Gardner, Richard G (2014-06). That's Why I Don't like You: An Investigation of Intergroup Disidentification in a Socialization Context. Doctoral Dissertation.
Thesis
This study takes a social identity perspective to explain intergroup relationships within organizations. Specifically, I investigate how newcomers to an organization are socialized to an organization and why the sources of socialization can affect newcomers' perceptions of their workgroup and other workgroups in the organization. Newcomers to organizations often face uncertainty in their new organization and receive information about organizational norms, rules, and procedures from various sources such as coworkers, supervisors, or organizational attempts to provide a socialization program. I propose that newcomers that receive socialization from proximal sources such as coworkers and supervisors will be more likely to disidentify from other workgroups within the organization. Additionally, I propose various individual-level moderators to this relationship. Subsequently, intergroup disidentification can result in various attitudinal and behavioral outcomes such as intergroup conflict, ingroup favoritism, outgroup derogation, interpersonal deviance, and intentions to leave the organization. To test my hypotheses I conducted a lab experiment to test socialization sources' effects on intergroup disidentification and also the effects on ingroup/outgroup perceptions. I also conducted a field study to further test hypotheses related to intergroup behaviors as well as individual's reactions to intergroup disidentification.
