71 2 more likely to vote for woman candidates, but when these discussion are not salient women refrain from doing so (Campbell and Heath, 2017: 227). Some researchers explain a possible “gender affinity” through the assumption amongst voters that woman politicians are more likely to share their policy views on issues such as healthcare and women’s rights (Holman et al., 2016; Lau and Redlawsk, 2001; Schneider and Bos, 2016: 286). A meta-analysis found that both men and women prefer woman politicians, but women slightly more so than men (Schwarz and Coppock, 2022: 9). That is why I preregistered the following hypothesis: H1.c. Women prefer woman to man politicians. Alternative strategies to achieve positive distinctiveness without in-group favoritism Social Identity Theory proposes that individuals use three possible strategies to achieve positive distinctiveness: individual mobility, social creativity, and social competition. The choice of strategy depends on various factors such as the group’s social status, belief in social mobility or change, the permeability of group boundaries, perceived security of group relations, and the perceived homogeneity/heterogeneity of the outgroup. In the following section, I will outline how minorities and women may prefer their in-group only under certain conditions, and sometimes even prefer the out-group, whereas high-status groups tend to prefer their in-group under all conditions. The experimental design in which I also randomize policy positions enables respondents to abstain from letting in-group or out-group favoritism influence their vote choice, and I will discuss when and why this is most likely to occur. Low-status groups, such as voters with a migration background or Muslims, can use the three strategies to achieve positive distinctiveness in different ways. Some groups may perceive their boundaries as permeable, for instance because they have a name or appearance that makes them pass as part of the high-status out-group. This could be the case amongst German citizens with a migration background in the Former Soviet Union or Maghrebi French with fair skin and a French name. If that is the case, they will be likely to strive for individual mobility to join the high-status group, leading to out-group favoritism through accepting the out-group’s superiority. Other groups may perceive their boundaries as impermeable, possibly due to having a ethnoracially distinct name or black skin. This may be the case amongst citizens with a migration background in Turkey or French citizens from Sub-Saharan Africa. In that case, boundaries are impermeable. If group relations are seen as legitimate and stable, individuals will try to achieve positive distinctiveness through social creativity by redefining the dimensions of group comparison or attributing different meanings to current comparative dimensions (Haslam, 2001: 25), think of Muslim women in Europe countering common stereotypes of themselves as complacent and docile (van Es, 2019). This redefinition of group membership coincides with avoiding a direct challenge
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