what happens when Jane is in our ingroup
I forgot to explore one last possibility in my last post there.
What if Jane is not an other? What if she belongs to your ingroup? It’s not that you simply ask yourself whether you’re interested in associating with her and that’s the end of that.
So to explore this hypothetical question using the example from the previous installment, suppose we are still white. But now Jane is also white.
Believe it or not, it gets interesting. If ingroup identification is weak (only if ingroup identification is weak), we will evaluate her objectively. If ingroup identification is strong, we will be inclined to see this person favorably against all odds. We will flatter her and give her undue credit for any manner of different things. We will tell her that she wears short hair well. This may or may not be true, but Lana (who is either black or Asian) invariably wears it better and we invariably don’t care.
Wherever there is strong ingroup identification, people see group membership as an extension of their own personal identities. Understood in these terms, it becomes clear that ingroup favoritism is little more than a way to boost the self esteem of the individual. (A circle-jerk!) This is why we are inclined to give undue credit to members of our ingroup, and to an equivalent extent deny due credit to members of any outgroup.
Anything to see ourselves favorably.
Sometimes it gets out of hand. Group homogeny amplifies ingroup favoritism to nearly farcical proportions. This is why white people who only associate with other white people think Jenny Lewis is attractive. (Who the hell are we kidding here?) While most of us can agree that Raquel Welch is gorgeous or that Rihanna is gorgeous, only white people think Jenny Lewis is gorgeous.
Not exactly surprising. When anyone thinks Jenny Lewis is gorgeous, you know there must be something else going on.
It’s the same reason certain people think Zooey Deschanel is attractive. Just like Jenny Lewis, she is an awkward-looking girl with a flattering haircut. But if your community is north brooklyn, you will be inclined to overlook this and give her the benefit of the doubt: “she’s cute.” Conversely, if someone who is legitimately attractive belongs to an outgroup, we’d likely tell ourselves “oh, it’s just the haircut.” Depending on who you are, you might also subsequently pick at their flaws, whether real or imagined.
One crucial thing to remember about ingroup/outgroup thinking, after all, is that it isn’t just about self-esteem. It also has some serious overtones of divisive competition.
