The Effect of In-Group and Outgroup Labels on the Evaluation of People‘s Behavior: A Survey Experiment Using 12 Morally Ambiguous Situations

This study attempted to determine if the labels associated to a person will have an influence on how his/her behaviours are evaluated by others. A survey experiment was administered to the subjects in several repetitions. Twelve morally ambiguous vignettes are presented to the subjects during each stage. Subjects are asked to rate in a 6- point scale whether the character in the vignette “did the right thing” or not – with 1 indicating that the character is wrong and 6 indicating that the character did the right thing. During each stage of administration, similar vignettes are presented but the sequence of presentation, name of character, and labels associated with the character are changed. The goal is to see whether or not the subjects shall evaluate the character in the vignette differently when the label associated with them is changed. The four labels used are “Filipino” and “Christian” for the in- group labels, and “American” and “Atheist” for the outgroup labels. Evidence from the study shows that characters associated with labels indicating in-group affiliation have been evaluated more positively by the subjects. However, the difference between the scores given by subjects to perceived in-group and outgroup characters are small. Findings reveal that religious labels has a greater effect on evaluation than nationality label. Results of correlational tests suggest that personal self-esteem has no significant influence in the evaluation of members of the in-group and outgroup. Instead, collective self-esteem, especially the private collective self-esteem, has a significant influence in how the subjects evaluated characters with in-group and outgroup labels.

Keywords: Prejudice, Nationality, Religion, In-group Bias, Evaluation, Morality, Identity