Self-Enhancement, Self-Protection and Ingroup Bias

The present study examines how self-enhancement and self-protection function within a group context regarding people's ingroup and outgroup judgments. Results demonstrated basic self-enhancement and self-protection effects such that participants routinely rated themselves higher on the positive traits and lower on the negative traits than either the group or a past participant. Participants' judgments regarding the outgroup member mimicked this rating pattern; however, their judgments concerning the ingroup were mixed. Interestingly, participants were actually self-critical at times and in some cases engaged in self-derogation, rating themselves lower on positive traits and higher on negative traits.