Priming In-Group Favoritism: The Impact of Normative Scripts in the Minimal Group Paradigm

• Published in: Journal of experimental social psychology Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 316 - 324
• Main Authors: Hertel, Guido, Kerr, Norbert L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.07.2001; Elsevier; Academic Press
• Subjects: Bias; Biological and medical sciences; Favoritism; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Group dynamics; Group identity; Group membership; Group theory; Groups; Loyalty; minimal groups; Paradigms; Priming; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Scripts; Self esteem; Social behaviour; Social identity; social identity theory; Social interactions. Communication. Group processes; Social psychology; Sociology; social identity theory; priming; self-esteem; scripts; minimal groups; Human; Social preference; Social group; Priming effect; Resource allocation; Personality; Social belonging; Social cognition; Social interaction; Self esteem; Intergroup relation; Social identity; Interpersonal relation; Cognitive bias
• ISSN: 0022-1031; 1096-0465
• DOI: 10.1006/jesp.2000.1447

Results of experiments employing the minimal group paradigm (MGP) (Tajfel et al., 1971) have provided evidence that mere categorization can—at least on average—lead to in-group favoritism, i.e., allocating more resources to in-group members than to out-group members. This effect is often explained by sociomotivational processes in which persons favor their own group in order to enhance their social self-esteem (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1986). However, in-group favoritism in the MGP can alternatively be explained by assuming that persons simply follow social norms or scripts that are currently accessible and provide behavioral prescriptions for the task at hand. This explanation was tested by experimentally varying the accessibility of behavior scripts with a priming procedure within a MGP. As expected, priming of “loyalty” compared to priming of “equality” led to (a) higher perceptions that loyalty is expected by in-group members, (b) increased in-group favoritism, (c) increased expression of in-group identification. Moreover, while self-esteem ratings were positively correlated with in-group favoritism after priming of loyalty, this relation was reversed after priming of equality.