Intergroup bias regulation strategies in non-Black Americans

In an experimental questionnaire study among Chinese participants living in the Netherlands, it was found that self‐descriptions, acculturation attitudes and ingroup evaluation were affected by the comparative group context. Following self‐categorization theory, different predictions were tested and supported. Self‐ratings on trait adjectives systematically differed between an intragroup (Chinese) and an intergroup (Chinese versus Dutch) context. Furthermore, ethnic self‐categorization turned out to be related to self‐descriptions in the intragroup context, whereas ethnic self‐esteem showed an effect on self‐descriptions in the intergroup context. Acculturation attitudes and ingroup favouritism were also affected by the comparative context. In the intergroup context, participants were more strongly in favour of heritage culture maintenance and reported higher ingroup favouritism than in the intragroup context. It is concluded that studies on ethnic minorities should consider the important and often neglected intragroup processes and comparisons in addition to the familiar minority–majority group comparisons. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The question how intergroup bias can be alleviated is of much theoretical and practical interest. Whereas diversity training and the multiculturalism ideology are two approaches prominent in practice, most theoretical models on reducing intergroup bias are based on social-identity theory and self-categorization theory. This social-identity perspective assumes that similar processes lead to intergroup bias in very different intergroup contexts if people identify with the respective social groups. A recent prominent model based on these theories is the ingroup-projection model. As this model assumes, an ingroup’s norms and standards are applied to outgroups included in a common superordinate category (this is called ingroup projection). Intergroup bias results because the outgroup fulfils these norms and standards less than the ingroup. Importantly, if the diversity of the superordinate category is induced as the norm, ingroup projection and thus intergroup bias should be reduced. The present research delineates and tests how general this process is. We propose that ingroup prototypicality is not only an outcome variable, as the ingroup-projection model originally assumes, but can also be an important moderator. We hypothesize that for members considering their ingroup highly prototypical (“pars pro toto”, large majorities), the superordinate group’s diversity may question their ingroup’s position and thus elicit threat and intergroup bias. In contrast, for members who consider their group as less prototypical (one among several, or “una inter pares” groups), activating diversity should, as originally assumed in the ingroup-projection model, reduce intergroup bias. Three experiments (total N = 345) supported these predictions in the contexts of groups defined by gender or nationality. Taken together, the ingroup-projection model can explain under which conditions activating superordinate-category diversity induces tolerance, and when it may backfire. We discuss in how far the ingroup-projection model can integrate conflicting findings on the multiculturalism ideology.

Past research has documented ingroup favoritism, the tendency to cooperate more with ingroup members than outgroup members, in a wide range of intergroup contexts, and extensively discussed conditions under which ingroup favoritism emerges. However, previous studies have predominantly focused on a simplistic intergroup context, for instance, where group boundaries are static, and one group membership is present. To fill the gap, we leveraged data from professional volleyball players and investigated the influence of (1) varying levels of intergroup conflict salience, (2) past and present group memberships, and (3) national team membership on intergroup cooperation. Contrary to our hypotheses and the social identity perspective, we found that conflict salience and former ingroup membership did not influence intergroup cooperation. Additionally, we found that the more national team players there are in the ingroup, the more cooperative those who play for the national team are with ingroup members, leading to increased ingroup favoritism.

Editorial: Parochial Altruism: Pitfalls and Prospects

I recruited Chinese and White undergraduate students to an experimental lab to test whether or not an individual adjusts ingroup bias to demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with an observer. The findings indicate that when an incentive for social indirect reciprocity is experimentally treated, ingroup favoritism increases if a cooperative partner comes from one's ingroup, but it decreases if the partner comes from an outgroup. However, when an incentive for trustworthiness is experimentally treated, its effect on net ingroup bias disappears. Nevertheless, further analysis reveals that subjects still demonstrate stronger and weaker ingroup biases based on ingroup and outgroup matchings, respectively, if their net ingroup biases for social indirect reciprocity are mild.

