United We Stand

Abstract

This chapter examines the strategic advantages of the in-group/out-group bias. It discusses people that have a powerful tendency to favor their own in-group and its members, while disparaging out-groups and their members. It also clarifies the strength and prevalence of the in-group/out-group bias that forms a bedrock foundation in social psychology and is critical to social identity and intergroup relations. The chapter investigates how group prejudices can have appalling human consequences in the bias's contribution to the oppression of minority groups, ethnic conflict, and genocide. It highlights the implication of the role of the in-group/out-group bias in fanning the flames of the Balkan wars, the Rwandan genocide, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict.