Social Projection to Outgroups: Japanese Students Refer to Psychologically Distant Others
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Social Projection to Outgroups: Japanese Students Refer to Psychologically Distant Others Chieko Yoshihara,1 Reina Takamatsu,2 and Jiro Takai2 1 Department of Clinical Psychology, Nihon Fukushi University, Aichi, Japan 2 Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan his study focused on social projection (SP) to outgroups. Two studies were conducted to show that T SP to outgroups was greater than to ingroups when an issue is more relevant to the outgroup than to the ingroup and vice versa. These experiments were conducted for students of different schools (N1 = 92, N2 = 203). The results confirmed that students overestimated agreement with working adults when the topic was more relevant to working people. Also, when the topic was relevant to students, they overestimated agreement of other students relative to the working adults. These results suggested the relevance of the opinion was more important than perceived social distance when Japanese students refer to others. Keywords: social projection, perceived social distance, outgroup, consensus estimation Studies dealing with Japanese uniqueness thrived in the ( : watarusekennioniwanashi 1980s, when scholars marvelled at how the Japanese peo- = Strangers can be very kind), and such expressions illus- ple had rebuilt their society from the ashes of World trate how much the Japanese pay attention to this group War II into what then was the second largest economy in their daily lives. As Inoue (1977) asserts, the reference of the world. One unique feature that had drawn much group of the Japanese may not always be the group that one attention was how the Japanese distinguished their be- identifies closest to, but to distant people such as seken. haviour between social circles, typically depending on the Shimotomai (2004) asked college students who they degree of intimacy (Hamaguchi, 1982). Japanese people would refer to when seeking a reference point and found have been known to relate strongly to intimate groups that not only did they choose intimate groups, but var- rather than distant ones, as demonstrated in Williams and ious outgroups as well. He looked at the instrumental Sogon’s (1984) study with the Asch paradigm. Along the function of their interpersonal networks (e.g., Hollander same lines, Yuki (2003) noted that Japanese people iden- &Webb,1955) and investigated how students might refer tify themselves more strongly with groups based on an to 12 groups based on relational and social categories over interpersonal network among members rather than so- 13 domains of reference, including self-identity, family cial categories. In this study, we expanded on these well life, friendship, personality, and abilities. Results showed accepted cultural expectations by focusing on Japanese that reference groups differed by domain, from intimate students and how they would apply social projection to groups including classmates and family to more distant opinions regarding social issues. groups, such as formal groups including neighbours and According to Japanologists, the social layer known as teachers, and intellectual groups such as those created seken, which is best exemplified by neighbours (neither through the media. Shimotomai’s study indicated that for too intimate or too involved), may be their major refer- each facet of the self, their reference group can differ, and ence group, influencing their perception of societal norms these included complete outgroups, such as those based on (Abe, 1995;Inoue,1977; Nakamura, 2011). Inoue (1977) the media. He referred to these as the seken group. In par- locates seken between intimate groups such as miuchi ( ticular, the advent of the internet has made young people : kin), nakamauchi (: colleagues), and unrelated more dependent on the opinions of those they encounter groups, tanin (: others), and yoso no hito ( through social media and less dependent on face-to-face : strangers). The Japanese language also has proverbs others, attesting to the fact that outgroups have much involving seken, such as ‘there are no demons in seken’ influence on their thinking. Address for correspondence: Chieko Yoshihara, Okuda, Mihama-cho, Chita-gun, Aichi-pref, Japan 470–3295. Email: [email protected] JOURNAL OF PACIFIC RIM PSYCHOLOGY, Volume 12, e29, page 1 of 9. C The Author(s) 2018. