In-group Preference Research Articles

Regional Accents: Spontaneous Biases Toward Speakers Who Sound Like Us

Accents provide information about a speaker's geographical, socio-economic, and ethnic background. An additional important variable in the social evaluation of accented speech is the listener's own accent. Just as with any in-group marker, there is a preference for accented speakers that sound like us. Here we employed an auditory version of the implicit association test to quantify own-accent bias. At a Welsh university, we recruited two groups of participants born and raised in distinct regions within the UK, Wales and England. These regions have a long-standing history of national rivalry. In Experiments 1 and 2 we show that the magnitude of the implicitly measured own-accent bias in both groups was comparable to biases based on visible group membership (e.g., race). In addition, Experiment 2 shows that this implicitly measured bias was large compared to the explicitly reported preference. The effect sizes of the in-group preference reported here may have societal impact.

Effects of social inhibition and group relations on altruistic behaviour of children under conditions of reputational threat

ABSTRACT . This study examines the relationship between reputational threat and altruistic behavior in children aged 6-11 and explores how social inhibition and group relationships affect this behavior. Study 1 involved 204 children and found that age and reputational threat influence altruism, with age 8 being a key turning point. Study 2 focused on 130 nine-year-olds and showed that children with low social inhibition engage in more altruistic acts, regardless of reputational threat. Study 3, with 151 participants, analyzed the effects of group dynamics based on left-behind status. Non-left-behind children preferred out-group altruism, while left-behind children showed in-group preference under reputational threat, with no difference in its absence. Left-behind children were generally more altruistic. The findings highlight age 8 as crucial for reputation strategies and suggest that reputational threat, social inhibition, and group dynamics shape altruistic behavior. This research offers insights into the positive qualities of left-behind children, informing their development and education.

Unveiling Unexpected Selfless Collectivism: Exploring Variances in Moral Beliefs Across Cultural Values.

The impact of moral beliefs on individuals' moral judgments, particularly within the framework of contrasting cultural values such as collectivism and individualism, continues to be a subject of interest. This research delves into whether individuals with distinct values display differences in moral beliefs, with a specific focus on selflessness. Through experiment 1 and 2, we scrutinize the moral judgments of individuals with diverse values concerning pro-social behaviors driven by selflessness and in-group favoritism. Experiment 3 investigates the underlying mechanisms by examining reward expectations. The findings from experiments 1 and 2 indicate that collectivists exhibit significantly higher moral judgment levels for selfless pro-social behaviors compared to individualists, highlighting a disparity in moral beliefs between the two value systems. Experimental 2 also found that collectivists' moral judgments rose and fell as rescuers' selflessness increased or decreased. However, individualist moral judgment did not change significantly with behavioral selflessness. The results reveal that collectivists hold higher reward expectations for selfless behavior, which contributes to their heightened moral judgment of selfless behavior. While it may be assumed that collectivists' moral beliefs would be dominated by in-group preferences, aligning with the conceptual in-group preference of collectivism, this study unexpectedly found evidence of collectivists' pursuit of selflessness in their moral beliefs. These findings offer initial evidence of distinct patterns of moral beliefs associated with collectivism and individualism, shedding light on potential reasons that lead collectivists to possess stronger moral beliefs about selflessness.

Children’s expectations of selective informing: The role of informational relevance on group membership based informing

Surprisingly little is known about how informational relevance guides children’s informing decisions. Although prior studies have demonstrated that children selectively inform and teach others these studies do not directly address whether children consider informational relevance specific to an outgroup member. We also know that children by age 5 and 6 show robust preferences for their ingroup members in various decisions but does information relevance modulate their ingroup preferences? In three experiments (N = 180), we investigated whether Iraqi Kurdish 6-year-old children expect others to inform an ingroup member or an outgroup member, depending on the informational relevance. In Experiment 1 children expected others to inform an ingroup member rather than an outgroup member irrespective of information type – extending prior work on ingroup preferences. In experiments 2 and 3, in which the relevance of the information to an outgroup member was highlighted, children’s expectation about informing an ingroup member was modulated by information type. Together, the findings suggest that children consider informational relevance to guide their expectations about others’ selective informing in the context of group membership, which could further explain how cultural knowledge is maintained and reinforced among members of the same cultural group.

