I was at the doctor's office for a regular appointment and had to head up to the 7th floor. As the elevator doors opened and I began to exit, a middle-aged gentleman barreled in a clear hurry, like a Muscovite rushing into a bread store in the perestroika 1990s. I literally turned sideways to avoid a collision, feeling a bit like a torero sans cape. Clearly, this guy was worthy of Public Enemy #1 status.

But then a funny thing happened. He took a look at me, made a sudden U-turn, and followed me out of the elevator, all the while wheeling behind him his cart with several boxes on it. He pointed at my chest and asked, "did you go to school there?" Realizing that he was referring to the college name emblazoned on my t-shirt, I answered that, yes, indeed, this was my alma mater. "Me too," he exclaimed. "What year did you graduate?"

And so began a 10-minute conversation that I wasn't particularly thrilled to be having, what with my own dispositional aversion to small talk with strangers combined with the desire to check in on time for my appointment. But my fellow alum proved himself to be a pleasant enough fellow. And it's always enjoyable to reminisce about familiar people and places from your past, especially when you went to a small school that doesn't afford such opportunities that often. So we parted ways and I continued on to my doctor's office in relatively good spirits.

And this is when it hit me–I had mentally pardoned my newfound friend from his otherwise capital offense. Now, I'm not saying I was wrong to do this. Why go around life bearing resentments and grudges against strangers for transgressions that are, objectively speaking, trivial? But were not for the common link established by my t-shirt, I never would have left this interaction in a positive mood, much less a somewhat favorable impression of this guy.

That's the power of "us." Sharing group membership with other people has dramatic effects on how we see and interact with them. Whether it's a common alma mater or favorite sports team, whether it's a more central aspect of identity such as race or religion, we're more generous in our perceptions of fellow members of our own ingroups.

As written about by persuasively by social psychologist Marilynn Brewer, some of the disparities and prejudices that persist in our society likely have just as much to do with ingroup favoritism as they do outgroup derogation or dislike. Distinguishing between these different causes of intergroup disparity is clearly important, especially for efforts to remedy differential outcomes in any domain.

At the same time, from a practical perspective, differential outcomes are differential outcomes. It matters little to the job applicant who is passed over for a position whether the job went to someone else because of ingroup favoritism towards the competition or because of outgroup prejudice directed towards her. It is of little solace to the Black defendant hit with felony charges for a borderline offense that the relative leniency shown towards a comparable White defendant resulted from the desire to "give a good kid a second chance" as opposed to any type of disparity based on racial animus. In this sense, the power of us can be just as dangerous as the dislike of them. Consider just one more potential example:

According to a recently release report, at the end of the current season, out of 119 schools that play Division I college football, only 4 will be coached by African-Americans. That's a rate that's disproportionately low compared to the population at large, of course, but it particularly abysmal given the racial demographics of the sport's players. Is this attributable to racial animus in athletic departments and university administrations across the country? Perhaps. But that seems to me an implausible oversimplification.

After all, one of the four remaining Black coaches is at Mississippi State (Sylvester Croom, right), a school that is hardly in a geographic region historically associated with progressive racial attitudes. Instead, I'd point to a variety of other factors that could feed ingroup preference. Like the priority placed by schools on past head coaching experience in sport with a traditionally White-dominated coaching hierarchy. Or the more general tendency for any search committee to hire the person with whom they feel most comfortable and at ease. It seems hard to argue with such a propensity. If a search committee just "hits it off" with a particular candidate, shouldn't they go with him? But when we're more likely to hit it off with similar others, and when an institution has historical problems with representativeness to begin with, problems arise.

I'd maintain that one of the unsung obstacles faced by many minority and female professionals is that they're simply less likely to benefit from such "usness," in terms of hiring as well as promotion decisions. The White male entering the workplace simply has a greater chance of effortless bonding with his White male colleagues and superiors, whether over past affiliations or shared cultural interests. It's an often overlooked benefit of majority group membership that can be hard to quantify.

Because usness is powerful. It leads us to bond quickly with some people, but not others. It prompts us to be far less stingy with the benefit of the doubt for similar individuals. And it can even get you off the hook when you violate cardinal rules of elevator etiquette, and I must tell you, that's no small feat.

 

POSTSCRIPT: Well, that didn't take long... the post is already dated as over the weekend, Sylvester Croom resigned from Mississippi State. That brings the total number of Black coaches in Division I college football down to 3...