Article analysis

There is a need to explore the major cause of discrimination and prejudice depicted by in-group members towards out-group members and how the reason for such identification for human beings.

In-group identification does not depend on negative attitudes towards an out-group and most of in-group bias and inter-group discrimination is driven by preferential treatment of members of the in-group but is not motivated by direct hostility towards members of an out-group (Brewer, 1999).

The article reviewed existing theory and research on what motivates in-group boundaries maintenance and their relation to the protection of in-group boundaries .One of the researches explored the various patterns of many group loyalties and social identities or even their effect on intergroup relations. In the study, the researchers sampled college students’ identity profiles, where the participants were requested to show the 5 group memberships that greatly defined their sense of identity. The independent variable in this case is identity and the dependent variable is intergroup relations (Brewer, 1999).

 The results shows that various social identities across the groups largely exists including gender, religious, political and ethnic identities but these were basically positively related to different social groups. This shows that identification and loyalty to influenced intergroup relations. The results are significant in determining the formation of intergroup boundaries and intergroup relations (Brewer, 1999).

The article relates with various issues existing in society such as religious discrimination in the society.  The discrimination may not necessarily be driven by hostility toward people of different faiths, but the tendency to protect the identity of a specific religious group from others. A major area for future research would involve focus the study from one in-group-out-group relations and focusing on many group identities and relations.

Reference

Brewer, M. B. (1999). The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love and outgroup hate?. Journal of social issues, 55(3), 429-444.