Research article Warm or competent? Improving intergroup relations by addressing threatened identities of advantaged and disadvantaged groups NURIT SHNABEL 1 * , JOHANNES ULLRICH 2 , ARIE NADLER 3 , JOHN F. DOVIDIO 4 AND ANNA LISA AYDIN 5 1 Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel; 2 Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland; 3 Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; 4 Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, USA; 5 Department of Psychology, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany Abstract Applying the Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation to contexts of group disparity, two studies examined how messages from outgroup representatives that affirmed the warmth or competence of advantaged or disadvantaged groups influenced their members’ intergroup attitudes. Study 1 involved natural groups differing in status; Study 2 experimentally manipulated status. In both studies, advantaged-group members responded more favorably, reporting more positive outgroup attitudes and willingness to change the status quo toward equality, to messages reassuring their group’s warmth. Disadvantaged-group members responded more favorably to messages affirming their group’s competence. Study 2 further demonstrated that the effectiveness of reassuring a disadvantaged group’s competence stemmed from restoring its threatened dimension of identity, irrespective of a change of the status quo. In line with Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), these results indicate that beyond the competition over tangible resources, groups are concerned with restoring threatened dimensions of their identities. Exchanging messages that remove identity-related threats may promote not only positive intergroup attitudes but also greater willingness to act collectively for intergroup equality. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Intuition suggests that conveying positive gestures and messages to members of another group is likely to promote positive intergroup attitudes and relations (Osgood, 1962). The Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation (Nadler & Shnabel, 2008; Shnabel & Nadler, 2008), however, further proposes that the specific contents of such positive intergroup messages are critical to shaping the resulting intergroup attitudes. Research conducted within the framework of the Needs- Based Model (Shnabel, Nadler, Ullrich, Dovidio, & Carmi, 2009) on the exchange of positive messages between victim- ized and perpetrating groups (e.g., Jews and Germans) has revealed that messages that satisfy the unique motivations of members of victimized and perpetrating groups were particu- larly effective in increasing their willingness to reconcile with each other. Specifically, members of victimized groups suffered from impairment to their sense of power and experi- enced an enhanced motivation for gaining power as a result. Consequently, they were more motivated to reconcile with the perpetrating group when the other group conveyed an empowering, rather than accepting, message to them. Members of perpetrating groups, in contrast, suffered from impairment to their moral image, which enhanced the anxiety of their members over social exclusion. Perpetrating groups consequently experienced an enhanced motivation for gaining moral-social acceptance and therefore were more motivated to reconcile when the victimized group communicated an accepting message. The goal of the present work, consisting of two experi- ments, was to explore how these previous insights into psychological needs associated with victim and perpetrator roles can be applied to better understand mutual relations between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Based on the premise that the social roles of “victims” and “perpetrators” correspond in several respects to those of advantaged and disadvantaged groups (see also Siem, von Oettingen, Mummendey, & Nadler, 2013), we incorporated general principles of intergroup perception, drawing mainly from the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) and literature on the “Big-Two” (Abele, Cuddy, Judd, & Yzerbyt, 2008), to extend the Needs-Based Model to the context of status differentials between groups. In particular, we examined how the content of intergroup messages, which targeted different dimensions of disadvantaged and advantaged groups’ identities (i.e., competence or warmth) and thus addressed different motivations, influenced their members’ intergroup attitudes and willingness to act for social change. Applying the Needs-Based Model to contexts of intergroup inequality, we confronted two major challenges that we turn to discuss in the next two sections. *Correspondence to: Nurit Shnabel, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel. E-mail: shnabeln@post.tau.ac.il European Journal of Social Psychology, Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. (2013) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.1975 Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 10 April 2012, Accepted 29 April 2013