Ingroups and outgroups

We divide people into 'us' and 'them':

• the ingroup is one's own group ('we');
• the outgroup is another group ('they').

We see ingroup members as similar to us, and judge them favourably. We tend to see outgroup members as all alike, and often judge them negatively.

How easily does this happen? Henri Tajfel showed it with his minimal group experiments. He divided schoolboys into two groups on a trivial basis: whether they preferred the paintings of Kandinsky or Klee, two modern artists. The boys did not know who else was in their group, and never met.

Then each boy was asked to share money between two other boys, one from his own group and one from the other. The boys consistently gave more to members of their own group, even though the grouping was meaningless and they gained nothing personally.

The lesson: even flimsy, meaningless categories create ingroup favouritism. If such trivial groupings make people biased, imagine the effect of real divisions of religion, caste, language or nation.

But these categories are made by us; they are not fixed facts of nature. We can also choose to see wider, shared identities. India's composite culture, in which many communities have lived, worked and celebrated together for centuries, shows that plurality can be celebrated rather than feared.

Categories breed bias, but we make them, and so we can remake them.