Ingroup Favoritism

Racism and in-group favoritism is prevalent in our society and has been studied in Social Psychology for a long time. Recently it has become possible to investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie these in-group biases, and hence this review will give an overview of recent developments on the topic. Rather than relying on a single brain region or network, it seems that subtle changes in neural activation across the brain, depending on the modalities involved, underlie how we divide the world into ‘us’ versus ‘them’.
These insights have important implications for our understanding of how in-group biases develop and could potentially lead to new insights on how to reduce them.

Group identification can lead to a biased view of the world in favor of “in-group” members. Studying the brain processes that underlie such in-group biases is important for a wider understanding of the potential influence of social factors on basic perceptual processes. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how people perceive the actions of in-group and out-group members, and how their biased view in favor of own team members manifests itself in the brain. We divided participants into two teams and had them judge the relative speeds of hand actions performed by an in-group and an out-group member in a competitive situation. Participants judged hand actions performed by in-group members as being faster than those of out-group members, even when the two actions were performed at physically identical speeds. In an additional fMRI experiment, we showed that, contrary to common belief, such skewed impressions arise from a subtle bias in perception and associated brain activity rather than decision-making processes, and that this bias develops rapidly and involuntarily as a consequence of group affiliation. Our findings suggest that the neural mechanisms that underlie human perception are shaped by social context. Hum Brain Mapp 34:2055–2068, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In two studies, we examine ingroup favoritism within the furry community. Furry fans construct personas (“fursonas”) that are often related to a species of animal (e.g., fox, wolf). In Study 1, furries were found to rate their fursona species more favorably than other species. In Study 2, we examined whether the ingroup projection model may aid in understanding this ingroup species bias. Participants’ ratings of prototypicality of their species within the fandom was associated with greater favoritism of one’s species. A serial mediation model showed that identification with the fursona and perceived benefits of one’s fursona mediated the association between ingroup projection and ingroup species bias.

Individuals define themselves, at times, as who they are (e.g., a psychologist) and, at other times, as who they are not (e.g., not an economist). Drawing on social identity, optimal distinctiveness, and balance theories, four studies examined the nature of negational identity relative to affirmational identity. One study explored the conditions that increase negational identification and found that activating the need for distinctiveness increased the accessibility of negational identities. Three additional studies revealed that negational categorization increased outgroup derogation relative to affirmational categorization and the authors argue that this effect is at least partially due to a focus on contrasting the self from the outgroup under negational categorization. Consistent with this argument, outgroup derogation following negational categorization was mitigated when connections to similar others were highlighted. By distinguishing negational identity from affirmational identity, a more complete picture of collective identity and intergroup behavior can start to emerge.

Although social psychology studies suggest that racism often manifests itself as a lack of empathy, i.e., the ability to share and comprehend others' feelings and intentions, evidence for differential empathic reactivity to the pain of same- or different-race individuals is meager. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, we explored sensorimotor empathic brain responses in black and white individuals who exhibited implicit but not explicit ingroup preference and race-specific autonomic reactivity. We found that observing the pain of ingroup models inhibited the onlookers' corticospinal system as if they were feeling the pain. Both black and white individuals exhibited empathic reactivity also when viewing the pain of stranger, very unfamiliar, violet-hand models. By contrast, no vicarious mapping of the pain of individuals culturally marked as outgroup members on the basis of their skin color was found. Importantly, group-specific lack of empathic reactivity was higher in the onlookers who exhibited stronger implicit racial bias. These results indicate that human beings react empathically to the pain of stranger individuals. However, racial bias and stereotypes may change this reactivity into a group-specific lack of sensorimotor resonance.

The aim of this study was to investigate multiprofessional collaboration as well as collaboration between professionals and challenging students and their parents in which the focus for these collaborations was on handling the challenging students’ academic and social behavior. A grounded theory study of collaboration between a prereferral resource team and teachers, principals, challenging students, and their parents was conducted. Qualitative interview and focus group methods were used. The findings presented a grounded theory of collaborative synchronizing in relation to challenging students around two ideal types, human resource synchronizing and human resource desynchronizing.

This research examined reasons for the frequently obtained finding that members of numerically minority groups exhibit greater intergroup discrimination than members of majority groups and also sought to determine the conditions under which members of both majority and minority groups exhibit intergroup discrimination. Experiment 1 examined the role of group identification and found that discrimination by members of a majority group was equivalent to that of minority group members when identification was experimentally induced. Experiments 2 and 3 examined further the underlying bases for minority and majority discrimination. Consistent with predictions derived from optimal distinctiveness theory (Brewer, 1991), identification with the in-group was found to be a necessary condition underlying intergroup discrimination, but motivations for discrimination varied as a function of satisfaction with in-group size and distinctiveness.

The paper comprises an introduction, four parts, and conclusions. The introduction char- acterizes the fundamental notions discussed in the paper, namely kin selection, nepotism, cronyism and political capitalism.

The first part of the paper concerns kin selection and reciprocal altruism, which are deemed to be the fundamental mechanisms of socialization. This part indicates that nepotism has a biological justification (and in R. Dawkins’ interpretation – a genetic justification). The mechanisms of kin selection and reciprocal altruism raise the question of whether nepotism is not a natural phenomenon in humans. If so, this means that the negative assessment of these phenomena of public life goes against natural human inclinations.

The second part of the paper refers to the origins of the notion of nepotism and to a particu- lar understanding of the public realm in modern democracies. The development of democracy has been related to the transformation of the mechanisms of governance which consisted in concessions made by the authorities to those demanding changes. Political struggle has been minimized as it was directed at competition among citizens. The struggle for the change of power has been replaced by the struggle for access to positions and goods in the public realm. Axiological justification has been provided by social justice as a claim for equal access to goods by virtue of principles of transparency.

The third part of the paper discusses the issue of nepotism and cronyism in public opinion. It refers to the results of public opinion surveys concerning, among other things, favoritism, ways of looking for jobs, unequal opportunities on account of social status, and the social sta- tus of the family. Additionally, selected examples of nepotism and favoritism in political life are presented.

The fourth part deals with the issue of political capitalism both in the interpretation of M. Weber and as a phenomenon of the transition of the Polish socio-political system. Political capitalism can be defined in a nutshell as using state structures or political positions for an un- fair distribution of goods and is expressed by muddy links between the representatives of state with the private business sphere.

The aim of this study, conducted in Sweden, was to investigate the cultural barriers between school personnel (teachers and principals) and nonschool personnel (a resource team), who were external to the school system, regarding consultation about challenging or difficult-to-teach students. Focus groups with teachers, principals, and the resource team as well as interviews with students and parents were conducted. The qualitative analysis resulted in a grounded theory of change resistance in the context of school consultation. Differences in professional assumptions led to conflicting professional main concerns. An intergroup conflict was inevitable in many cases and the professional cultural barriers that remained produced and reinforced professional ethnocentricity. This contributed to a lack of integration between external consultants and school personnel. Lack of integration contributed to the legitimacy loss and the maintenance of professional ethnocentricity. The basic social process of change resistance was centered in the interaction between professional ethnocentricity and lack of integration.

People tend to misclassify ambiguous individuals as members of the out-group rather than the in-group.  This in-group overexclusion effect (IO effect) is thought to occur because people are motivated to maintain their in-group’s positivity by protecting it from potential out-group intrusions.  The present research tested this explanation by asking university students (N = 122) to complete a self-esteem scale and then recall the group memberships of individuals who belonged to minimal groups.  Consistent with predictions, participants misassigned significantly fewer individuals to the in-group than to the out-group when the in-group was positive and the out-group was negative but not when these valences were reversed.  In addition, self-esteem negatively predicted the IO effect.  Alternative explanations of the IO effect are discussed.

Several fields of research are characterized by the coexistence of two di↵erent peer review modes to select quality contributions for scientific venues, namely double blind (DBR) and single blind (SBR) peer review. In the first, the identities of both authors and reviewers are not known to each other, whereas in the latter the authors' identities are visible since the start of the review process. The need to adopt either one of these modes has been object of scholarly debate, which has mostly focused on issues of fairness. Past work reported that SBR is potentially associated with biases related to the gender, nationality, and language of the authors, as well as the prestige and type of their institutions. Nevertheless, evidence is lacking on whether revealing the identities of the authors favors reputed authors and hinder newcomers, a bias with potentially important consequences in terms of knowledge production. Accordingly, we investigate whether and to what extent SBR, compared to a DBR, relates to a higher ration of reputed scholars, at the expense of newcomers. This relation is pivotal for science, as past research provided evidence that newcomers support renovation and advances in a research field by introducing new and heterodox ideas and approaches, whereas inbreeding have serious detrimental e↵ects on innovation and creativity. Our study explores the mentioned issues in the field of computer science, by exploiting a database that encompasses 21,535 research papers authored by 47,201 individuals and published in 71 among the 80 most impactful computer science conferences in 2014 and 2015. We found evidence that—other characteristics

"International conflict coverage as intercultural communication
Intercultural communication occurs when large and important cultural differences create dissimilar interpretations" (Lustig/ Koester 2010: 52)

If this problem focussing definition of intercultural communication seems familiar to the reader, it could be reasoned by the occurrence in the last weeks’ media coverage according to the Maidan protests in Ukraine reaching its peak in the beginning of March with diplomatic threats and bilateral accusations. Hilary Clinton is, perhaps not without a reason, comparing Putin’s strategy of ‘just securing Russians in Ukraine’
with Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia (Robes Meeks 2014 and SZ 2014h), Putin and Yanukovych claim the protesters as fascists putschists (SZ 2014k), German leftists scent a counterrevolution of bourgeois and fascist forces (Arbeitermacht 2014, indymedia 2014, MLPD 2014, SZ 2014b) and German mainstream media celebrate the folk’s victory. These differences in interpretation occurred mostly in the end of January when the before 2 months lasting mainly peaceful protests converted into riots and radical fascist fighters appeared more frequently in media pictures. Here, a weakness of modern protest and conflict communication became aware.
Transnational communication and delivery systems now facilitate the internationalization and even globalization of some protests […] and today’s complex media ecology […] offer unprecedented opportunities for the wider dissemination of political protest and dissent – from the local to the global

(Cottle 2008: 855) While, according to Simon Cottle, news coverage has been getting more direct and international and, therefore, foreign protest movements and revolts are omnipresent in today’s media, intercultural differences are often ignored. Hence we may misjudge these movements mistakenly since we have fundamentally different senses for categories like
in- and out-group or power distance or analyse all happenings in relation to us and our value system driven by an enormous
eurocentrism  ignoring cultural asymmetry and identities. For analysing these problematic reinterpretations of international protest, I use a biased quantitative analysis of German print media online coverage assessing the frame of news transported via linguistic elements and support this with a qualitative analysis of a few chosen exemplifying articles by quoting some parts of them. I will mostly use articles of "Süddeutsche Zeitung" since this is one of the highest quality newspapers in Germany, not too left or too right for providing an exemplifying picture and was endeavoured of being objective. Both analyses, qualitative and quantitative, are embedded into the following chapters which each pick one of the mentioned intercultural communication categories as core.