Education as identity? A meta-analysis of education-based in-group preferences in candidate choice experiments

Education as identity? A meta-analysis of education-based in-group preferences in candidate choice experiments

Vaccine Skeptics and Vaccine Enthusiasts: What Is the Intergroup Wall Made Of?

Dehumanization in various forms often accompanies intergroup relations. While it is not clear whether it is a signifier of hostility or rather a source of it, there is a clear link - when dehumanization occurs between groups, we can expect effects ranging from a lack of mutual pro-sociality to an endorsement of violence against an out-group. Our study tested whether mutual dehumanization and meta-dehumanization (the belief that we are being dehumanized by an out-group) occur between supporters and opponents of a COVID-19 vaccine. Using a diverse sample (n = 1262) of residents of Poland, the USA and RPA, we investigated whether attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines can form the basis of an in-group preference and to what extent such groups would dehumanize their opponents. We found evidence for strong in-group preferences among both vaccine enthusiasts and vaccine skeptics. We also found evidence of mutual dehumanization and meta-dehumanization. This dehumanization was particularly pronounced in the case of more extreme forms (as assessed by direct dehumanization and blatant dehumanization measures) and marginally present in the case of subtle dehumanization (as assessed by dual model dehumanization). Vaccine enthusiasts dehumanized vaccine skeptics in all aspects measured, vaccine skeptics dehumanized vaccine enthusiasts in all aspects except one - they did not dehumanize them mechanistically. Overall, the dehumanization found was strong, universal across the countries studied, and largely unspecific. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find many distinctive forms of dehumanization specific to a particular target group - the dehumanization observed was largely symmetrical.

The Neural Mechanisms of Group Membership Effect on Emotional Mimicry: A Multimodal Study Combining Electromyography and Electroencephalography.

Emotional mimicry plays a vital role in understanding others' emotions and has been found to be modulated by social contexts, especially group membership. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this modulation remain unclear. We explored whether and how group membership modulated emotional mimicry using a multimodal method combining facial electromyography (fEMG) and electroencephalography (EEG). We instructed participants to passively view dynamic emotional faces (happy vs. angry) of others (in-group vs. out-group) and simultaneously recorded their fEMG and EEG responses. Then, we conducted combined analyses of fEMG-EEG by splitting the EEG trials into two mimicry intensity categories (high-intensity mimicry vs. low-intensity mimicry) according to fEMG activity. The fEMG results confirmed the occurrence of emotional mimicry in the present study but failed to find a group membership effect. However, the EEG results showed that participants mimicked in-group happiness and anger more than out-group. Importantly, this in-group preference involved different neural mechanisms in happiness and anger mimicry. In-group preference for happiness mimicry occurred at multiple neural mechanisms such as N1 (at P7, Pz, and P8), P2 (at Pz and P8), N2 (at P8), and P3 (at P7, Pz, and P8); in-group preference for anger mimicry occurred at P1 (at P7) and P2 (at Pz). Our findings provide new neural evidence for the effect of group membership on emotional mimicry by uncovering the temporal dynamics of this effect.

Does racial diversity affect White children's racial bias and reasoning? Depends on where they live and how their social world is structured.

By 4 years of age, White children from across the United States begin to exhibit an awareness of racial inequalities, along with in-group preferences for other White children. The present study explored how the size and racial diversity of White children's social network (e.g., friends, family, and classmates) and neighborhood (zip code) are related to variation in their explanations for racial disparities and anti-Black bias among a sample of 395 White children (ages = 4-11 years old; Mage = 6.6 years) from 263 unique zip codes across the United States. White children in neighborhoods with low diversity were more likely to endorse an extrinsic explanation for racial inequality as their network diversity increased, whereas network diversity did not relate to children's choices for those who lived in neighborhoods with high diversity. These findings held even after controlling for parents' beliefs about diversity, which were themselves positively correlated with children's network and neighborhood diversity. An exploratory analysis revealed that for White children in small networks only, as the number of children of color in their network increased, they were more likely to choose to play with a Black child. Results demonstrate how the diversity of children's social networks and neighborhoods relates to children's developing racial beliefs in contextually dependent ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A comparison of ethnocentrism and global citizenship attitudes among Kuwaiti education students

