Explicit group-superiority claims provoke cyber aggression toward the braggart: The influence of (common) group identity of the observer

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of group-bragging types on cyber aggression, and examine the effect of the observer’s group identity on responses to the braggart’s group-bragging.Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis. In these experiments, participants were instructed to read an implicit or an explicit superiority claim about another college group (outgroup), after the manipulation, we measured aggression by giving observers the opportunity to (anonymously) make a negative evaluation to damage the braggart’s chance of getting a desirable job. Experiment 1 (N = 60) was a first test of the prediction that explicit (rather than implicit) a group-bragging would cause aggressive evaluation on the braggart, because the explicit group-superiority claims was seen as a provocation by observers from another group, which was confirmed by mediation analyses. In experiment 2 (N = 120) we further explored the influence of the observer’s identity to their own group on the response to the bragging of another group. Experiment 3 (N = 120) explored whether recategorization of observer and braggart into a superordinate common ingroup could decrease observer’s aggressive reaction to the (explicit) braggart.