I - Ingroup and outgroup thinking

Recognizable questions

- Have you ever noticed that you feel more connected to people from your own group than to outsiders?

- Does ‘us’ automatically feel more familiar or safer than ‘them’?

- Are mistakes within your own group sometimes explained away or forgiven more easily than the same mistakes in another group?

- Have you noticed that positive information about your own group is more convincing than criticism of it?

- Do people outside your own group sometimes seem more alike than they do when you get to know them individually?

- Can you be loyal to a group while still looking at that group critically?

- How does a strong us-versus-them feeling influence your judgment without you consciously noticing it?

What is ingroup and outgroup thinking?

In social psychology, a group with which someone identifies is called an ingroup. People who do not belong to it form an outgroup from that perspective.
This can apply to almost any group division:

family
school
sports club
religion
country
political party
profession
subculture
online community

Once people see themselves as part of a group, a simple distinction can arise:

US
my group
familiar
recognizable

        ↕

THEM
other group
less familiar
different

That is not wrong in itself. Groups give people belonging, identity, support, and meaning.

Why do we often judge our own group more positively?

Research by social psychologist Henri Tajfel showed that even very small and arbitrary group divisions can be enough to trigger a preference for one’s own group.
In his so-called minimal group studies, people were divided into groups on almost meaningless grounds. Even so, participants often treated members of their own group more favorably.
This later led to Social Identity Theory, developed by Tajfel and John Turner.
Part of our self-image can come from the groups we belong to:

MY GROUP
is valuable

        ↓

I BELONG
to that group

        ↓

that can also say something
about how I see myself

When the group is viewed positively, that can therefore indirectly support one’s own self-image as well.

A simple example

Suppose two primary schools are playing football against each other.
Children from school A will probably like their school better.
Children from school B will probably like theirs better.
Both groups may think:
‘We’re more fun.’
‘We play more fairly.’
‘Our supporters are nicer.’
No one needs to have consciously taught them that.
The group division itself can already be enough to strengthen a sense of ‘us’.

The same event, a different explanation

Ingroup thinking can influence how behavior is interpreted.

SOMEONE FROM MY GROUP
makes a mistake

→ they were having a bad day
→ there were circumstances
→ that’s not normally how they are


SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER GROUP
makes the same mistake

→ typical for those people
→ see, I knew it
→ that’s how they are

This does not happen all the time, but it is a well-known human tendency.
That is why two groups can look at exactly the same event and still reach different conclusions.

Outgroup homogeneity: ‘they’re all the same’

Another well-known phenomenon is the outgroup homogeneity effect.
People often see more differences between members of their own group:
‘We’re all very different.’
But with another group, people are quicker to think:
‘They’re all the same.’
This can happen with religious, political, or cultural groups, for example.
The better people get to know individual members of another group, the harder it often becomes to see them as one uniform group.

What happens when groups come into conflict?

Muzafer Sherif studied this in the famous Robbers Cave Experiment.
Boys at a summer camp were divided into two groups. After competition between the groups was introduced, hostility, negative stereotypes, and strong group loyalty quickly emerged.
Friendly contact alone did not always prove enough to reduce that again.
However, when both groups had to work together on goals that neither group could achieve alone, the hostility decreased.

US versus THEM
        ↓
competition
        ↓
more group thinking
        ↓
more negative images


but:

SHARED PROBLEM
        ↓
cooperation needed
        ↓
common goal
        ↓
us-versus-them boundary can weaken

This led to an important insight: the way groups depend on one another can strengthen group thinking or reduce it.

Religious groups

Religion can form a strong social identity.
Statements such as:

“We have the truth.”
“We are God’s people.”
“We receive God’s spirit.”
“We will be saved.”
can create a clear boundary between ingroup and outgroup.
That mechanism is not unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Variants of it can occur among Christians, Muslims, Hindus, political movements, activist groups, nationalist movements, online communities, and even groups of former believers.
The content differs.
The psychological mechanism can be similar.

Jehovah’s Witnesses as an example

Within Jehovah’s Witnesses, the group boundary is relatively clear. For example, there is a distinction between people inside the congregation and people who do not belong to the organization.
That does not mean that every Jehovah’s Witness looks negatively at outsiders or that a strong group identity is automatically unhealthy.
However, a strong distinction between ‘us’ and ‘the world’ can influence which information feels trustworthy by default.
For example:

INFORMATION FROM
OWN GROUP

→ familiar
→ trusted
→ fits the group image
→ more readily believed


CRITICISM FROM OUTSIDE

→ from outsiders
→ potentially threatening
→ fits the group image less well
→ more readily distrusted

That does not have to be a conscious choice.
The same process can also arise after leaving a religion when someone strongly identifies with a group of former members.

