Coping with Minority Status : Responses to Exclusion and Inclusion

Society consists of numerous interconnected, interacting, and interdependent groups, which differ in power and status. The consequences of belonging to a more powerful, higher-status “majority” versus a less powerful, lower-status “minority” can be profound, and the tensions that arise between these groups are the root of society’s most difficult problems. To understand the origins of these problems and develop solutions for them, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of majority-minority relations. This volume brings together leading scholars in the fields of stigma, prejudice and discrimination, minority influence, and intergroup relations to provide diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives on what it means to be a minority. The volume, which focuses on the strategies that minorities use in coping with majorities, is organized into three sections: “Coping with Exclusion: Being Excluded for Who You Are”; “Coping with Exclusion: Being Excluded for What You Think and Do”; and “Coping with Inclusion.”

Fabrizio Butera is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, as well as director of the Social Psychology Laboratory. His research interests focus on social influence processes, conflict, and social comparison. He currently is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Social Psychology and recently served as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology. Professor Butera has published extensively in leading journals in social psychology and has co-edited several volumes, including Toward a Clarification of the Effects of Achievement Goals (with C. Darnon and J. Harackiewicz), Learning at the University (with R. Johnson, D. Johnson, and G. Mugny), and Social Influence in Social Reality (with G. Mugny).

John Levine is Professor of Psychology and Senior Scientist in the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on small group processes, including innovation in work teams, group reaction to deviance and disloyalty, majority and minority influence, and group socialization. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society and served as Executive Committee Chair of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and as Editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Professor Levine has published papers on a wide range of small group phenomena and has co-edited Teacher and Student Perceptions: Implications for Learning (with M. Wang), Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition (with L. Resnick and S. Teasley), and Shared Cognition in Organizations: The Management of Knowledge (with L. Thompson and D. Messick).