We really need some richer vocabulary for this. Ingroups in the senses of “groups you have positive feelings towards”, “groups you consciously consider yourself part of”, and “groups you subconsciously affiliate with, e.g. those for which, if their values are attacked, you feel offended” all seem to be psychologically distinct (if correlated), but often get conflated with each other, producing a lot of unproductive semantic argument.
If we were to go nuts on this, we’d probably need at least two continuous variables here, one to signify to what degree do you accept and support the group’s values and goals, and one to determine how much are you actually involved with this particular group.
In practice, I tend to think in the following categories (for positive attitudes):
Well, it’s a matter of word usage. I think of “in-group” as a group you identify yourself with, by definition. If someone comes up to you and asks whether you belong to group X, if you’re not willing to answer “Sure!”, that’s not your in-group.
Of course the relationship of an individual to a group is more complicated than a single bit of belong / do-not-belong and one can draw the in-group boundary at different levels of affiliation.
If you don’t identify with your in-group, it’s not your in-group.
We really need some richer vocabulary for this. Ingroups in the senses of “groups you have positive feelings towards”, “groups you consciously consider yourself part of”, and “groups you subconsciously affiliate with, e.g. those for which, if their values are attacked, you feel offended” all seem to be psychologically distinct (if correlated), but often get conflated with each other, producing a lot of unproductive semantic argument.
If we were to go nuts on this, we’d probably need at least two continuous variables here, one to signify to what degree do you accept and support the group’s values and goals, and one to determine how much are you actually involved with this particular group.
In practice, I tend to think in the following categories (for positive attitudes):
member of
affiliated with
sympathetic to
indifferent
I feel affinity to LW, but I do not consider myself a LWer.
Well, it’s a matter of word usage. I think of “in-group” as a group you identify yourself with, by definition. If someone comes up to you and asks whether you belong to group X, if you’re not willing to answer “Sure!”, that’s not your in-group.
Of course the relationship of an individual to a group is more complicated than a single bit of belong / do-not-belong and one can draw the in-group boundary at different levels of affiliation.