The Destructive Effect of Ingroup Competition on Ingroup Favoritism

Abstract

Ingroup favoritism has been widely verified in the context of intergroup competition; however, how competition among ingroup members affects ingroup favoritism remains unclear. We hypothesized that competition among ingroup members may disrupt individuals’ ingroup-favoring behavior because of conflicts of interest; we tested this hypothesis in two studies. In Study 1, we manipulated competitive intragroup outcome interdependence (present vs. absent) and the manner in which results were presented (public vs. anonymous). We found that regardless of result presentation, when competitive intragroup outcome interdependence was present, ingroup members did not exhibit ingroup favoritism; when such interdependence was absent, they showed ingroup favoritism. In Study 2, we introduced the manipulation of social identification, and reverified the main result that individuals under competitive intragroup outcome interdependence do not exhibit ingroup favoritism. Even the degree of social identification—a vital factor for intergroup behavior—could not moderate the destructive effect of competitive intragroup outcome interdependence on ingroup favoritism. Together, these findings indicate that ingroup favoritism would indeed be damaged by competition among ingroup members.

Disease Threat and the Functional Flexibility of Ingroup Derogation

“…These results directly replicated the results of previous studies in which the Chinese participants were also found to be more inclined to cooperate with outgroup members under the minimal group paradigm (Wu et al, 2015, 2016). Similar results were also reported by researches using other tasks under minimal group paradigm (Zuo et al, 2018; Dang et al, 2019). For example, researchers found that East Asian participants allocated more resources to the outgroup members than to ingroup members when there were intragroup competitions within the minimal groups (Zuo et al, 2018).…”

“…As a wide-accepted paradigm to study intergroup bias in the laboratory, the minimal group paradigm categorizes people into arbitrary social categories or groups, such as whether they have a “red” personality type or a “green” personality type based on bogus personality tests, which provides group-categorization heuristics to one’s actual social group membership (Tajfel et al, 1971; Brewer, 1979; Bernstein et al, 2007; Paladino and Castelli, 2008; Makhanova et al, 2015; Wu et al, 2015, 2016). Studies employing this paradigm have shown strong cognitive, motivational, and behavioral differences in responses to these arbitrarily constructed ingroups and outgroups, 2 which were very similar to the responses elicited by actual social groups (e.g., Tajfel et al, 1971; Brewer, 1979; Bernstein et al, 2007; Paladino and Castelli, 2008; Makhanova et al, 2015; Wu et al, 2015, 2016; Zuo et al, 2018; Dang et al, 2019). Therefore, following the studies of Wu et al (2015) and Wu et al (2016), we also employed the minimal group paradigm to elicit the ingroup derogation phenomenon.…”

“…Although the mainstream psychology has documented the universal tendency of ingroup favoritism, a similar but completely opposite phenomenon of ingroup derogation (or sometimes be referred as outgroup favoritism) has also been reported. That is, some participants were found to show a preference for outgroup members relative to ones’ ingroup members (Jost et al, 2002; Ma-Kellams et al, 2011; Zhao et al, 2012; Liu et al, 2015; March and Graham, 2015; Wu et al, 2015, 2016; Barker and Barclay, 2016; Zuo et al, 2018; Bettache et al, 2019). This counterintuitive bias was initially found in minorities or inferior social groups (Allport, 1958; Jost et al, 2002; Livingston, 2002; Rudman et al, 2002; Ashburn-Nardo et al, 2003; Umphress et al, 2008; March and Graham, 2015; Axt et al, 2018).…”

“…Studies also revealed that participants rated the deviant ingroup members more negatively compared with their outgroup counterparts (i.e., the black sheep effect; see Marques et al, 1988; Reese et al, 2013; Kunstman et al, 2016; Bettache et al, 2019). In addition, studies also showed that, in East Asian cultures, even though the participants were not minorities or deviants, they still seemed to possess a general, status irrelevant, and pervasive negative posture toward ingroup members (Jahoda et al, 1972; Hewstone and Ward, 1985; Lee and Ottati, 1993, 1995; Diener et al, 1995; Heine and Lehman, 1997; Endo et al, 2000; Snibbe et al, 2003; Cuddy et al, 2009; Ma-Kellams et al, 2011; Zhao et al, 2012; Liu et al, 2015; Wu et al, 2015, 2016; Zuo et al, 2018; Xie et al, 2019). For example, researchers found that the Chinese implicitly associated Westerners with more positive traits and more civilized behaviors than their own ethnic group members (Ma-Kellams et al, 2011; Liu et al, 2015), and they were more prone to make outgroup-favoring and ingroup-disfavoring attributions (Hewstone and Ward, 1985).…”

“…Some indirect evidence suggests that this hypothesis could be supported. For example, besides being an area where ingroup derogation attitudes are prevalent (Ma-Kellams et al, 2011; Zhao et al, 2012; Liu et al, 2015; Wu et al, 2015, 2016; Zuo et al, 2018), evidence also indicates that China may have higher pathogen prevalence than other areas (e.g., Europe) by both historical and contemporary measures (Fincher et al, 2008; Chang et al, 2011). Theoretical works also suggest that in face of high pathogen load, ingroup investment is not optimal and thus should be reduced (Thornhill and Fincher, 2014), and they also suggest that individuals may prefer to cooperate with outgroup members instead of ingroup members if the infection risk associated with outgroup members is low (Brown et al, 2016) or when the infection risk associated with ingroup members is high (Hu et al, 2018).…”