In-Group Favoritism
We favor people who belong to the same group as us.
In-group favoritism (sometimes called in-group favoritism bias or in-group-out-group bias) is the tendency to give preferential treatment to others perceived to be members of one's own groups. This extends to political parties, sports teams, nationalities, religions, and any group membership — even groups assigned arbitrarily in a laboratory. Henri Tajfel's minimal group paradigm showed that even random group assignment produces significant in-group favoritism.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life Alumni Hiring Hiring managers unconsciously favor candidates from their own university even when another candidate's credentials are objectively superior.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
A professor gives higher grades to students from their alma mater while claiming all grading is completely objective, unconscious of the preferential treatment they provide to in-group members.
When her child and another child are both accused of breaking a rule at school, a mother immediately believes her child's version of the story without asking for more details.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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