People judge members of their own circles more harshly than they judge individuals from other groups for the same transgressions, according to new Cornell University research.
People judge members of their own circles more harshly than they judge individuals from other groups for the same transgressions, according to new Cornell University research.
Morality plays a central role in this phenomenon. The researchers found that because morality is a social glue that holds a community together, when someone breaks those moral rules inside the group, it is perceived as more of a threat than when outsiders breaks the same rules in their own groups.
“When we’re part of a group, we feel a strong connection to the people in our group, and so we feel they are more likeable or more trustworthy,” said Simone Tang, assistant professor of management and organizations and a co-author of “Morality’s Role in the Black Sheep Effect: When and Why Ingroup Members Are Judged More Harshly Than Outgroup Members for the Same Transgression,” published in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
“However, at the same time, when someone from our group does something morally wrong, it can threaten our social ties and reflect poorly on the whole group, so we judge them harshly to protect the group as a whole,” Tang said.
