Inspiration for this post:

“What's the explanatory value of calling something "systemic"? Unequal group outcomes and discriminatory behaviors are widespread and exist across institutions in all countries, regardless of economic system or professed values. Ingroup favoritism is universal, evident in toddlers across cultures, economic systems, and parenting practices. Of course, these things are a matter of degree and intensity and policy can certainly make a difference, but for that to happen, there needs to be a solid understanding of causal mechanisms and pathways. How does calling something systemic get us closer to that understanding?” - Comment on SFDebate discussion forum

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Ingroup favoritism—the tendency to favor members of one’s own group over those in other groups - has been well-documented in social groups across time and place (Everett, Faber, et al., 2015). However, real-world studies are often descriptive, making it difficult to infer underlying process or generalize from specific groups delineated by nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, etc. to other intergroup contexts (Cikara et al, 2014). The “minimal group paradigm” overcomes the limitations of descriptive studies by using an experimental research design in which participants are given artificial group identities. The traditional minimal group study consists of two phases. In the first phase, participants are randomly divided into two groups (e.g., "Group A" and "Group B"), ostensibly on the basis of trivial criteria (e.g., toss of a coin). In the second phase, they are given a task designed to elicit group-related thoughts or feelings These experiments often find a “minimal group effect”, which refers to “the fact that individuals will express ingroup favoritism even when there is minimal ingroup affiliation, no interaction among group members, anonymity of group members, no conflicts of interest, and no previous hostility between the groups” (Levine & Hogg, 2010).  

I recently finished Yarrow Dunham’s Mere Membership (2018) which reviews dozens of minimal group studies in support of his argument that mere group membership triggers ingroup favoritism. Dunham has done several of these studies himself, including Balanced Identity in the Minimal Groups Paradigm, of which the following is a summary:

Balanced Identity Theory posits that group attitude, group identification, and self-esteem are interrelated. In this study, participants of diverse race/ethnicity (Asian = 40%, Hispanic = 33%, White = 19%, Black = 7%) read a short paragraph indicating that the study involved two groups (the “Copley group” and the “Dawson group”), one of which they belonged to. Following experimental manipulations of group identity, group attitude, and self-esteem, participants reported their liking for each of the two groups (e.g., “I like the Copley group”), their identification with each group (e.g. “I identify with the Dawson group”), and their liking for the self versus others (e.g. “I like myself”). Dunham found that manipulating any one component of the balance model (group attitude, group identification, or self-esteem) affected at least one of the related components, although the broader pattern of cognitive balance was preserved only when the manipulation strengthened as opposed to weakened the manipulated construct. These findings suggest intergroup bias can be intervened with not only directly but also by manipulating group identification and self-esteem. 

Here’s a sampling of minimal group studies Dunham references in his 2018 paper:

Attitudes towards Groups

  • Hetherington, C. and Hendrickson, C. (2014) Reducing an in-group bias in preschool children: the impact of moral behavior.

  • Pinter, B. and Greenwald, A.G. (2010) A comparison of minimal group induction procedures.

  • Otten, S. and Wentura, D. (1999) About the impact of automaticity in the minimal group paradigm: evidence from affective priming tasks.

  • Ashburn-Nardo, L. et al. (2001) Implicit associations as the seeds of intergroup bias: How easily do they take root?

  • Van Bavel, J.J. and Cunningham, W.A. (2008) Self-categorization with a novel mixed race group moderates automatic social and racial biases.  

Friendship preferences

  • Sparks, E. et al. (2017) Affiliation affects generosity in young children: The roles of minimal group membership and shared interests.

  • Plotner, M. et al. (2015) The effects of collaboration and minimal-group membership on children's prosocial behavior, liking, affiliation, and trust. 

Positive behavioral expectations

  • Howard, J.W. and Rothbart, M. (1980) Social Categorization and Memory for In-Group and Out-Group Behavior. 