‘We have the truth’

A statement like ‘we have the truth’ does more psychologically than merely describe a religious belief.
When a group sees itself as the only group with the correct truth, an extra layer can emerge:

WE
have the truth

        ↓

THEY
do not

        ↓

information from WE
automatically gets
more credibility

        ↓

information from THEY
can automatically
be seen as more suspicious

Whether that religious belief is true or false cannot be determined by psychology.
Psychology can only examine what such a belief can do to group perception and information processing.

Strong group identity is not automatically indoctrination

This distinction is important.
People can be very strongly connected to:

• their family; a faith; a country; a football club; a political movement; a profession.
  That does not automatically mean that they are being manipulated or indoctrinated.
  The more interesting questions are:
  Is someone allowed to criticize their own group?
  Is someone allowed to examine information from outside?
  Can someone change their mind without major social consequences?
  Is an outsider judged by what they say, or mainly by the fact that they are outside the group?
  That is where the difference begins between ordinary group identity and a group culture in which independent thinking can become more difficult.

Former members also have an ingroup

After leaving a strong group, someone may join a new community.
For example:

before:

‘we Jehovah’s Witnesses’
versus
‘the world’


later, possibly:

‘we ex-JWs’
versus
‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’

Here too, the same human tendency can occur.
A negative claim about Jehovah’s Witnesses may, for example, be believed more quickly because it fits experiences or the new group image.
That is why critical thinking should apply on both sides.

NOT:

‘it comes from JW.org
so it is true’

but also not:

‘it comes from an ex-JW
so it is true’


INSTEAD:

what is the source?
what is the evidence?
can I check it?

Can contact between groups help?

Often yes, but not every form of contact works automatically.
Research into the contact hypothesis shows that contact can be especially beneficial when people meet under reasonably equal conditions, cooperate, and share common goals.
That is in line with Sherif’s findings.
A person from ‘the other group’ then becomes less likely to be seen only as a representative of that group and more as an individual human being.

Questions to reflect on

- When someone from my own group says something, do I check it just as carefully as when an outsider says the same thing?

- Do I explain mistakes by my own group differently from mistakes by another group?

- Do I see people outside my group as individuals, or mainly as representatives of “them”?

- Can I recognize positive qualities in a group I fundamentally disagree with?

- Can I examine criticism of my own group without immediately feeling that I am betraying the group?

- Which groups are currently an important part of my identity?

- Is my judgment based on what someone says and does, or does their group membership play an unnoticed role?

Summary

Ingroup and outgroup thinking is a normal human phenomenon.
People often feel more strongly connected to their own group, sometimes judge it more positively, and may more quickly see outsiders as one category.
Tajfel’s research showed that even minimal group differences can trigger a preference for the in-group. Sherif’s research showed that competition can intensify us-versus-them thinking, and that cooperation toward shared goals can reduce those boundaries.

GROUP MEMBERSHIP
        ↓
sense of ‘us’
        ↓
connectedness
        ↓
can lead to
preference for own group
        ↓
and a more biased view
of ‘them’

That applies not only to religion, and not only to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The main protection is therefore not: no more groups at all.
It is learning to recognize when group loyalty unconsciously determines who we believe, who we trust, and how strictly we judge the same facts.

Sources and further reading

Tajfel, H. – Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination, 1970. Classic research showing that even minimal group divisions could lead to preference for one’s own group.
Tajfel, H. & Turner, J.C. – An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict, 1979. The foundation of Social Identity Theory.
Sherif, M. et al. – Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment, 1961. Classic research on group formation, competition, and cooperation.
Allport, G.W. – The Nature of Prejudice, 1954. An important work on prejudice and contact between groups.
Pettigrew, T.F. & Tropp, L.R. – A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory, 2006. A major meta-analysis on the relationship between intergroup contact and prejudice.

Also read

Social identity – How group membership can become part of your self-image.
Group pressure – How others can influence what we say and do.
Group identity – When “who I am” becomes closely intertwined with “who we are.”
Confirmation bias – Why information that fits our beliefs is more convincing more quickly.
Independent thinking – Evaluating information without automatically adopting a group’s conclusion.