Impostors within Groups: The Psychology of Claiming to be Something you are not

Rebels in Groups: Dissent, Deviance, Difference and Defiance

Volumn , Issue , 2012, Pages 158-178

  Hornsey, Matthew J ^a   Jetten, Jolanda ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

Author keywords

'impostorism' in experiments people, making a public claim for group membership; 'parasites' as people, expressing attitudes and behaviours that one might expect of a group; Corner cutter, differing from shape shifter crossing impermeable boundaries; Films, as the return of martin guerre and six degrees of separation; Impostors within groups psychology of claiming to be something you are not; Impostors, what is at stake their right to call themselves group members at all; Objective impostors five types of 'objective' impostor, shape shifters, corner cutters, trojan horses, closet dwellers and history thieves; Right of black sheep self categorising as a member of a group; Shape shifters, those who lay claim to a group membership; Trojan horses poem the aeneid, virgil telling the tale of how the greeks conquered the city of troy after a 10 year siege

Indexed keywords

EID: 84886573285     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1002/9781444390841.ch9     Document Type: Chapter

References (24)

1. Branscombe, N.R., Schmitt, M.T. & Harvey, R.D. (1999). Perceiving pervasive discrimination among African Americans: implications for group identification and well -being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 135-49.
2. Breakwell, G.M. (1979). Illegitimate group membership and intergroup differentiation. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 18, 141-9.
3. Clance, P. & Imes, S. (1978). The impostor phenomenon in high achieving women: dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15, 241-7.
4. Coull, A., Yzerbyt, V.Y., Castano, E., Paladino, M.-P. & Leemans, V. (2001). Protecting the ingroup: motivated allocation of cognitive resources in the presence of threatening ingroup members. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 4, 327-39.
5. Frable, D.E.S., Platt, L. & Hoey, S. (1998). Concealable stigmas and positive selfperceptions: feeling better around similar others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 909-22.
6. Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday Anchor.
7. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. London: Penguin.
8. Griffin, J.H. (1977). Black Like Me. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
9. Hornsey, M.J. & Jetten, J. (2003). Not being what you claim to be: impostors as sources of group threat. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 639-57.
10. Hutchison, P. & Abrams, D. (2003). Ingroup identification moderates stereotypic change in reaction to ingroup deviance. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 497-506.
11. Jetten, J. & Branscombe, N.R. (2009). Seeking minority group memberships: responses to discrimination when group membership is self-selected. In. F. Butera & J. Levine (eds), Coping with Minority Status: Responses to Exclusion and Inclusion (pp. 155-76). New York: Cambridge University Press.
12. Jetten, J., Branscombe, N.R., Schmitt, M.T. & Spears, R. (2001). Rebels with a cause: group identification as a response to perceived discrimination from the mainstream. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1204-13.
13. Jetten, J., Summerville, N., Hornsey, M.J. & Mewse, A.J. (2005). When differences matter: intergroup distinctiveness and the evaluation of impostors. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 609-20.
14. Marques, J.M. & Páez, D. (1994). The 'black sheep effect': social categorization, rejection of ingroup deviates, and perception of group variability. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (eds), European Review of Social Psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 41-68). New York: John Wiley and Sons.
15. Marques, J.M., Yzerbyt, V.Y. & Leyens, J.-P. (1988). The 'black sheep effect': extremity of judgment towards ingroup members as a function of group identification. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 1-16.
16. Molero, F., Fuster, M.J., Jetten, J.&Moriano, J.A. (in press). Living with HIV/AIDS: a psychosocial perspective on coping with prejudice and discrimination. Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
17. Moscovici, S., Mucchi, S.A. & Maass, A. (eds) (1994). Minority Influence. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
18. Oakes, P.J., Haslam, S.A. & Turner, J.C. (1999). The role of prototypicality in group influence and cohesion: contextual variation in the graded structure of social categories. In. S. Worchel, J.F. Morales, D. Paez & J.-C. Deschamps (eds), Social Identity: International Perspectives (pp. 75-92). London: Sage.
19. Reicher, S. & Hopkins, N. (2001). Self and Nation. London: Sage. Schoemann, A.M. & Branscombe, N.R. (in press). Looking young for your age: perceptions of anti-aging actions. European Journal of Social Psychology.
20. Stapel, D.A., Koomen, W. & Spears, R. (1999). Framed and misfortuned: identity salience and the whiff of scandal. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 397-402.
21. St€urmer, S. & Simon, B. (2004). The role of collective identification in social movement participation: a panel study in the context of the German Gay Movement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 263-77.
22. Warner, R., Hornsey, M.J. & Jetten, J. (2007). Why minority members resent impostors. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37, 1-18.
23. White, J.B. & Langer, E.J. (1999). Horizontal hostility: relations between similar minority groups. Journal of Social Issues, 55, 537-59.
24. White, J.B., Schmitt, M.T. & Langer, E.J. (2006). Horizontal hostility: multiple minority groups and differentiation from the mainstream. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9, 339-58.