[Differential attributions of morality and efficiency to the ingroup and the outgroup: An indicator of in-group favoritism.]

Differential attributions of morality and efficiency to the ingroup and the outgroup: An indicator of ingroup favoritism. Morality and efficiency constitute two dimensions of personality characterized by a positive-negative asymmetry. While low morality is more diagnostic than high morality, high efficiency is more diagnostic than low efficiency. Morality is also considered more important than efficiency. Building upon this asymmetry and the phenomenon of ethnocentrism, we hypothesized that people would attribute more positive traits related to morality than to efficiency to their ingroup. The reverse would occur for the outgroup. As regards negative traits, people would attribute more inefficient than inmoral traits to their ingroup, and the opposite would happen for the outgroup. Two studies with canarian participants were carried out. The participants had to answer two tasks. First task was to answer one canarian identity questionaire, and the second task was to distribute 24 traits, related to morality and efficiency, or inmorality and inefficiency, between ingroup and outgroup. In the first study, the outgroup is mainlanders people, but in the second study the outgroup is magrebian people. Results confirm the hypothesis and are discussed in terms of inter-group differentiation.