Social Inclusiveness as affected by multiple categorization, social dominance orientation, and prejudice.

During adolescence importance of social groups increases (Brown & Larson, 2009; Luyckx et al., 2006) and the development of intergroup attitudes becomes a crucial developmental task (Aboud, 1988). In this respect, adolescence has been considered critical for the development of prejudice (Fishbein, 1996) and changing attitudes towards immigrants (Allport, 1954; Verkuyten & Thijs, 2001). Intergroup attitudes, prejudice, and discrimination all derive from a basic, fundamental social cognitive process that helps the individual to deal with the complexity of social life, that is, social categorization (i.e., the distinction between “us” and “them”; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Among outgroups, one of the most salient one is that of migrants. If research suggests that prejudice and tolerance are two different outcomes that are predicted by different processes (e.g., Van Zalk & Kerr, 2014), it is thus important to deeply analyse what promotes social inclusiveness and reduction of prejudice during adolescence. This contribution aims to understand the relation between well-known antecedents and moderators of prejudice--such as the social dominance orientation (i.e., the value that people place on non-egalitarian and hierarchically structured relationships between social groups; Sidanious & Pratto, 1999) and multiple categorization as the ability to recognize others’ multiple belongingness; Crisp & Hewstone, 2007)--prejudice towards migrants, and the development of social inclusiveness (assessed as the tendency to include oneself and others within the common group of human beings; Albarello & Rubini, 2012) during adolescence. Participants were 304 adolescents (61.84% female; Mage = 17.49, SDage = 0.79) attending secondary high schools in the North-East of Italy. Most of the participants were Italian (95.06%). They were involved in a three-wave longitudinal study, with data collected throughout one academic year, with an interval of three months between measurements. At each point, adolescents completed the same paper-and-pencil questionnaire in their classrooms, during school hours. Study measures included individual’s social dominance orientation (Short Social Dominance Orientation scale; SSDO; Pratto et al., 2013), the extent to which adolescents used simple dimensions versus multiple dimensions of categorization to define the outgroup of migrants (ad hoc multiple categorisation scale), prejudice towards the group of migrants (Classical and Modern Racial Prejudice Scale; CMRPS; Akrami, Ekehammar, & Araya, 2000), and social inclusiveness, assessed as identification with the human group (Human Identification Scale; Albarello & Rubini, 2012). Results of cross-lagged analyses conducted in Mplus highlighted that social dominance orientation and multiple categorization had opposite effects on prejudice toward migrants: while social dominance increased prejudice, multiple categorization contributed to lessen it. In addition, prejudice mediated the effects of social dominance orientation and multiple categorization on social inclusiveness, revealing the role of negative views of others in shaping social inclusiveness of adolescents. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications, suggesting important directions of study and intervention for promoting inclusive societies.