The combined effects of meta-stereotypes and audience on outgroup and ingroup helping

Salient meta-stereotypes can promote outgroup helping in a way that allows an ingroup to make a good impression. Although the presence of an audience can similarly activate impression-management concerns, their combined effects on intergroup helping have never been investigated, which was the goal of the current research. Across 2 field experiments (N = 100, N = 170) and 1 laboratory experiment (N = 230), we tested 2 opposing hypotheses. The amplification hypothesis predicted that the positive effect of meta-stereotype salience on outgroup helping (but not ingroup helping) would be amplified by the presence of an audience. The suppression hypothesis predicted that this effect would be suppressed by an audience. Most support was found for the suppression hypothesis. Studies 2 and 3 also illustrate that people do not always favor the ingroup over the outgroup in helping, and reveal several situations in which an outgroup-favoring bias can be found.