Voicing One’s Ideas: Intragroup Respect as an Antecedent of Assertive Behavior

Abstract

In this research, we tested equality-based respect from ingroup members as a social antecedent of positive assertiveness (i.e., voicing one’s opinions) and group performance. A pretest with employees at the workplace supported that the variables of interest were indeed correlated. The main experimental study then confirmed that participants who had received high as compared with low intragroup respect displayed more assertive behavior and yielded higher group performance in dyadic intragroup discussions. In contrast, high intergroup respect (i.e., from outgroup members) lowered assertiveness and performance levels in intergroup interactions relative to low respect. We discuss implications for social interactions and discourses.

Notes

1 In German the critical phrases read “… und deren Vorschläge sollen in der K-Gruppe/T-Gruppe ernstgenommen werden’ and ‘die Vorschläge von … sollen von der K-Gruppe/T-Gruppe gleichberechtigt berücksichtigt werden.”

2 The Discussion Coding System provides further rating dimensions such as affiliation or the functional meaning of each act (e.g., content-related, socioemotional, etc.), which were not in the focus of the present article.

3 The interaction effect is also supported within multilevel analyses, which takes groupings into dyads into account.

Additional information

Funding

Study 2 was made possible by German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)) [Project number is: 198638679] Grant SI 428/19-1 to Bernd Simon and Daniela Renger.