Strategic defensiveness: public and private responses to group criticism.

This paper explores the strategic processes associated with responding to group criticism. In Experiment 1, Australians received criticism of their country from either an in-group or an out-group member. When participants believed their evaluations of the criticisms were private, they reported being more defensive when criticized by an out-group relative to an in-group member. However, this intergroup sensitivity effect disappeared on some measures when participants were led to believe their evaluations of the criticisms could be seen by an in-group audience. In Experiment 2, which focused on participants' identity as social science students, the attenuation of the intergroup sensitivity effect emerged only when the in-group audience was relatively high-status. Furthermore, in both experiments, increased reports of defensiveness in public only occurred in response to an in-group critic and not to an out-group critic. Theoretical and practical implications for intergroup and intragroup communication are discussed.