Chapter 4. Does ethnic heterogeneity of clubs affect member dropout? 83 The ethnic homogeneity of the outgroup may act as a key enabling variable in this process because individuals’ social categorizations tend to adhere to what has been known as the ‘principle of meta-contrast’ (Turner & Oakes, 1986). This principle dictates that the likeliness of people to categorize a collection of individuals as a group is a function of the degree in which intragroup differences are less than the differences between that group and other individuals within that context. Ethnic outgroup homogeneity maximizes the conditions under which the principle of meta-contrast operates by reducing differences in the outgroup and simplifying comparisons with the ingroup. Conversely, its counterpart, ethnic outgroup fractionalization, introduces differences within the outgroup which complicate clear-cut intergroup comparisons. Furthermore, maximized outgroup homogeneity is most likely to lead to shared and therefore salient group categories because in- and outgroup distinctions will overlap each other perfectly, regardless of ethnic group membership. Vice versa, when outgroups become more ethnically fractured, group categories become increasingly contested because ethnicity based in- and outgroup classifications start to diverge. The idea that ethnic outgroup homogeneity may play a key role enabling group threat is supported by previous research. Namely, several psychological studies have found that experiences of threat and perceptions of high outgroup homogeneity are positively related to one another. Additionally, in a comparative study of 138 countries, Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005) find that civic conflict is not a product of ethnically heterogeneous populations per se, but of ethnically polarized population structures specifically – thus when ethnic outgroup homogeneity is high. Hence, if ethnic group threat forms a pathway through which ethnic heterogeneity may lead to member dropout, I expect that this form of dropout will be highest when members come into contact with a fully homogeneous outgroup and that dropout thus scales negatively with higher degrees of outgroup fractionalization: H4: Ethnic outgroup fractionalization is negatively associated with dropout Social disarray As opposed to the approach centred around group threat, the other theoretical approach is less rounded. Instead, it consists of multiple ideas which all share the notion that ethnic differences have the potential to hamper socially meaningful and effective interaction between individuals, impair a group’s ability to
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw