Formation of In-Groups by Gordon Allport

Today's read was "Formation of In-Groups", chapter 3 of The Nature of Prejudice by Gordon Allport (1953). 

Messy notes:

• What Is An In-group?

  • Difficult to define, but all use the term we with the same essential significance. Some are transitory, some are permanent.

  • Race, sex, gender, ethnicity, nation, state, town, neighborhood, clubs, team, etc.

  • Achieved status (a frat) vs Ascribed status (birth, race)

  • Memberships in groups are a kind of reward for humans

  • Scarcely anyone wants to be someone else. They just envy certain qualities which they may wish to have upon themselves.

• Sex as an In-Group

  • Schopenhauer and Chesterfield were antifeminists that reflect the two basic ingredients of prejudice: denigration and gross oversimplification.

• The Shifting Nature of In-Groups

  • When times change for the worse, in-group boundaries tend to strengthen. The outsider is excluded.

  • In-group memberships are not permanently fixed... how an individual identifies herself depends on her need for self-enhancement

  • In-groups usually created to fit the needs of individuals, often in terms of the hated-out-groups.

• In-groups and Reference Groups

  • People may actively reject their membership with an in-group

  • Reference group: "those groups to which an individual relates himself as a part, or to which he aspires to relate himself psychologically" (Sherif and Sherif)

    • aka a group in which a person wants to be included

  • In-group can be a reference group, but not always

    • Biological in-group vs culturally defined reference group 

  • To an extent, all minority groups suffer from a state of marginality (relating themselves to a reference group) --> insecurity, conflict, irritation

  • Two levels of belongingness

    • (1) Have you achieved membership?

    • (2) Do you prize that membership or do you seek to relate yourself to another group

• Social Distance

  • A member of a ethnic group (minority group) fashions her attitudes as does the dominant majority

    • The dominant majority is for her a reference group --> forces attitudinal conformity

    • This conformity rarely extends to the point of rejecting his own in-group

  • Both in-groups and reference groups are important in the formation of attitudes

• The Group-Norm Theory of Prejudice

  • "All groups (whether in-groups or reference groups) develop a way of living with characteristic codes and beliefs, standards and 'enemies' to suit their own adaptive needs. Both gross and subtle pressures keeps every individual member in line"

  • It's easier to change group attitudes than individual attitudes

    • Involving leaders/policy from top down --> create new norms --> individual attitudes tend to *approximate conformity*

  • Individuals conform in different ways, representative of their personality and development

    • No individual would mirror his group's attitude unless he had an personal need or personal habit 

• Can there be an in-group without an out-group?

  • This paper refutes the concept that "the existence of an outsider is in the beginning an essential condition of any warmth or togetherness of a group."

  • Does one's loyalty to an in-group automatically imply a form of negativism to out-groups

  • Emphasis should be on the desire for security, not hostility.

  • Hostility towards out-groups helps strengthen our sense of belonging, but is not required.

  • What is unknown can sometimes be seen as inferior or less "good", but there is not necessarily hostility against it

  • "The unity of the people is a unity of attitude--of tolerance and love--not a unity of conformity" - Pope Pius XII

• Can humanity constitute an in-group?

  • Symbols, as mental anchorage points, are needed to make a human in-group seem real

  • No intrinsic reason why the outermost circle of mankind needs to be the weakest one...

  • BIG question: Can a loyalty to mankind be be fashioned before interracial warfare breaks out?

  • Concentric loyalties need not clash. To be devoted to a large circle does not imply the destruction of one's attachment to a smaller circle. The loyalties that clash are almost inevitably those of identical scope.

A particularly intriguing two paragraphs:

Future read:

The Moral Equivalent of War by William James.