Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated that Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland explain in-group and out-group violence in very different ways. The interpretations offered for these episodes generally tend to function in ways that support the behavior of in-group members. The current investigation sought to extend this analysis by (a) examining the attributions made for less extreme instances of positive and negative in-group and out-group behavior and (b) relating these explanations to self-evaluation processes. The main results of the study revealed clear group-based differences in the way Protestant and Catholic adolescent schoolchildren explain instances of positive and negative in-group and out-group behavior. Members of the Catholic category displayed more pronounced patterns of attributional bias. Members of the Protestant category were relatively more equitable in their explanations for such behavior. Contrary to expectations, global and group-based self-esteem were only weakly and inconsistently related to group-serving attributions.