When misery loves categorical company: Accessibility of the individual self as a moderator in category-based representation of attractive and unattractive in-groups

In two experiments, the role of the accessibility of the individual self as a moderator variable in processing information about attractive or unattractive in-groups was examined. An indicator of category-based in-group representation served as the main dependent variable. In Experiment I, the authors predicted and found an interaction between accessibility of the individual self and in-group attractiveness. People exhibited more category-based representations for unattractive than for attractive in-groups when accessibility was low, but the opposite trend was observed when accessibility was high. Experiment 2 showed that the difference in category-based representations of unattractive versus attractive in-groups, given low accessibility of the individual self, depends also on relative in-group size. Here, only majority members, bat not minority members, showed the critical effect. The results are discussed in terms of group members' self-evaluation concerns.