Yes, as concerns their own group. Since the instinctual bias towards
xenophobia, or the us/them mentality is probably what strong impulses
to fairness and "reciprocal altruism" are bound by, that being we are
strongly biased towards fairness to our own perceived group/tribe and
see other outsiders as subhuman retards. Just look at sports for
examples. But to appear to gloat about these biases in humans seem
perverse. eee ooo, the monkee speath from you.
Xenophobia denotes a phobic attitude toward strangers or of the
unknown and comes from the Greek words (xenos), meaning "foreigner,"
"stranger," and (phobos), meaning "fear." The term is typically used
to describe fear or dislike of foreigners or in general of people
different from one's self.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia
On Human Nature - Edward O. Wilson 1978
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067463442X/qid=1036537594/
...I will go further to speculate that the deep structure of
altruistic behavior, based on learning rules and emotional safeguards,
is rigid and universal. It generates a set of predictable group
responses of the kind that have been catalogued in more technical
works such as those prepared by Bernard Berelson, Robert A. LeVine,
Nathan Glazer, and other social scientists.
One such generalization is the following: the poorer the ingroup, the
more it uses group narcissism as a form of compensation.
Another: the larger the group, the weaker the narcissistic
gratification that individuals obtain by identifying with it, the less
cohesive the group bonds, and the more likely individuals are to
identify with smaller groups inside the group.
And still another: if subgroups of some kind already exist, a region
that appears homogeneous while still part of a larger country is not
likely to remain so if it becomes independent. Most inhabitants of
such regions respond to narrowing of political boundaries by narrowing
the focus of their group identification.
In summary, soft-core altruism is characterized by strong emotion and
protean allegiance. Human beings are consistent in their codes of
honor but endlessly fickle with reference to whom the codes apply. The
genius of human sociality is in fact the ease with which alliances are
formed, broken, and reconstituted, always with strong emotional
appeals to rules believed to be absolute. The important distinction is
today, as it appears to have been since the Ice Age, between the
(ingroup) and the (outgroup), but the precise location of the dividing
line is shifted back and forth with ease. Professional sports thrive
on the durability of this basic phenomenon. For an hour or so the
spectator can resolve his world into an elemental physical struggle
between tribal surrogates. The athletes come from everywhere and are
sold and traded on an almost yearly basis. The teams themselves are
sold from city to city. But it does not matter; the fan identifies
with an aggressive ingroup, admires teamwork, bravery, and sacrifice,
and shares the exultation of victory.
Nations play by the same rules...
...The philosophical question of interest that it generates is the
following: Can the cultural evolution of higher ethical values gain a
direction and momentum of its own and completely replace genetic
evolution? I think not. The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash
is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance
with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of
evolution. Human behavior — like the deepest capacities for emotional
response which drive and guide it — is the circuitous technique by
which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact.
Morality has no other demonstrable ultimate function.
On Human Nature - Edward O. Wilson 1978
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067463442X/
------------------------------------
(1) A group of bozos on a city street agree to join an social
experiment.
(2) Subjects (bozos) are divided into groups on basis of trivial
criteria like flipping a coin to deterimine if one is in Group X or
Group Y.
(3) Subjects do not interact, either within or between groups.
(4) Members of own group and other group remain anonymous.
(5) Subjects are then asked to allot money to two other subjects,
designated only by code number and group membership (X or Y). Subjects
own outcomes will not be affected by their allocation decisions.
(6) Despite minimal nature of these groups, subjects allocations
consistently favored other members of their own arbitrarily designated
groups, at the expense of members of the recently typed "outgroups".
[Tajfel] argues that the reason for this allocation strategy is to
create a differentiation between the groups which permits their group
membership to enhance their social identity.
Unreflected Ingroup Favoritism - and the bozo effect.
One who reflects does not discriminate?: On the role of unreflected
cognitive processes for the occurrence of ingroup favoritism between
artificial groups; A categorization of individuals in two groups based
on completely trivial criteria like flipping a coin to determine which
group one is assigned (Group X or Group Y), can be sufficient to cause
mutual preferences for one's own group.
Social identity theory assumes a fundamental striving towards a
positive distinction of one's own group from other groups. The
tendency to a preference for one's own group is clearly reduced in a
situation involving intergroup judgments on negative comparison
dimensions or distribution decisions on negative stimuli (burdens,
aversive stimuli), in comparison to those in the positive realm.
These basic judgment processes may be the fundamental determining
factors of and conditions for social discrimination. Of some influence
may be the role which evaluations of oneself play for the positive
evaluation of minimal social groups. It is assumed that an unreflected
cognitive process is critical for this, in the course of which, as a
rule, the positive self-image is transferred to the new ingroup. Due
to the lesser degree of similarity to oneself, an outgroup cannot
benefit from such a generalization process.
Correspondingly, a positive distinctiveness of one's own group can
result solely from the self-ingroup relation, independent of an
ingroup-outgroup comparison. There is a generalized positive attitude
to the ingroup, and demonstrating the role of a low degree of
reflection for the occurrence of favoritism in minimal intergroup
situations and considerations of outgroups.
The randomly assigned individuals generally act as if those who share
their meaningless label are their good friends or close kin. Subjects
indicate that they like those who share their label. They rate others
who share their label as likely to have a more pleasant personality
and to have produced better output than outgroup members. Most
strikingly, subjects allocate more money and rewards to those who
share their labels.
In other related social experiments at political rallies it has been
noted that researchers faking injuries, were helped more or less
depending on whether their protest sign, and slogans supported or went
against those around them who could help.
Adapted From;
The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/
