Group-based biases influence learning about individual trustworthiness

Abstract

People often have generalised expectations of trustworthiness about ingroup and outgroup members, based on previous direct and indirect experience with these groups. How do these prior biases interact with new experiences when learning about individual group members' trustworthiness? These three studies are the first to examine the effect of group-level biases on learning about individuals' trustworthiness. Participants from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom played iterated Trust Games with trustworthy and untrustworthy members of both ingroups and outgroups. We show that the influence of group membership on trust decisions depended on the valence of the interactions with individual group members. When interacting with trustworthy partners, people displayed outgroup favouritism throughout the game, investing higher in outgroup members than ingroup members. However, for untrustworthy partners, initial outgroup favouritism disappeared, and ingroup and outgroup members were equally distrusted by the end of the game. Our work suggests that when individual experience is integrated with group-based biases, group membership influences trust decisions over time, but mostly when experiences are positive. These findings are discussed in relation to complexity-extremity theory and previous work on learning in the Trust Game.

Reducing Ingroup Bias in Ethical Consumption: The Role of Construal Levels and Social Goodwill

“…People tend to adhere to ingroup biases to maintain positive social identities . Ingroup bias has been extensively documented (Vermue, Seger, & Sanfey, 2018), but recent research indicates that contextual cues can alter ingroup self-categorization (Fasoli, Cadinu, Carnaghi, Galdi, Guizzo, & Tassara, 2018) and determine whether individuals think, feel, and act in alignment with ingroups (us) or outgroups (them) (Turner, Brown, & Tajfel, 1979;Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). Context dynamically indicates ingroup/outgroup identity cues and can thus activate understandings and actions in terms of norms, values, and behaviors relevant to particular identities (Aaker & Akutsu, 2009;Kirmani, 2009;Oyserman, 2009Oyserman, , 2013Shavitt, Torelli, & Wong, 2009).…”

Member-to-member generalisation in trust behaviour: How do prior experiences inform prosocial behaviour towards novel ingroup and outgroup members?

“…The sample size was based on power calculations using the coefficient and standard error of previous studies using the same paradigm but a withinsubject design of group, using the same MatLab script asVermue et al (2018). In these previous studies, the effect size of the interaction of interest and a sample size of N = 48 resulted in an obtained power of 0.76.…”

Birds of a feather flock (even more) together: An intergroup relations perspective on how #MeToo‐related media coverage affects the evaluation of prospective corporate directors

“…One important manifestation of ingroup favoritism is the tendency to trust fellow ingroup members more than outgroup members (Balliet, Wu, & De Dreu, 2014; Dovidio & Gaertner, 2010; Fiske, 1998; Insko et al, 1998; Vermue, Seger, & Sanfey, 2018). The intergroup relations literature provides abundant evidence of presumptive, exaggerated trust toward those categorized as ingroup members (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2010; Hewstone et al, 2002; Kramer, 1999).…”