ABSTRACT This study examined the level of and relationship between ethnocentrism and global citizenship attitudes among 346 undergraduate education students at a university in Kuwait. Ethnocentrism was measured using the General Ethnocentrism Scale (GENE) developed by (Neuliep, J. W., and J. C. McCroskey. 1998. “The Development of a U.S. and Generalized Ethnocentrism Scale.” Communication Research Reports 14 (4): 385–398; Neuliep, J. W., and J. C. McCroskey. 2013. “Ethnocentrism Scale.” Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences. https://www.midss.org/sites/default/files/ethnocentrism_scale.pdf) and global citizenship was measured using the Global Citizenship Scale by (Morais, D. B., and A. C. Ogden. 2011. “Initial Development and Validation of the Global Citizenship Scale.” Journal of Studies in International Education 15 (5): 445–466), both of which were translated into Arabic. No significant correlation was found between the two scales overall, but there were significant correlations between some of the subscales. Specifically, ingroup preference was negatively correlated with intercultural communication while ingroup superiority was positively correlated with global self-awareness. These findings suggest that the relationship between ethnocentrism and global citizenship is multifaceted, with some aspects of ethnocentrism working against some aspects of global citizenship, while others may work together. In pursuit of developing sustainable global citizenship education (GCE) programmes, it is imperative to keep the complexity of the relationship between ethnocentrism and global citizenship in mind.

COVID-19 booster prioritization in the West Bank: a survey experiment among Bedouins, refugees, and the majority group.

Our main aim is to understand to what extent Bedouins, internally displaced Palestinians (refugees) and majority-group members (non-refugees, non-Bedouins, settled) in the West Bank prioritize COVID-19 booster shots for their own group over other groups. We conducted a survey experiment (face-to-face) among 678 Palestinians living in the West Bank. Participants randomly received a description of an older man (Bedouin, refugee, settled) and were asked to indicate to what extent this person should be prioritized for the booster shot. Respondents belonging to a minority saw the profile of an in-group member or a majority-group member, whereas majority-group members would see the profile of an in-group or one out-group member (Bedouin, Palestinian refugee). We found slightly higher in-group preferences for Palestinian refugees when it came to vaccination, whereas majority-group members were less inclined to support a prioritization of Palestinian refugees but equally prioritized their group and Bedouins. For Bedouins, we did not find strong in-group preferences. Our study reveals the salience of group boundaries during the COVID-19 pandemic with potentially adverse effects on the health care of minorities.

Cooperation and group similarity in children and young adults in the UK.

For cooperation to be beneficial, cooperators should be able to differentiate individuals who are willing to cooperate from free-riders. In the absence of kin or of familiar individuals, phenotypic similarity (e.g. in terms of language) can be used as a cue of how likely two or more individuals are to behave similarly (whether they will cooperate or free-ride). Thus, phenotypic similarity could affect cooperation. However, it is unclear whether humans respond to any type of phenotypic similarity or whether only salient phenotypic traits guide cooperation. We tested whether within-group, non-salient phenotypic similarity affects cooperation in 280, 3 to 10 year old children and in 76 young adults (mean 19.8 years old) in the UK. We experimentally manipulated the degree of phenotypic similarity in three computer-based experiments. We found no evidence of a preference for, or greater cooperation with, phenotypically similar individuals in children, even though children displayed ingroup preference. Conversely, young adults cooperated more with phenotypically similar than with phenotypically diverse individuals to themselves. Our results suggest that response to non-salient phenotypic similarity varies with age and that young adults may pay more attention to non-salient cues of diversity then children.

The Association Between Performance Information and the Satisfaction of Different Social Groups: Citizen Evaluation by Racial Groups

ABSTRACT Citizen satisfaction is an important instrument to assess the quality of public services and hold governments accountable to their citizens. Despite significant amount of research, few studies have examined whether citizen satisfaction is generalizable across social groups or whether different social groups interpret it differently. Based upon the ingroup preference theory, this study uses data from Chicago Public Schools to argue that citizen satisfaction varies across different social groups, such that different performance information influences each groups’ level of satisfaction differently. The findings suggest that different types of performance information (overall v. group performance) have different effects on citizens of different racial groups when they evaluate public services. Further, it is important to measure performance for each social group, and as each group’s performance increases, divergence in citizen satisfaction among racial groups may decrease, helping public managers reduce unexpected factors that harm citizens’ perception of their agencies.

Minority-group incubators and majority-group reservoirs support the diffusion of climate change adaptations.

