ABSTRACT
Why does this phenomenon occur and what purpose does it serve for the individual? And perhaps more interestingly, how is it that someone who knows that their position within a group is threatened or marginal feels that they have the authority to judge whether others meet the standards for ingroup membership? The goal of this chapter is to address these issues and review research that indicates that being restrictive and excluding others from the ingroup may serve an important function for group members. Ingroup exclusion may be one way that individuals are able to enhance their own feelings of ingroup inclusion. To be able to say that another person does not belong in the group is perhaps the ultimate symbol of ingroup belonging. A second goal of this chapter is to explore some of the consequences of this greater exclusiveness for perceptions of the ingroup and the outgroup. We argue that due to their different concerns, peripheral group members (who are concerned about their ingroup status) and core members may hold very different perceptions of the ingroup and outgroup. In addition, a person’s relative standing within the group may affect their perceptions of the intergroup context itself-–that is, the extent to which they notice and defend against the proximity of a relevant outgroup. We conclude the chapter by considering some of the tradeoffs that group members may make in order to achieve feelings of secure ingroup inclusion.
