In-group favoritism can arise without any contrasting out-group present.

Evidence

As Brewer (1979) originally intuited, recent empirical findings from minimal group experiments suggest that perceptions of in-group entitativity can lead to positive in-group regard (i.e., valuing the in-group), even in the absence of meaningful contrasting out-groups (Gaertner, Iuzzini, Witt, & Oriña, 2006). What is responsible for these surprising effects? The answer may lie, in part, in how perceptions of group entitativity influence perceptions of group agency. As previously mentioned, perceptions of in-group entitativity may also be accompanied by perceptions of group agency and the belief that this agency will be used to one’s advantage. Such a belief may lead one to identify more strongly with highly entitative in-groups. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 267

Categorization

• QUESTION: If favoritism needs no out-group, then how does the entitativity account interact with threat-based out-group accounts of prejudice? Worth chasing.
• XREF: Complicates the reader’s existing thread that out-group contrast drives prejudice — key counterevidence to threat-based accounts of Islamophobia.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 267