‘(N)One of us but all of them!’ Ingroup favouritism on individual and group levels in the context of deviant behaviour

Abstract

Past research hints both at more extreme judgements of ingroup deviants and at attributional biases in the case of Muslims, immigrants and refugees. We examined two recently observed patterns in the context of intergroup violence: harsher judgements on the individual level (black sheep effect) and milder judgements on the cultural level when a perpetrator stems from the ingroup. We further investigated whether these patterns were affected by (a) the outgroup being salient (Experiment 1), (b) the comparison context (Experiments 2–3) and (c) participants perceiving the ingroup as high versus low in entitativity (Experiment 3). Experiments 1 (N = 437), 2 (N = 283) and 3 (N = 703) revealed the presence of robust effects on cultural level with participants treating the ingroup culture more leniently than the outgroup culture. Moreover, on the individual level, Experiments 2 and 3 found an overall black sheep effect that was especially prevalent in an intergroup context. Outgroup salience and ingroup entitativity did not affect participants’ judgements on individual and cultural levels. This protection of the ingroup both on an individual and on a cultural level may hint at a derogation of the outgroup. We discuss implications and insights for future research.