Question

How could you use in-group favoritism to explain how people would behave if they believe the out-group is a threat?

Answer 1

The concept of in-group and out-group is one of the main reasons behind prejudice and discrimination practices throughout the world. The concept of in-group favouritism has basically been derived from the works of Tajfel, who have vividly studied the effect of in-group versus out-group concept in the context of prejudice.

Coming to the topic of concern, when people believe that the out-group is a threat they start to perceive themselves as more involved in the in-group or get more attached to the in-group. They start attributing every positive factors involved in any event or in context of any situation to the in-group and attributes every negative factor to the out-group. They start evaluating the members as better than every members of the out-group and make the members feel special. Through this, these people gains acceptance in their in-group and also gets a feeling of belongingness or fulfills their need to belong to a greater group or collective entity (Brown, 1998). These people may get easily persuaded by the teachings or beliefs of the in-group and may start discriminating and plotting against the out-group. They never question why the out-group has been believed as a threat but just goes on the track of in-group in order maintain their belongingness with the in-group.