ABSTRACT
Individuals assess in-group members more positively than out-group members in order to raise their self esteem, to maintain their advantageous position and/or to take advantageous position. During this process, both personal attitudes of individuals to in and out-groups groups and historical background of intergroup relations and cultural codes that this historical process has created or changed are actively used by the individual. In this research, it was asked that individuals who identify themselves as Turks or Kurds were to allocate a sum of money between them in the event of a social upheaval that both group were responsible. Then, participants were asked to write reasons behind resource allocation decisions. Contents of the answers given were examined and five themes -equality and justice versus discrimination, being human, equal need, avoiding the conflict, recategorizing the groups- were created for participants who allocate equal source to both groups, and four themes similarity, in-group affirmation, out-group negation, need- for participants who showed in-group bias. Two raters were asked to place the answers under themes. Consistency between raters was found to between .65 and .92. Usage rates of themes for Turks and Kurds and differences between them were discussed in context of SIT.
Keywords: Equity, in-group bias, in-group favoritism, social identity.