Successful climate change adaptation depends on the spread and maintenance of adaptive behaviours. Current theory suggests that the heterogeneity of metapopulation structure can help adaptations diffuse throughout a population. In this paper, we develop an agent-based model of the spread of adaptations in populations with minority-majority metapopulation structure, where subpopulations learn more or less frequently from their own group compared to the other group. In our simulations, minority-majority-structured populations with moderate degrees of in-group preference better spread and maintained an adaptation compared to populations with more equal-sized groups and weak homophily. Minority groups act as incubators for an adaptation, while majority groups act as reservoirs for an adaptation once it has spread widely. This means that adaptations diffuse throughout populations better when minority groups start out knowing an adaptation, as Indigenous populations often do, while cohesion among majority groups further promotes adaptation diffusion. Our work advances the goal of this theme issue by developing new theoretical insights and demonstrating the utility of cultural evolutionary theory and methods as important tools in the nascent science of culture that climate change adaptation needs. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture'.

Effect of race on Gaze Cueing in adults with high and low autistic traits

BackgroundObserving the direction of gaze of another person leads to shifting of attention in the same direction (gaze-cueing effect – GCE), a social-cognitive ability known as joint or social attention. Racial attitudes can influence the magnitude of GCE since it has been shown that White people showing a strong race ingroup preference follow the gaze only of White, and not Black, faces. Individuals with high autistic traits have difficulties in social-cognitive abilities that can disrupt the learning of socially shared racial attitudes. Our aim was to investigate in White Italian adults whether individuals with higher autistic traits (measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient) show reduced implicit racial bias (measured by the Implicit Association Test) and if this bias would lead to differences in the gaze cueing effect (GCE) triggered by gaze direction of faces of different races (measured by the Gaze Cueing Task).MethodsIn an online study, participants (N = 165; 132 females; Mean age = 22.9; SD = 4.76) filled in the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) questionnaire, then performed a Gaze Cueing Task, followed and by an Implicit Association Test.ResultsLinear regression and linear mixed model analyses showed in the IAT task the presence of the same implicit ingroup bias for all participants, which was not predicted by the AQ score, while in the Gaze Cueing Task the GCE differed depending on the AQ score of the participants. Specifically, participants with low-medium, medium, and medium–high autistic traits (AQ = -1SD; AQ = mean; AQ = + 1SD respectively) presented the GCE for both ingroup and outgroup cueing faces, whereas participants with high autistic traits (AQ = + 2SD) only for ingroup faces.ConclusionsIn White Italian adults the presence of an implicit ingroup bias seems to influence the GCE, but it is not always true that the individuals showing an implicit ingroup bias do not orient their attention in the direction of gaze of the outgroup individuals. Instead, the GCE seems to be modulated by the level of autistic traits. That is, individuals with higher autistic traits seem to prioritize joint attention with only their ingroup members.

Psychological value theory: A computational cognitive model of charitable giving

Charitable giving involves a complex economic and social decision because the giver expends resources for goods or services they will never receive. Although psychologists have identified numerous factors that influence charitable giving, there currently exists no unifying computational model of charitable choice. Here, we submit one such model, based within the strictures of Psychological Value Theory (PVT). In four experiments, we assess whether charitable giving is driven by the perceived Psychological Value of the recipient. Across all four experiments, we simultaneously predict response choice and response time with high accuracy. In a fifth experiment, we show that PVT predicts charitable giving more accurately than an account based on competence and warmth. PVT accurately predicts which charity a respondent will choose to donate to and separately, whether a respondent will choose to donate at all. PVT models the cognitive processes underlying charitable donations and it provides a computational framework for integrating known influences on charitable giving. For example, we show that in-group preference influences charitable giving by changing the Psychological Values of the options, rather than by bringing about a response bias toward the in-group.

What Makes a Citizen? Contemporary Immigration and the Boundaries of Citizenry

Abstract How do native-born Americans evaluate citizenship claims made by immigrant groups? Prior research identifies three broad patterns: respondents (1) make judgments based on immigrants’ willingness to adhere to national norms and civic values, (2) rely on ethnoracial cues, and (3) rely on economic cues. Using a conjoint survey experiment, this is the first study to examine how these patterns hold across two distinct dimensions of citizenship—legal membership (being considered a citizen of the state) and cultural membership (being perceived as a fellow American). The results reveal that legal status and age of arrival are powerful determinants for attitudes toward legal membership. By contrast, ethnoracial boundaries have a more significant impact on cultural membership, even after accounting for key predictors, such as legal status and English proficiency. Moreover, we show that evaluations of citizenship claims differ for White and non-White Americans in meaningful ways. Compared to White respondents, Black and Latino respondents express higher levels of ingroup preference for legal membership, and Latinos are significantly more likely to use an inclusive definition of cultural membership. In tandem, these results highlight the importance of measuring citizenship as a multidimensional concept and the limitations of focusing on the dominant group to understand immigration attitudes in contemporary diverse societies.