Positive trait attributions

  • Falk, C.F. et al. (2013) Cultural Variation in the Minimal Group Effect.

  • Patterson, M.M. and Bigler, R.S. (2016) Effects of consistency between self and in-group on children's views of self, groups, and abilities.

Biased internalization of valenced actions [evaluated as positive or negative]

  • Baron, A.S. and Dunham, Y. (2015) Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Building Blocks of Intergroup Cognition.

Positive evaluations of work products or related abilities

  • Patterson, M.M. and Bigler, R.S. (2016) Effects of consistency between self and in-group on children's views of self, groups, and abilities.

Relationships between explicit self-esteem and ingroup bias

  • Gramzow, R.H. and Gaertner, L. (2005) Self-Esteem and Favoritism Toward Novel In-Groups: The Self as an Evaluative Base.

    Falk, C.F. et al. (2013) Cultural Variation in the Minimal Group Effect.

Relationships between implicit self-esteem and ingroup bias

  • Dunham, Y. (2013) Balanced Identity in the Minimal Groups Paradigm.

Happy as compared to angry faces more likely to be seen as ingroup

  • Dunham, Y. (2011) An angry = Outgroup effect.

Greater empathy for pain

  • Montalan, B. et al. (2012) Behavioral Investigation of the Influence of Social Categorization on Empathy for Pain: A Minimal Group Paradigm Study.

Greater emotional empathy

  • Cikara, M. et al. (2014) Their pain gives us pleasure: How intergroup dynamics shape empathic failures and counter-empathic responses.

  • Masten, C.L. et al. (2010) Children’s intergroup empathic processing: The roles of novel ingroup identification, situational distress, and social anxiety.

Favoritism in (hypothetical) allocation of positive and negative objects

  • Buttelmann, D. and Böhm, R. (2014) The Ontogeny of the Motivation That Underlies In-Group Bias.

  • Böhm, R. and Buttelmann, D. (2017) The Impact of Resource Valence on Children's Other-Regarding Preferences.

Ingroup faces more positive

  • Ratner, K.G. et al. (2014) Visualizing minimal ingroup and outgroup faces: implications for impressions, attitudes, and behavior.

More spontaneous positive trait inferences

  • Otten, S. and Moskowitz, G.B. (2000) Evidence for Implicit Evaluative In-Group Bias: Affect-Biased Spontaneous Trait Inference in a Minimal Group Paradigm.

An important limitation of minimal group studies is their use of artificial groups, which may not elicit the same behaviors or intensity of feeling as real groups. For example, members of real social groups are often concerned with their reputations within the group and may engage in ingroup favoritism to enhance their reputation as trustworthy and cooperative group members (Balliet et al, 2014). Such motivation is unlikely to factor much in minimal group studies. This is not to say that minimal group studies are worthless - they definitively contribute to our understanding of ingroup favoritism. Besides, all research designs have limitations.

How we get closer to the truth is to come at it from diverse angles.

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References:

Balliet D, Wu J, De Dreu CK. Ingroup favoritism in cooperation: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 2014 Nov; 140(6):1556-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037737

Cikara M, Bruneau E, Van Bavel JJ, Saxe R. Their pain gives us pleasure: How intergroup dynamics shape empathic failures and counter-empathic responses. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2014;55:110-125. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2014.06.007

Dunham Y (2013) “Balanced Identity in the Minimal Groups Paradigm.” PLoS ONE 8(12): e84205. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084205 

Dunham, Y. (2018). "Mere Membership." Trends in Cognitive Sciences 22(9): 780-793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.004

Everett, J. A. C., N. S. Faber, et al. (2015). "Preferences and beliefs in ingroup favoritism." Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 9(15). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00015

Levine, J. M., & Hogg, M. A. (2010). “Minimal group effect.” In Encyclopedia of group processes & intergroup relations (Vol. 1, pp. 555-557). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781412972017.n169