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the 1 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/coreterms of the Creative Commons. IP Attributionaddress: 170.106.202.58 licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, on 02 Oct 2021 at 09:28:24, subject to the Cambridge), which permitsCore terms unrestricted of use, available re-use, at distribution, and https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsreproduction in any. https://doi.org/10.1017/prp.2018.17 medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi 10.1017/prp.2018.17 Chieko Yoshihara, Reina Takamatsu, and Jiro Takai The theory of social comparison processes (Festinger, DiDonato, Ullrich, and Krueger (2011) also support the 1954) predicted that if the opinion or ability is highly induction hypothesis. relevant to one’s group as well as to themselves, peo- Tamura (2011) measured consensus estimates of in- ple generally prefer to relate it to those of their group group and outgroup gender categories that have a hier- members. In general, people seek positive reinforcement archical relationship along with a superordinate category from making decisions consistently to their reference per- (all of them). The results showed that participants mani- son. For instance, a college student may seek confirmation fested SP to the outgroup (people of the opposite sex) and of his/her career choice from a former student who had the superordinate group, as well as to the ingroup (peo- already graduated and experienced the working world. ple of the same-sex), although men were more likely than Such confirmation from an older, more experienced adult women to show this tendency. Men exhibited SP to the in- serves to give the younger student more confidence in their group (men), the outgroup (women), and the superordi- worldly decisions. Subsequently, when faced with a par- nate group when they estimated the consensus of opinions ticular decision, students will turn to confirmation from a about gender inequality. In comparison, women showed person who has instrumental function, even if that person a different pattern. Their SP to the ingroup (women) was maybeanoutgroupmember,andthiswillgivehim/her greatest, followed by SP to the superordinate group and to positive reinforcement. This study extends the findings a lesser degree to the outgroup (men); there were signifi- of consensus estimation toward ingroups (false consensus cant differences between SP to each target group. Tamura effects, or social projection), and probes into how so- suggested that men engaged in SP of their attitudes onto cial projection (SP) can go beyond the ingroup onto out- the outgroup (women) and the superordinate group (the groups, which can be expected to perform an instrumental society as a whole) in order to justify their superior so- function. cietal position. In contrast, women were in a relatively inferior position, and they were sensitive to the gender Social Projection to Ingroups and Outgroups. SP is de- gap in society. fined as ‘a process, or a set of processes, by which people Taking these findings together, it can be said that peo- come to expect others to be similar to themselves’ (Rob- ple estimate consensus to outgroups in order to attain bins & Krueger, 2005, p. 32). Studies on consensus esti- some kind of reward; for example, validity of their own mates have compared SP of ingroups to outgroups and opinions, or maintaining their self-esteem or social status. consistently found that SP to the former is greater than Is Social Projection Dependent on Perceived Social to the latter. For instance, Clement and Krueger (2002) Distance?. There can be conditions where SP is not only tentatively created two social groups in a minimal group aimed at ingroups, but also at outgroups. In some sit- paradigm, and then participants’ group membership was uations, SP can be targeted to outgroups with a large either confirmed (the initial membership was retained) perceived social distance (PSD), which is defined as ‘the or disconfirmed (resulting in new membership with what overall level of perceived similarity between the self and used to be an outgroup). After manipulating the perceived a typical target group member and reflect the degree to group membership, they measured participants’ SP to in- which one perceives oneself to be generally representative groups and outgroups. The result showed that ingroup of the group’ (Jones, 2004, p. 418). Jones (2004)reported projectionwasgreaterthanoutgroupprojectionevenaf- associations between PSD and the false consensus effect ter the perceived membership has been altered. Their re- (FCE), defined as: ‘to see their own behavioral choices sults supported the anchoring hypothesis, which predicts and judgments as relatively common and appropriate to that projection to the outgroup is nearly zero, and they re- existing circumstance while viewing alternative responses jected the differentiation hypothesis (predicting negative as uncommon, deviant, or inappropriate’ (Ross, Green, & outgroup SP) and the induction hypothesis (predicting re- House, 1977, p. 280). He predicted that because the PSD duced, positive outgroup SP). However, in their Study 3, of an ingroup is smaller than that of an outgroup,