Eric Luis Uhlmann, Aleksey Korniychuk, Tomasz Obloj
The present investigation modeled the emergence and persistence of intergroup bias and discrimination in artificial societies. Initial unfair prejudices held by members of a dominant group elicit confirmatory behavior (diminished cooperation) from members of a subordinate group via a self-fulfilling prophecy. Further, when individual learning is tempered by conformity to peers, inaccurate beliefs about the stigmatized subordinate group persist long-term. Even completely replacing dominant group members with enlightened individuals through generational change is inadequate to break the cycle of intergroup distrust and non-collaboration. The longer the enlightenment of a society is delayed, the more intergroup trust is irretrievably lost. © 2018 Uhlmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Organisational Behaviour Area, INSEAD, Singapore, Singapore; Department of Strategic Management and Globalization, Copenhagen Business School, Kilevej 14, DK, Frederiksberg, Denmark; Strategy and Business Policy, HEC Paris, Jouy-en-Josas, France
