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Ingroups and Outgroups: What Psychology Doesn’t Say

Remarks on David Messick’s paper for the Ruffin Lectures, November 19, 1994

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2020

Extract

I am foregoing the discussant’s critical role in favor of a short examination of how one sociologist’s imagination is tantalized and irritated by some of the ideas and interconnections of Professor Messick’s paper. The question is, when it comes to ingroups and outgroups, why does race matter? Why does sex or gender matter? I will briefly make four points about sociobiology, favoritism toward the ingroup, hostility toward the outgroup, and finally, the conflict theorist’s favorite topic — resource allocation.

Type
Section IV
Copyright
Copyright © Business Ethics Quarterly 1998

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References

Endnotes

1 West, Cornel, Race Matters (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993).Google Scholar

2 Wilson, Edward O., Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

3 For a representative if perhaps distasteful sampling of Arthur R. Jensen's work, see Genetics and Education (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Educational Differences (London: Methuen, 1973); Educability and Group Differences (London: Methuen, Straight Talk About Mental Tests (New York: Free Press, 1981). Also, see Deutsch, Martin, Katz, Irwin, and Jensen, Arthur R. (eds.) Social Class, Race, and Psychological Development (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972)Google Scholar.

4 Hermstein, R. J., Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New York: Free Press, 1993).Google Scholar

5 Nordquist, Joan, Domestic Violence: Spouse Abuse, Marital Rape (Santa Cruz, Ca.: Reference and Research Services, 1986).Google Scholar

6 But, for a perverse giggle, see Colker, Ruth, Pregnant Men: Practice, Theory, and the Law (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

7 Holliday, Laurel, The Violent Sex: Male Psychobiology and the Evolution of Consciousness (Guerneville, CA: Bluestocking Books, 1978).Google Scholar

8 Whether we actually can remain different from genetically altered tomatoes in any material sense may still be unresolved. See Spallone, Patricia, Generation Games: Genetic Engineering and the Future for Our Lives (London: Women's Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

9 Schor, Naomi and Weed, Elizabeth (eds.), The Essential Difference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

10 Ferber, Marianne A. and Nelson, Julie A. (eds.), Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar