In-group love and/or out-group hate? Explaining the level of intergroup bias among members of an ethnolinguistic minority

Intergroup bias refers to the tendency to evaluate the ingroup and its members more favorably than the outgroup and its members. Many topics in contemporary public debate attract heated discussion, entrenched partisanship, and widespread misinformation making affective polarization prevalent and difficult to overcome. In Finland, as in other Western countries, we have seen an increase in affective polarization lately. Does this also transfer to the relations between language groups? How do Swedish-speakers relate to themselves and to Finnish-speakers? Are there stereotyping and intergroup bias? How do Swedish-speakers feel about likeminded and people with opposite opinions? Using data from the Barometer online panel, we asked the respondents to characterize Swedish- and Finnish-speakers by allocating traits and then rating the traits as positive, neutral or negative. The paper focus on attributions of positive and negative traits, and analyses positive and negative stereotyping of ingroups and outgroups.