The default ideological position is status quo maintaining. Strategies justifying the status quo include undermining challenging arguments, and challengers are judged more negatively than defenders by observers. The current study examined perceptions of challengers and defenders of status quo taking into account perceivers’ own position. Experiment 1 showed that challengers undermined, by ascribing more externality and less rationality, the position of defenders to a larger extent than defenders did of challengers’ position. Experiment 2 tested if effects were driven by the implied minority status of the challenging position. Results revealed no effects of experimentally manipulated numerical status, but challengers were again more biased than defenders. Hence, thedriving force behind challengers’ negative attitudes towards opponents seems to lie in the challenging position per se rather than numerical status. Possibly, challenging what is generally considered to be good demands more from the individual in terms of gearing up for fight and protection against attacks.

Family relations may constitute a risk for developing eating problems. Not enough is known about parent-child relationship quality and upbringing in food situations. Self-report data from 80 high school students (45 males) showed that females had more eating problems than males, and their problems were related both to insecure mother attachment, controlling for body/weight dissatisfaction, and to more memories of childhood food rules. Secure mother attachment was related to decreased eating problems, via increasing body/weight satisfaction. Especially the mother- daughter relationship seems to affect adolescent girls' eating habits and can either protect against or enhance the risk for eating problems.

Decision-makers tend to change the psychological attractiveness of decision alternatives in favour of their own preferred alternative after the decision is made. In two experiments, the present research examined whether such decision consolidation occurs also among individual group members in a large group decision-making situation. High-school students were presented with a decision scenario on an important issue in their school. The final decision was made by in-group authority, out-group authority or by majority after a ballot voting. Results showed that individual members of large groups changed the attractiveness of their preferred alternative from a pre- to a post decision phase, that these consolidation effects increased when decisions were made by in-group members and when participants identified strongly with their school. Implications of the findings for understanding of group behavior and subgroup relations are discussed.

The present thesis consists of three studies on the effects of group membership in large group decisions. The overall aim was to contribute to understanding how individuals react when decisions are made in large groups. We explored consequences of procedural justice concerns within such groups. In Study I we investigated how different decision procedures and issue importance affect perceptions of others who agree and disagree with the individual on a potentially important issue.  Individuals attributed more positive reasons for attitudes of those who agree as opposed to disagree with themselves, whereas disagreers were attributed more negative reasons. The asymmetry was moderated by decision form, and issue importance. The attitudes concerned attitudes towards potential new policies. In Study II we investigated differences in participants’ perceptions of others depending on own position towards the new policy. Challengers of the status quo advocating a change in the existing policy, were more biased when judging others than were defenders of the status quo. This suggests that challengers are less tolerant of defenders’ point of view. This effect was not affected by perceptions of minority status among the challengers. In Study III we looked at individual group members’ cognitive restructuring of a preferred decision alternative, and how it differs between decision conditions when the decision-maker is affiliated to own ingroup or not. Results showed that individuals restructure the attractiveness of their preferred alternative in group decisions similarly to what has been previously found in individual decision-making. The magnitude of restructuring was greatest when ingroup members decided for the group. However, this effect was moderated by identification with the ingroup, such that those who identified themselves with the ingroup restructured their preferred alternative more when ingroup members decided as opposed to when outgroup authorities decided.

The current research investigated biases in attributions of the origins of others’ preferences in a group decision situation. In two experiments, students indicated their preferred alternative in a decision on an important issue in their school, and then explained the bases for preferences of those agreeing and disagreeing with them. Results showed that participants saw preferences of those who agreed as more rationally and less externally based than of those who disagreed. This effect increased with perceived issue importance, when the decision was made by in-group representatives, when the decision outcome was concordant with their own preference (Study 1), and, on the externality dimension, when their representatives were in the majority when deciding on an important issue (Study 2). Findings have important implications for our understanding of the tolerance of others and acceptance of group decisions, and ultimately, how group members behave and interact.