for receiving what he or she needs” (Kelley et al, 2003, p. 22). The experimental literature confirms the emergence of a sense of groupness and solidarity out of common fate and common stress. For example, an experiment by Dovidio and Morris (1975) has shown that a condition of high stress (compared to low stress) facilitates helping if the potential recipient of help is perceived to be in the same stressful situation. In a similar vein, Rabbie has found that individuals under the common threat of an electric shock show a tendency to seek each others’ company (Rabbie, 1963), a process he interpreted as the beginning of a sense of groupness (Rabbie & Lodewijkx, 1994).

Even when one knows he or she is unlikely to interact again with the same person, one can be motivated to provide help by virtue of a norm of generalized reciprocity3 (‘I have been helped in the past and I have to provide help’) or by virtue of a moral obligation among those who experienced hardship to help others in situations of need, recently evidenced

experimentally (Craig & Richeson, 2012; Warner, Wohl, & Branscombe, 2014).

While self-categorization theory postulates a direct link between the macro-level of stratification and individuals’ sense of groupness through their internalization of salient !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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features of the social structure, we understand the link between these two levels in a more subtle way. Specifically, we think that social stratifications operating at the structural level create experiences, to which a local context of cohesiveness, mutual help, and responsiveness to each other’s needs is functional. Interactions characterized by reciprocity and mutual responding in turn function as a “starting mechanism” for the emergence of enduring relationships within the context of dyads and groups (Gouldner, 1960).

Interdependence theorists have been interested for instance in studying the development of communal norms and rules of reciprocity in exchange, and how adaptations in harsh environments create individual motivation to value secure relations and develop rules of reciprocity and potentially communal norms and relationships with those on whom they depend for help and support4 (Kelley et al., 2003; Tooby & Cosmides, 1996). In line with this, recent studies comparing members of higher vs. lower classes argued and found that because of their more hostile environments, members of lower social class exhibit higher commitment to communal responding (helping, generosity, charity and trust), and tend to prefer communal over exchange norms compared to higher-class members (Kraus & Piff, 2012; Piff, Kraus, & Côté, 2010; Piff, Stancato, Martinez, Kraus, & Keltner, 2012). Accordingly, we argue that the disadvantaged’s adaptations to their everyday struggles could create circumstances of mutual dependence. Concrete opportunities of mutual helping and relying on each other can lead to stronger interpersonal bonds and relationships, in particular when the consequences of the interactions are favourable.

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Those dynamics can take place within the context of varying group-scales (e.g., dyads, the family, local communities or the disadvantaged as a whole). Because they depend upon responsiveness in interactions, they are more likely to take place within the context of local groups (family, friends, local communities), but they can also happen within the context of large-scale categories. Indeed, when interacting partners’ common membership in a large group is relevant to them, they can expect cooperation and solidarity by virtue of this common membership. In this case, the degree to which interaction with local group members is

characterized by responsiveness, solidarity and mutual caring impacts identification with the group as a whole and furthers one’s commitment to reciprocity within the context of the group (even with other group members).

However, the outcomes of such a dynamic resulting from recognizing common difficulties and mutual dependence for solidarity and help cannot transform into ideological group identities unless a strategic and sustained work of mobilization takes place. As a consequence, the outcomes of the dynamic discussed will be naturally located, and thus should be examined at the proximal level (relational groups and local communities). Their translation into the macro-social level is much more complicated and depends in part on the coexistence of clear and organized social movements or ideological identities able to strategically organize the experiences of disadvantage into an ideological project. Ethnic minorities and racial identities often have such an ideological aspect which proves to be central in understanding the role of these identities in individual members’ psychological functioning (Gaines & Reed, 1994; Phinney, 1996; Sellers & Shelton, 2003; Sellers & Smith, 1998).

We highlighted another route to groupness, based on common experiences and (expected or effective) reciprocity and mutual understanding, rather than on inter-category perceptual or motivational differentiation. However, the forms of groupness this route

generates could in many cases not reach beyond the interpersonal level. We think that an integration of interdependence and categorization processes is important in order to go beyond this interpersonal-level, but also to better predict the outcomes of categorization processes among the disadvantaged.

1.5.3. The interplay between low intergroup status and between-member