In-Group Bias Quotes

The capacity for humans to come up with ever-increasingly granular in-group versus out-group demarcations is truly breathtaking.

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

When someone is in our tribe, I think it's particularly easier for us to tell them apart, because we're used to their facial features.

We're a social species, and we want to get along with the people we like and who are like us. That's just good adaptive behaviour. We're more likely to accept something if we hear it from a friend, whereas we're sceptical of people who are not like us - which is what leads to racism, nationalism, sexism and all forms of bigotry.

Human beings may hate a distant enemy in theory, but they generally prefer to kill their neighbors.

The world, as we know it, is coming to an end. The world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which love is reserved for members of the in-group: that is the world that is passing away. Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and complacency are coming to an end.

Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution.

We are taught to be suspicious, especially of anyone who might not look like us or share our beliefs.

The associations inside the group become more important than those outside.

The key thing about us is that we all belong to multiple tribes. Even if we are predisposed into dividing the world into 'us' and 'them,' it's incredibly easy to manipulate us as to who is an 'us' and who is a 'them' at any given moment.

It's a clique and I think a clique exists in every business. There's a circle of people that are guaranteed to open a movie and we all know their names and whether they're right or wrong for the role.

The old boy network is still too strong in Canadian business. A visit to the Toronto clubs at lunch stands in about as great a contrast to the multicultural, multiracial subway underneath as can be humanly imagined. This is not healthy.

Dividing into teams doesn't necessarily mean denigrating others. Studies of groupishness have generally found that groups increase in-group love far more than they increase out-group hostility.

It is natural anywhere that people like their own kind, but it is not necessarily natural that their fondness for their own kind should lead them to the subjection of whole groups of other people not like them.

My high school, like most high schools, had a pretty rigid stratification system. Kids were clustered into groups - the studious ones, the athletes, the popular ones - and we never crossed paths with each other. You stayed in your air-tight group, and you were suspicious of people in other groups.

They that never peeped beyond the common belief in which their easy understandings were at first indoctrinated are strongly assured of the truth of their receptions.

Inside of all of us we have these patterns where we eventually become at least ethnocentric. We care about our group, our mom, our dad, our family, our religion. And some people, eventually, evolve beyond that until they're more human-centric or even spirit-centric where they care about everything.

What everyone knows" is the line between us and them.

Never since the dawn of human history, as far as I can find out, did people long settled in any region give a friendly welcome to newcomers. One of the disagreeable traits of our human nature seems to be to dislike on sight people who come later than the first settlers.

So long as we continued to attach more importance to our own narrow group membership than to the 'global village' we would propagate prejudice and ignorance. There was absolutely no harm in being part of a small group - indeed, with our hunter-gatherer band mentality it gave comfort, provided us with an inner circle of friends who could be utterly trusted, who were absolutely reliable. It helped give us peace of mind. The danger came only from drawing that sharp line, digging that ditch, laying that minefield, between our own group and any other group that thought differently.

We, who think like animals living in small groups, must structure a global world. We believe in universal human rights and believe racism and war are wrong. On the other hand, it is our nature to be cooperative and loving almost exclusively with the members of the group to which we feel we belong.

Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and "patriotism" . . . Extreme bigots are almost always super-patriots.

Everybody wants to protect their own tribe, whether they are right or wrong.

I love being gay. I love gay people. I think we're better than other people. I really do. I think we're smarter and more talented and more aware. I do, I totally do. I really do think all of these things. And I try very hard to remember all this.

It’s so wonderful being a gay person. I said that before. I’m going to say it again. I love being gay. And I love gay people. I think we’re better than other people. I really do. I think we’re smarter and more talented and more aware and I do, I do, I totally do. And I think we’re more tuned in to what’s happening, tuned into the moment, tuned into our emotions, and other people’s emotions, and we’re better friends. I really do think all of these things. And I try not to forget them.