Why we need social enforcers with low in-group bias

My last night in Ouagadougou, I enjoyed a lovely Vietnamese dinner, then went to the street to find a taxi to my hotel. It wasn’t late, but it was just starting to rain, and taxis were scarce, so I started walking in the direction of the hotel, knowing I would be more likely to find a taxi that way. 

I was crossing an intersection when a man started yelling “La blanche! La blanche” (White! White!) I decided to ignore him, as this rude by any measure.  The man then ran up behind me, and grabbed me around the neck with both arms.

I had no idea what he was doing, so to be on the safe side, I screamed.  I was able to duck out of his arms and push him away.  He didn’t put up much resistance, so I decided this was just his idea of sport. I hit him across the face, then walked away, and he let me go.

Hitting an assailant wasn’t the smartest thing—I probably should have taken off running—but I’m glad I did.  What was he thinking? He didn’t strike me as being mentally ill in any way.  The only conclusion that I can come to is that since I was clearly a foreigner, and because he thought I was physically weak, he felt like he could get away behavior that would be unacceptable in his own community.

The more disturbing thing is that, even though there were half a dozen people in the immediate vicinity, no one did anything.  No one tried to help, or even asked if I was okay.  This was shocking to me, especially because in Ghana, people would have come running from all around.  I’m not sure why no one helped—if it was because it was beginning to rain and they wanted to go home, or if it was because I was a foreigner, or if that’s just the culture in Ouagadougou.

If you are reading this and thinking, “Poor Liz—what a god-awful country!”, then I have news for you: men do stuff like this to women all the time in the United States, and they get away with it. Ask any young woman living in a city like New York or DC when the last time was that she was catcalled on the street, or grabbed in a bar or club.  Ask her if anyone said anything to the person who did it.  

The fact is, wherever conditions exist that allow people to harass others without consequence, there will be people who take advantage of that.  I think there are two cultural tendencies that contribute to those conditions:

1.       A general tendency not to get involved. This is something that you see a lot more in the west than in places like Ghana, where society values individualism less and communities are tightly-knit, creating more incentive to enforce good behavior.  But everywhere, to some extent, people are often hesitant to get involved, either because of fear, or because of inconvenience. The result is that bad behavior goes unpunished.  This is especially consequential in places where formal law and order is lacking.

2.       In-group bias.  I think that everywhere, people who are “different” are more likely to be targeted and less likely to be helped.  (They are probably more likely to be targeted BECAUSE they are less likely to be helped.)  These people might be vulnerable because they don’t speak the local language, and don’t have local social connections or social standing, but I think there is also a tendency for people who are different to be more objectified—they are seen first as “a white” or “a black”, rather than as another person.  People have less problem with them being objects for others’ amusement, and they are less concerned with their welfare than they would be someone who appears to be from their same community. There are people who would argue that in-group bias is okay or even good, and that it encourages social cohesion.  I argue that the cost of in-group bias is that the most vulnerable people are ignored when they need help. 

So if you don’t like what happened to me, I urge you to do two things. First, make yourself more of a “social enforcer.”  Being a social enforcer can be intimidating.  Natural social enforcers often have a high tolerance for stress.  But generally, a person who enforces good social behavior, for example by chiding someone who cuts in line, are viewed favorably by everyone who observes the interaction.

Second, try to fight your own in-group bias, and make an effort to reach out to those people who seem especially out of place.  If they look out of place, they probably feel that way even more so.  Treat them the way you would want your mother, or your sister, or your daughter treated if she were alone someplace strange.

Interestingly, the two things I am encouraging—social enforcement and reducing in-group bias—are typically associated with opposite sides of the political and social spectrum.  Social enforcement tends to be associated with conventional, authoritarian, and duty-oriented attitudes.  Reduced in-group bias tends to be associated with liberal, individualistic, and intellectually-oriented attitudes.  I don’t think this is an accident: all of these values are good; that’s why there are people that value them.  If we all ascribe to each other’s values a little more—if social enforcers can apply their protections to a wider group of people, and if those who care about people who are different can make themselves into social enforcers—I think we would do better at protecting the most vulnerable from those people who have no values at all.