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# Us and Them: Social Categorization and the Process of Intergroup Bias

## Details

**Authors** Perdue et al

**Year** 1990

**Publisher** Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

**Discipline** Sociology

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.59.3.475) 
10.1037//0022-3514.59.3.475

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

How do the phrases "us" and "them" affect one's perception of their identity/other status?

### What they found (results)

The nonsense syllables paired with an in-group pronoun were rated to be more pleasant than those paired with an out-group pronoun.

## Commentary

### In short

In-group and out-group terms (such as we, they, us, them) can subtly shape responses toward others and other groups.

### In more detail

Perdue et al 1990 explored the elements of Identity-Other Distinctions based on intergroup relations and how the phrases “us” and “them” affected an individual’s identity within groups. They tested 23 undergraduate students, who completed 108 trials on a computer based trial. They were shown sets of seemingly random strings of letters in which each string was paired with either an in-group pronoun or an out-group pronoun. Additionally, one part of the string had a “nonsense syllable (xeh. yof, laj, giw, wuh, or qug)” and the other part was either the in-group (we, us, or ours) or out-group pronoun (they, them, or theirs). In contrast, the control group was given one pronoun of: he, she, his, hers, me, you, mine, or yours. The students were led to believe that they were participating in an experiment to test their verbal skills, and as were asked to, “indicate as quickly as possible which word of the presented pair was a real word.” At the end of the 108 trials, they were shown the six nonsense words and asked to rate them as either “pleasant” or “unpleasant.” Their results showed that, “The perceived relative pleasantness of the target nonsense syllables proved to be significantly determined by the pronouns with which they had been associated...” Using a least significant difference method, the nonsense syllables paired with an in-group pronoun were rated to be more pleasant than those paired with an out-group pronoun. “In general,

in-group-designating pronouns appeared to possess strongly positive evaluative and affective associations as gauged against a set of control nonsense syllables, whereas out-group-designating words were relatively less likely to elicit such positive responses.” Their findings suggest that in-group and out-group terms (such as we, they, us, them) can subtly shape responses toward others and other groups. They further suggest that ingroup bias is a more powerful bias than racial biases. Gaining awareness of the way we assign identity and other distinctions therefore affects one’s behavior; and mitigates this bias.

**Patterns it shows** D

**How to cite this** Perdue et al (1990). Us and Them: Social Categorization and the Process of Intergroup Bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.