People will make out-group distinctions based on very minimal and arbitrary criteria
Our brains make us-them distinctions extremely quickly. Similarly, consider “minimal group” paradigms, pioneered in the 1970s by Henri Tajfel of the University of Bristol. He showed that even if groupings are based on flimsy differences (e.g., whether someone over or underestimated the number of dots in a picture), in-group biases, such as higher levels of cooperation, still soon develop. Such prosociality is about group identification—people preferentially allocate resources to anonymous in-group individuals. Merely grouping people activates parochial biases, no matter how tenuous the basis of the grouping. In general, minimal group paradigms enhance our opinion of Us rather than lessening our opinion of Them.
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2017). Behave Chapter 11. Us Versus Them (p. 441). New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Psychology / Social Psychology / Sociology Status:☀️