Discrimination is often used to increase public perceptions of group distinctiveness. The current research studied the effectiveness of third party helping as an alternative, more benign strategy to this end. Across four studies, we examined whether helping a third party can position the helping group as more distinct from, or more similar to, a comparison group, depending on the nature of the comparison group’s relationship with the third party. Results from three studies showed that third party helping was as effective as discrimination of the comparison group, but third party helping elicited a more positive public image of the group compared with discrimination. Study 4 provided evidence for the spontaneous use of third party helping in response to distinctiveness threat. These findings extend insights from classic balance theories and research on strategic intergroup helping to the domain of intergroup differentiation, and highlight a benign strategy to achieve positive group distinctiveness.
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