Groups are essential elements of society, and humans, by nature, commonly manifest intergroup bias (i.e., behave more positively toward an ingroup member than toward an outgroup member). Despite the growing evidence of various types of altered decision-making in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), their behavior under the situation involving group membership remains largely unexplored. By modifying a third-party punishment paradigm, we investigated intergroup bias in individuals with ASD and typical development (TD). In our experiment, participants who were considered as the third party observed a dictator game wherein proposers could decide how to distribute a provided amount of money while receivers could only accept unconditionally. Participants were confronted with two different group situations: the proposer was an ingroup member and the recipient was an outgroup member (IN/OUT condition) or the proposer was an outgroup member and the recipient was an ingroup member (OUT/IN condition). Participants with TD punished proposers more severely when violating social norms in the OUT/IN condition than in IN/OUT condition, indicating that their decisions were influenced by the intergroup context. This intergroup bias was attenuated in individuals with ASD. Our findings deepen the understanding of altered decision-making and socioeconomic behaviors in individuals with ASD.

Emotions influence information processing because they are assumed to carry valuable information. We predict that induced anger will increase ethnic but not gender intergroup bias because anger is related to conflicts for resources, and ethnic groups typically compete for resources, whereas gender groups typically engage in relations of positive interdependence. Furthermore, we also predict that this increased ethnic intergroup bias should only be observed among men because men show more group‐based reactions to intergroup conflict than women do. Two studies, with 65 and 120 participants, respectively, indeed show that anger induction increases ethnic but not gender intergroup bias and only for men. Intergroup bias was measured with an implicit measure. In Study 2, we additionally predict (and find) that fear induction does not change ethnic or gender intergroup bias because intergroup bias is a psychological preparation for collective action and fear is not associated with taking action against out‐groups. We conclude that the effect of anger depends on its specific informational potential in a particular intergroup context. These results highlight that gender groups differ on a crucial point from ethnic groups and call for more attention to the effect of people's gender in intergroup relations research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A study is reported that tests the hypothesis that group members exhibit intergroup bias in response to the belief that outsiders will discriminate against them. To this end, two experimental conditions are included in which subjects anticipate either biased evaluations or fair evaluations respectively. In a control condition, subjects do not expect to be evaluated from an external source. Results indicated, as expected, that those who anticipated biased evaluations from an outgroup exhibited bias themselves, while those who anticipated fair evaluations exhibited outgroup favouritism. The fact that control subjects exhibited the same degree of bias as those who anticipated biased evaluations from the outgroup poses some difficulties for the hypothesized connection between anticipated discrimination and intergoup bias. Thus, it appears that intergroup bias is the rule and not the exception in an intergroup context. Nevertheless, it is clear that anticipated evaluations of outgroup members can effect intergroup bias.

Social norms in general have an important role in the regulation of intergroup relations. However, the effects of one specific type of social norms-in-group norms about intergroup contact-have not yet been extensively studied, especially among groups of different status or in different intergroup contexts. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of three types of contact norms (peer, parental and school) on four intergroup outcomes (in-group bias, social distance, tendency to discriminate, prosocial behaviour towards the outgroup) among ethnic majority and minority adolescents from four different intergroup contexts of the Republic of Croatia, as well as to test for moderating effects of age, social status and intergroup context in the strength of these effects. The research was carried out on a sample of 1440 elementary and high school students, members of Croatian majority, and Serbian, Hungarian, Czech, and Italian minority. The results indicated that although all three types of norms predict most of the intergroup outcomes, their relative importance depends on the specific type of intergroup outcome (attitudinal or behavioural), group social status (majority or minority), intergroup context (history of a recent intergroup conflict or not), and for peer norms on the age of the adolescent.

