An experiment, conducted with 112 Dutch teenagers formed into pairs of groups, investigated the minimal conditions that produce a more favorable evaluation of the ingroup than the outgroup. Members of each pair of groups, all of whom were strangers, rated first impressions of each other and of the two groups under one of a graded series of experimental treatments. Simply classifying subjects into two distinct groups yielded no difference between the evaluations of ingroups and outgroups. However, flipping a coin to decide which of the two groups would receive a gift produced a significant bias in favor of the ingroup and its members. A proposed interpretation is that the chance win-loss created intergroup bias by leading subjects to anticipate better outcomes from interpersonal encounters with ingroup members than outgroup members.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.