Intergroup Conflict

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Intergroup Relations
"I am, in plainer words, a bundle of
prejudicesmade up of likings and dislikingsthe
veriest thrall of sympathies, apathies, and
antipathies." - Nineteenth century English
author Charles Lamb
"I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no
color prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I
know it. I can stand any society. -- Mark Twain
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Intergroup Relations
"I am, in plainer words, a bundle of
prejudicesmade up of likings and dislikingsthe
veriest thrall of sympathies, apathies, and
antipathies." - Nineteenth century English
author Charles Lamb
"I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no
color prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I
know it. I can stand any society. -- Mark Twain
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Issues
North vs. South East vs. West U.S. vs.
Iraq Racism Sexism Heterosexism Rich vs.
poor Elitism Ageism Serbs vs. Croats Darfurs
Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa vs.the Baggara ALL
Examples of US vs. Them
Does membership in one group require rejection of
other groups? How does group membership change
members perceptions? How can conflicts be
reduced?
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What Interpersonal Factors Disrupt Relations
Between Groups?

• The Robbers Cave Experiment
• Conducted by Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif and
  colleagues in 1950s
• Two groups of young boys The Rattlers and the
  Eagles

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Scenes from the Robbers Cave
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Scenes from the Robbers Cave
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Scenes from the Robbers Cave
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The Robbers Cave Experiment

• Result Reactions to conflict escalated from
  exclusion to verbal abuse to discrimination to
  violence
• What caused the conflict between these two
  groups?

Interpersonal factors
Cognitive factors
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What Interpersonal Factors Disrupt Relations
Between Groups?

• Competition and conflict
• Realistic conflict theory competition over
  scarce resources
• Discontinuity effect Insko, Schopler, et al.
  find groups are more competitive when playing the
  Prisoners Dilemma Game (PDG)
• Greed
• Identifiability
• Fear

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What Interpersonal Factors Disrupt Relations
Between Groups?

• Norms and conflict
• Norm of reciprocity and conflict spirals
• Cultural norms
• Chagnons studies of the Yanomanö
• Collectivistic and individualistic societies
• Subcultural norms Collectivism, individualism,
  and conflict

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What Interpersonal Factors Disrupt Relations
Between Groups?

• Power and domination
• Economic versus militaristic (coercive)
  exploitation
• Inskos study of laboratory microsocieties
• Negative affect and conflict
• Frustration-aggression and conflict
• Scapegoating and intergroup conflict
• Group hate (Sternberg)

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What are the Cognitive Foundations of Conflict
Between Groups?

• Ingroup-outgroup bias
• Favoring the ingroup over the outgroup
• we are better than them
• ethnocentrism
• Ingroup favoritism tends to be stronger than
  outgroup rejection

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What are the Cognitive Foundations of Conflict
Between Groups?

• Ingroup-outgroup bias (cont.)
• Conflict and categorization increases
• cohesion of ingroup
• differentiation between groups
• doublestandard thinking
• outgroup moral exclusion (Staub)
• group hate

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What are the Cognitive Foundations of Conflict
Between Groups?

• Cognitive consequences of categorization
• Outgroup homogeneity bias
• Law of small numbers
• Group attribution error
• Ultimate attribution error
• Linguistic group bias
• Stereotypes

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What are the Cognitive Foundations of Conflict
Between Groups?

• Social categorization may be sufficient to create
  conflict
• Tajfel and Turners minimal intergroup situation
  finds bias
• Social identity theory and the ingroup-outgroup
  bias/self-esteem link.
• Instinctive bases of intergroup discrimination

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How can Intergroup Relations be Improved?

• Intergroup contact
• Contact hypothesis Contact is more effective
  when
• it creates cooperation between the groups
• participants are equal in status
• interaction is intimate (stimulated friendships
  across groups)
• norms encourage cooperation

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• Intergroup contact (cont.)
• Pettigrew and Tropp's review contact is more
  effective in work and organizational settings
  than in recreational and tourist settings.
• Robbers Cave contact
• Initially contact between the groups failed
• Contact worked when groups worked toward
  superordinate goals

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• Cognitive approaches to conflict reduction
• Decategorization
• Recategorization common ingroup identity model
• Cross-categorization
• Controlling stereotyped thinking
• Conflict management interpersonal skill training
  procedures
• Jigsaw learning groups
• Constructive controversy procedures
• GRIT Graduated and Reciprocal Initiative in
  Tension in Tension Reduction

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Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light
can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only
love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence
multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies
toughness in a descending spiral of
destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate
begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be
broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark
abyss of annihilation. Martin Luther King, Jr.