Subjective social control and cultural values: A cross-cultural experimental study on black-sheep effect and a field study about the m-11

An experimental study replicates the Black Sheep Effect (BSE) in six nations and regions. Internal analysis shows that participants sharing high Benevolence, low Power values and low beliefs in Social Domination (SDO) judged anti-normative national in-group members more unfavourably, and they judged normative ingroup members behaving in agreement with altruistic norms more favourably, because they showed stronger internal attribution of behaviour. Participants sharing authoritarian conservative beliefs (RWA), collectivist Conformity and Tradition values, report only in-group bias, judging normative national in-group members more positively. A field study on the Madrid March Eleven attack shows that the main tendency was not to bias evaluation in favour of national in-group (Spanish terrorist) compared to out-group deviant (Morocco terrorist). However, participants showing a BSE style of response report high Benevolence, low Power values and low RWA and SDO scores. National identification, perception of in-group heterogeneity (first study) and salience of mortality thoughts (second study) were not associated to BSE. BSE response style is related to egalitarian (low Power and SDO scores), individualist (high Universalism) and cohesive (high Benevolence) values. In-group favouritism is more characteristic of subjects sharing collectivist, conservative and hierarchical.