In-Group Favoritism

In-group favoritism, sometimes also known as in-group-out-group bias, in-group bias, intergroup bias or in-group preference, is a pattern of favoring members of a person's own in-group over members of an out-group, an effect that can be expressed in how a person evaluates other people, via what is called the ultimate attribution error, in how a person allocates resources, and in many other ways besides. The effect has been researched extensively across psychology and linked to numerous theories of group conflict and prejudice; it is consistently observed across cultures and becomes especially pronounced when mutual dependence between group members is high, and studies suggest in-group favoritism arises as cultural groups form around traits that are initially fairly trivial, but which populations gradually come to associate with certain behaviors over time, increasing the perceived covariation between the trait and the behavior and further incentivizing the bias. Two prominent theoretical approaches to the phenomenon are realistic conflict theory, which proposes that intergroup competition drives the effect, and social identity theory.