Social norms in general have an important role in the regulation of intergroup relations. However, the effects of one specific type of social norms–in-group norms about intergroup contact–have not yet been extensively studied, especially among groups of different status or in different intergroup contexts. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of three types of contact norms (peer, parental and school) on four intergroup outcomes (in-group bias, social distance, tendency to discriminate, prosocial behaviour towards the outgroup) among ethnic majority and minority adolescents from four different intergroup contexts of the Republic of Croatia, as well as to test for moderating effects of age, social status and intergroup context in the strength of these effects. The research was carried out on a sample of 1440 elementary and high school students, members of Croatian majority, and Serbian, Hungarian, Czech, and Italian minority. The results indicated that although all three types of norms predict most of the intergroup outcomes, their relative importance depends on the specific type of intergroup outcome (attitudinal or behavioural), group social status (majority or minority), intergroup context (history of a recent intergroup conflict or not), and for peer norms on the age of the adolescent.

Relational models theory provides an alternative framework to study group and intergroup processes. One of four models people use to constitute groups is communal sharing (CS). Ethnographic and experimental evidence suggests that CS is produced by concrete and symbolic enactments of connections between bodies (cuddling, touching, synchronicity, commensality). We tested the effect of commensality on CS and ingroup favouritism in four Experiments with 3‐person groups (total n = 330) and found that commensality enhances emergent group communal sharing but does not enhance ingroup favouritism. In Experiment 1, sharing food enhanced ingroup communal sharing but in Experiment 2 this effect was not significant. In Experiments 3 and 4, sharing water enhanced communal sharing, but only when served from the same bottle, implying consubstantial assimilation. Ingroup favouritism was not enhanced by commensality in any experiment, even when explicitly presented as exclusively ingroup (Experiment 2), suggesting non‐comparative group formation through ingroup commensality.

As should be clear from most of the chapters of this book, what has characterized what we may broadly describe as the “social identity tradition” in intergroup relations has been its depiction of intergroup phenomena as being determined by some powerful social psychological motives. In other words, people are “driven” to manifest various intergroup biases, emotions, and behaviors by a presumed lack in certain key needs. This perspective can be contrasted with other approaches — again, rather loosely, we might subsume them under the label “socio-cognitive” — in which the hypothesized causal factors are the operation of some relatively autonomous, sometimes automatic, cognitive processes (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Of course, such a simplistic polarization does grave injustice to many theories that have attempted to bridge this divide, some of which are well represented in recent publications (e.g., Abrams & Hogg, 1999; Sedikides & Brewer, 2001). Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the last decade or so has seen a resurgence of motivational approaches. Inspired by social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1979), in which group (and self) enhancement is posited as the primary motivation, we have seen optimal distinctiveness theory, in which countervailing needs for distinctiveness and inclusion are proposed (Brewer, 1991), uncertainty reduction theory, in which a desire for clarity and meaning is seen as the primary driver of group members’ behavior (Hogg, 2000), and functional models in which several functions are suggested as underlying identification and intergroup processes (see Deaux, Reid, Mizrahi, & Cotting, 1999). Our aim in this chapter is to examine the predictive power of some of these motivational accounts in three empirical studies.

The present study aimed at showing that the relationship between identification and ingroup bias is moderated by salient group norms that prescribe or proscribe differentiation in an intergroup context. A study (N=191) in which level of identification and group norms were manipulated showed that high identifiers acted more in accordance with a salient differentiation norm compared to low identifiers. When a fairness norm was made salient, however, the Expected difference was not obtained. The results are discussed in the context of the inconsistent relationships between ingroup bias and identification found in previous research. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The present study aimed at showing that the relationship between identification and ingroup bias is moderated by salient group norms that prescribe or proscribe differentiation in an intergroup context. A study (N=191) in which level of identification and group norms were manipulated showed that high identifiers acted more in accordance with a salient differentiation norm compared to low identifiers. When a fairness norm was made salient, however, the expected difference was not obtained. The results are discussed in the context of the inconsistent relationships between ingroup bias and identification found in previous research. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Claims of wrongdoing by outgroup members heighten children's ingroup biases