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The HoneyComb Paradigm for Research on Collective Human Behavior
Published on: January 19, 2019
A gentle reminder that mean does not imply modal behavior: Few are in-group biased in minimal groups
Anders Sand1,2
1Division of Speech and Language Pathology, Department of Clinical Science, Intervention, and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Abstract:
Previous research reports that people organized into newly formed, arbitrary groups (i.e., minimal groups) are on average in-group biased. However, that people on average behave in a certain way does not imply that most people behave that way. Here, I report four studies (n = 224) demonstrating in-group biased average behaviors driven by a minority of about 30% participants. Further, only 14% reported allocating resources in a group-biased manner because they "favored the in-group." I investigate and discuss how methodological issues related to non-normally distributed data, not taking participants' intentions into account, and using fixed response matrices can lead to overestimations of how widespread in-group bias is in minimal groups.
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