The Psychology of Prejudice: Ingroup Love or Outgroup Hate?

Journal of Social Issues, Fall, 1999 by Marilynn B. Brewer

Social differentiation and clear group boundaries provide one mechanism for achieving the benefits of cooperative interdependence without the risk of excessive costs. Ingroup membership is a form of contingent altruism, By limiting aid to mutually acknowledged ingroup members, total costs and risks of nonreciprocation can be contained. [2] Thus, ingroups can be defined as bounded communities of mutual trust and obligation that delimit mutual interdependence and cooperation. An important aspect of this mutual trust is that it is depersonalized (Brewer, 1981), extended to any member of the ingroup whether personally related or not. Psychologically, expectations of cooperation and security promote positive attraction toward other ingroup members and motivate adherence to ingroup norms of appearance and behavior that assure that one will be recognized as a good or legitimate ingroup member. Symbols and behaviors that differentiate the ingroup from local outgroups become particularly important here, to reduce the risk that ingroup benefits will be inadvertently extended to outgroup members, and to ensure that ingroup members will recognize one's own entitlement to receive benefits. Assimilation within and differentiation between groups is thus mutually reinforcing, along with ethnocentric preference for ingroup interactions and institutions.

If social differentiation and intergroup boundaries are functional for social cooperation, there should be psychological mechanisms at the individual level that motivate and sustain ingroup identification and differentiation. The optimal distinctiveness model of social identity (Brewer, 1991) is based on this evolutionary perspective. The theory holds that group identification is the product of opposing needs for inclusion (assimilation) and differentiation from others. As opposing motives, the two needs hold each other in check. When a person feels isolated or detached from any larger social collective, the drive for inclusion is aroused; on the other hand, immersion in an excessively large or undefined social collective activates the search for differentiation and distinctiveness. Equilibrium is achieved through identification with distinctive social groups that meet both needs simultaneously. Inclusion needs are satisfied by assimilation within the group while differentiation is satisfied by intergroup di stinctions. Clear ingroup boundaries serve to secure both inclusion and exclusion.

One implication of optimal distinctiveness theory is that ingroup loyalty, and its concomitant depersonalized trust and cooperation, is most effectively engaged by relatively small, distinctive groups or social categories. The psychology of assimilation and differentiation limits the extent to which strong social identification can be indefinitely extended to highly inclusive, superordinate social groups or categories. Allport (1954) recognized this limitation but believed that it was possible to build on the notion of "concentric loyalties" (p. 44) where loyalties to more inclusive collectives (e.g., nations, humankind) are compatible with loyalties to subgroups (e.g., family, profession, religion). This brings us back to the issue of whether ingroup preference and loyalty can exist without spawning outgroup fear or hostility. If superordinate groups subsume ingroup and outgroups at the subgroup level, concentric loyalty requires that the needs and interests of ingroup and outgroup are not seen as incompati ble or conflictual.