Dominant and non-dominant groups' responses to social change: the economic transformation process in South Africa

Dumont, Kitty; Van Lill, Burger

Dominant and non-dominant groups' responses to social change: the economic transformation process in South Africa

Journal Article

2009

Journal Title

South African Journal of Psychology

Link to Journal

http://journals.sagepub.com/home/sap

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

School of Management Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

In the field study we examined the assumptions proposed by Social Identity Theory (SIT) that dominant and non-dominant groups differ systematically regarding the functional interaction between beliefs about the intergroup situation and identity management strategies. Participants were university students from three racial groups : blacks (N = 100), coloured (N = 100), as non-dominant groups, and whites (N = 100) as dominant group in post-apartheid South Africa. A multiple group path analysis to test SIT revealed systematic differences between dominant and non-dominant groups regarding the impact of perceived legitimacy on ingroup identification, perceived legitimacy on social competition and on individual mobility. Furthermore, the results showed that ingroup identification differentiates between individual and collective strategies irrespective of the groups' status positions. The results also highlight the different effects (or lack of effects) of the socio-structural variables in the SIT model, which is argued to be determined by the concrete socio-historical context of the respective intergroup relations.