Wiktionary
n. 1 (context systematics English) In cladistics, all the taxa included in a study that do not belong to the ingroup that is of immediate interest. 2 (context sociology English) The group of people who do not belong to one's own social group.
Wikipedia
In cladistics or phylogenetics, an outgroup is a group of organisms that serve as a reference group when determining the evolutionary relationship among three or more monophyletic groups of organisms. The outgroup is used as a point of comparison for the ingroup—the set of organisms under study that specifically allows the phylogeny to be rooted. Because the polarity (direction) of character change can only be determined on a rooted phylogeny , the choice of outgroup is essential for understanding the evolution of traits along a phylogeny.
The chosen outgroup is hypothesized to be closely related to the other groups but less closely related than any single one of the other groups is to each other. The evolutionary conclusion from these relationships is that the outgroup species has a common ancestor with the ingroup that is older than the common ancestor of the ingroup. An outgroup may be a sister group to the ingroup or may be more distantly related.
Outgroup may refer to:
- Outgroup (sociology), a social group
- Outgroup (cladistics), evolutionary-history concept
Usage examples of "outgroup".
The sample matched the outgroup a lot more than it matched the target group—the opposite of what should have [103] happened.
Squid is the outgroup because it doesn't have many features in common with either human or herring.
If your family or friends think you are foolish for tolerating an outgroup or if property value is expected to go down if "their kind" move in, it is not likely that your prejudice will decrease with exposure to this group of people, unless you are strong enough to contradict your own social group.
Quick acceptance and integration of an outgroup is better than a gradual process that creates more prejudice (Aronson, 1984).