Cues of Collective Threat Increase Salience of Positive Ingroup Agency-Related Traits

Abstract. Three studies investigated the influence of collective threat on the importance of agency- and communion-related traits used in ingroup perception. Study 1 ( N = 137) investigated how cues of such threat affect reaction times when individuals are asked to ascribe agentic or communal traits to their ingroup. Study 2 ( N = 96) and Study 3 ( N = 337) examined the role of social identification in response to a collective threat. The results suggest that cues of threat may lead to preferential processing of positive (but not negative) ingroup agency over ingroup communion, the effect particularly likely among highly identified individuals. Perceiving the ingroup as an agentic collective may thus act as a buffer that assists in managing threat-related emotions.