Analysing your IQ
Please Wait
AKA: "Tribal Favoritism"
Favoring members of your own group over outsiders, often unconsciously.
Your brain has bugs. In-Group Bias is one of them. Understanding this error pattern helps you catch it before it costs you.
You hire, trust, and forgive people who share your background, school, or beliefs—regardless of competence.
In-Group Bias isn't just an abstract concept—it affects real decisions about money, relationships, career, and health. The cost of ignoring it compounds over time.
This error is driven by Group identity activates loyalty instincts evolved for tribal survival; outsiders trigger caution..
Evolution optimized for speed and safety, not truth. In-Group Bias is a byproduct of heuristics that once had adaptive value.
In investing: In-Group Bias leads to holding losing positions too long or selling winners too early.
In relationships: This bias causes people to interpret ambiguous signals in ways that confirm existing beliefs about partners.
In work: In-Group Bias makes it harder to update strategies when market conditions change.
In health: People ignore symptoms that contradict their self-image as "healthy" or "young."
Experiments on In-Group Bias often use controlled conditions that make the bias obvious to observers—yet participants still fall for it. This demonstrates how powerful the effect is.
Implement blind evaluation processes. Consciously seek diverse perspectives. Judge individuals, not group membership.
Seek disconfirming evidence: Actively look for data that challenges your current belief.
Use decision journals: Write down predictions before outcomes are known, then review accuracy.
Consult diverse perspectives: People with different backgrounds spot different biases.
Implement decision rules: Pre-commit to criteria before emotionally charged situations arise.
Time-box decisions: Revisit important conclusions after a cooling-off period.
Some brains are more susceptible to this than others. Test your Personality to find out.
Favoring members of your own group over outsiders, often unconsciously.
The alternate name "Tribal Favoritism" captures the intuitive essence of the bias. In-Group Bias is the formal psychological term, while "Tribal Favoritism" describes what it feels like in practice.
Implement blind evaluation processes. Consciously seek diverse perspectives. Judge individuals, not group membership.
The underlying mechanism is group identity activates loyalty instincts evolved for tribal survival; outsiders trigger caution.. Human brains evolved heuristics for speed and survival, not accuracy in modern contexts.
Yes. Intelligence doesn't provide immunity—sometimes it makes the bias worse because smart people are better at rationalizing. Awareness and structured decision processes are more protective than raw IQ.
You hire, trust, and forgive people who share your background, school, or beliefs—regardless of competence.