Out group Homogeneity
Overview
The out-group homogeneity effect is the tendency to see the members of groups one does not belong to as more alike than the members of one's own group. "They" are all the same; "we" are a rich assortment of individuals. The effect was documented in the 1980s by social psychologists including Patricia Linville and George Quattrone, and it appears across every kind of grouping: nationality, religion, politics, profession, sports allegiance and university year.
Notes
- It is partly an artefact of exposure. One knows the variety within one's own group because one meets it; the out-group is known mainly through its loudest and most typical members. But it persists even when exposure is matched, so it is a bias and not just ignorance.
- It is the engine of stereotyping and the reason "some of them are all right" feels like a concession rather than a statement of the obvious. It also drives the Hasty Generalisation: the single example from the out-group is taken to speak for all of them in a way no single example from the in-group ever is.
- It cuts in every direction. Atheists who regard all believers as credulous, and believers who regard all atheists as angry, are making the same error, and the online debate circuit is largely a machine for confirming it. Watching Destiny talk at length with people most of his audience would file under one label is partly valuable because it breaks the effect in real time.
- Religious groups are not monolithic, which matters for several of my positions. Islam contains more internal disagreement than its critics or its apologists usually admit; the same goes for Christian views of the Bible. Arguing against "what Muslims believe" or "what Christians believe" is usually arguing against a composite that nobody holds.
- The corrective is the one in Colourblind social policy: see individuals. That is not a denial that groups differ on average; it is a refusal to let the average stand in for the person in front of you.