Implicit versus explicit strategies of out-group discrimination: The role of intentional control in biased language use and reward allocation

This article addresses the role of intentional control in intergroup favouritism and out-group discrimination. We hypothesise that explicit strategies of discrimination (reward allocation, trait attributions) are under people's intentional control, whereas the linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) represents a strategy that allows relatively little conscious control. An experiment is reported in which basketball fans (N = 88) of two different teams were compared, one known for its uninhibited expression of intergroup hostility, the other known for considering aggressive behaviours unacceptable. Aggressive fans showed greater out-group discrimination than unaggressive fans on reward allocation and trait attribution, but comparable degrees of LIB. This suggests that on explicit tasks such as reward allocation, out-group discrimination can be inhibited relatively easily, whereas intentional control appears considerably more difficult for subtle differences in language abstraction. The LIB may therefore constitute a useful tool for assessing prejudice while minimising the impact of social desirability considerations.