Depth 1 · 46 s

Blue or Yellow

Name: Blue or Yellow
Uploaded: 2026-11-04T18:00:49.177286Z
Duration: 46 s
Description: Teams drawn from a hat, and still we pick the choice that gives our own team less, just so it ends up ahead. In-group bias, and the question that catches it.

Teams drawn from a hat, and still we pick the choice that gives our own team less, just so it ends up ahead. In-group bias, and the question that catches it.

About this video

For a school sports day, names are drawn from a hat to make two teams, Blue and Yellow. You are Blue. You must give points to two students you have never met, one from each team. Card A gives the Blue student 12 points and the Yellow student 14. Card B gives Blue 9 and Yellow 5. Many people feel a pull towards B, because Blue wins. But B gives your own teammate less: 9 instead of 12, just so Blue ends up ahead. And the teams were made from a hat a few minutes ago.

In 1970 and 1971 the psychologist Henri Tajfel and his colleagues ran studies like this with schoolboys in the United Kingdom. The boys said whether they preferred paintings by Paul Klee or by Wassily Kandinsky, and were told they were in the Klee group or the Kandinsky group. In fact the groups were made at random. Each boy then shared out small sums of money between other boys he never met, known only by a code number and a group, and got nothing himself. Still, the boys gave more to their own group, and often chose the split that made the gap between the groups bigger, even when another choice gave more to everyone, their own group included.

Favouring your own group, even for no real reason, is called in-group bias. There is a second part: we see our own group as a crowd of different people, and the other group as all alike. Feeling close to our group is what makes teams and friendships warm. The bias misfires when "which group are they in?" decides things it has no right to decide, like who gets the job or the benefit of the doubt.

The habit that helps is a question: would I think the same if they were in my group? This video shows the idea on Knaph.

This video shows depth 1 of In-group bias.

Learn In-group bias

Transcript

0:00Names drawn from a hat make two teams. You are Blue.
0:05Card A or card B? B feels like a win. Blue beats Yellow.
0:11But B gives your own teammate nine, not twelve. Just to come out ahead.
0:17Tajfel's boys were split by a coin toss into Klee and Kandinsky groups.
0:23They still gave more to their own, and often chose a bigger gap.
0:29Our own group looks varied. The other group looks all the same.
0:35Ask, would I think the same if they were in my group?
0:41Notice when the group, not the person, is judging.