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If members of an in‐group discriminate against an out‐group in order to distinguish themselves on some social dimension valued by both groups then it may be hypothesized that their in‐group bias will be affected by the initial position on that dimension of the in‐group and out‐group. This hypothesis was investigated by giving an initial arbitrary favour to either the in‐group or to the out‐group. Intergroup comparisons were measured in terms of money or points allocations by in‐group members to other in‐group members and to out‐group members. Results indicate that those groups initially most lacking in positive distinctiveness show the greatest amounts of in‐group bias but, contrary to predictions from equity theory, in‐group bias is shown in all conditions.
Commins et al. (Sat,) studied this question.