Strength in diversity: How incongruent racial cues enhance consumer preferences toward conservative brands

A growing number of brands utilize political stances and ideological beliefs to communicate their image to customers. In examining how a brand’s ideological stance might impact consumer preferences, the current research examines how a persuasive appeal can be more effective when it provides cues which are incongruent with a brand’s perceived political ideology. Five studies show that conservative brands can enhance consumer attitudes, purchase intentions, and brand choice by using dark brown (versus pale white or yellow) skin-toned messaging cues such as emojis in their social media messages. These racial cues, which are incongruent with the in-group preferences associated with conservativism, increase a consumer’s willingness to advocate for the brand. Furthermore, this effect is mitigated if the social media message includes excessive cues or if the message is a paid promotion. Practical implications for marketing and social media strategies are provided.

Diversified committees in hiring processes: Lab evidence on group dynamics

In recent years, committee quotas have been introduced to combat the underrepresentation of women in male-stereotyped environments. However, the lack of clarity surrounding in-group preferences and gender differences in group dynamics calls into question the inclusion of women as a solution to the gender gap in labour market outcomes. In this paper, I provide experimental evidence to show: a) how the gender composition of committees affects the probability of female candidates being recruited in a hiring process; and b) how men and women behave in group dynamics as a mechanism explaining the outcome of the policy. I designed a laboratory experiment in which groups of three subjects had to jointly select two candidates from a pool of six to perform a task. Female candidates’ probability of success did not improve as the number of women in the committee increased. I found that male-majority committees were the most beneficial for female candidates. In these groups, men and women exhibited a similar level of voice and influence during deliberations, proposing both male and female candidates for recruitment. Conversely, female-majority groups were the most detrimental to female candidates. Women in female-majority groups exhibited a similar level of voice, but men, who proposed more male candidates, were more influential, which limited the contribution of women. The paper suggests that having more women in the committee does not necessarily benefit female candidates and calls for caution when it comes to designing policies for equality in the labour market.

Women Managers and the Gender Wage Gap: Workgroup Gender Composition Matters

Women's representation in managerial positions is a common metric for gender equity in organizations. Whether women managers improve gender equity among their subordinates is, however, less clear. Drawing on rich longitudinal personnel data from a large Korean food company, we provide new insight into this question by focusing attention on key micro-contexts for interaction and relational politics within organizations: workgroups. Building on social-psychological theories about in-group preference and value threats, we theorize that workgroup gender composition conditions the relationship between supervisor gender and gender earnings differentials. Results from regression models with workgroup fixed effects confirm this insight. Women supervisors are associated with smaller gender earnings gaps in workgroups when they are male-dominated. This relationship is stronger for less-advantaged workers, with supervisor gender and workgroup gender composition mattering more for “sticky floors” than “glass ceilings.”

How Do Children Learn Social Categorization and Intergroup Attitudes When They Grow Up in Divided Contexts?

This paper explores how group preferences develop among children living in the post-conflict context of Kosovo and how this development shapes children’s willingness to be close to their outgroup peers among the segregated majority (ethnic Albanian) and minority (ethnic Serb) members. The study was conducted in four ethnically divided primary schools, with 220 participants aged 6–10. Children played a series of games and tasks which measured ethnic ingroup preference, preference for the Kosovar flag, and willingness to be close to ethnic outgroup children. Children in this context where a new national Kosovar identity is developing following independence display very high ethnic ingroup preferences. Kosovar Serb children showed low willingness to engage with outgroup members and remained constant with age, while Kosovar Albanian children’s willingness to engage with the outgroup was present among younger children but diminished with age. Results add to the literature on the underlying process by which identity develops among segregated majority and minority who have little or no opportunities to interact. Lack of intergroup contact hinders the development of more positive intergroup relations. To build a peaceful coexistence, programs which connect the segregated schools and facilitate intergroup contact, especially among the younger age groups, are recommended.