intergroup relations

psych 241

intergroup relations

the study oof how groups think, feel, and behave in relation to one another

poor intergroup relations

viewing the outgroup negatively compared to the ingroup (inter-group bias, in favour of your in group)

what was the first stage of Sherif’s summer camp study? “Robber’s cave studies”

Group formation. children were randomly assigned to one of two groups, and each group developed their own name + icon (Eagles and Rattlers)

• spontaneous social comparison and intergroup competition

• started insulting the opposing group (our team is better than yours)

• social identity development, ingroup favouritism and distinction was seen

what was the second stage of sherif’s study?

intergroup competition: the groups competed against each other in games like tug of war, research observed a rise in outgroup derogation (verbally critiquing, insulting, attacking outgroup) and a rise in ethnocentrism (ingroup loyalty paired with outgroup hostility) children made friends exclusively with other ingroup members.

Tension built and one group raided another’s cabin, burnt their flag and stole their icon.

what was stage 3 of Sherif’s study?

Conflict reduction: both groups were riding a bus together when it “Broke down” and everyone had to work together to get the bus running again. observed that cooperative activities significantly reduced intergroup conflict and outgroup derogation.

what is realistic conflict theory?

it proposes that intergroup conflict arises from the perception of scarce resources, such as not enough food, money, or jobs for everyone. In Sherif’s study, intergroup conflict increased once the groups started competing against one another.

what was the general ideas of the minimal group paradigm study?

participants were asked if they preferred Heroic Roses by Paul Klee painting or Yellow-Red-Blue Kadinsky painting? The paintings were not quite arbitrary enough so they did a coin toss. Participants had to assign points to each other and then choose how they were divided up, they knew what group each person was in but could not see them and had to allocate points. there were different allocation strategies, but the participants never personally benefitted from the point allocations

what was the main finding of the minimal group paradigm?

participants tended to allocate more points to in-group members than out-group members (even though groups were meaningless, they never interacted with members, and they had no past relationships) this suggested that mere categorization is enough to create ingroup favouritism. (did not require realistic conflict)

what is the category differentiation model?

imposing a classification system on stimuli leads to accentuation. differences between categories are exxagerated and similarities within categories are also exaggerated

what was the Tajfel and Wilkes line study?

they showed participants a series of lines arranged from shortest to longest and asked them to estimate how much the lines differed in length. Then, they tested estimates for lines 3 and 4, the ones that hover between 2 groups. Since the lines were categorized between two groups, people accentuated the differences and gave higher estimates for them.

how does social identity theory fit into intergroup relations?

we want our groups to be positively distinctive. wanting to belong to a positively distinct group is what motivates bias in favour of ingroup members

what is the subjective group dynamics model?

we punish deviants who threaten the positive distinctiveness of our ingroup, anti-norm deviants threaten cohesion and standing of the ingroup (e.g failing to live up to the group’s standards, deviating from core values)

hutchingson study: psychology student read about competent or bad psychologist, they identified more positively with their ingroup because they more harshly rejected the bad psychologist

self categorization theory

when a group membership is salient, people self categorize and undergo depersonalization → take on characteristics associated with the group prototype

• in an intergroup context, people behave according to meta contrast principle: maximize intergroup differences, minimize intra group differences

• looks at the cognitive mechanisms of seeing yourself as a group member

subjective uncertainty reduction hypothesis (Hogg, 2001)

uncertainty feel saversive, and we are motivated to reduce it, so we look to our ingroups for self relevant information about the world and how to behave in it. this makes groups a source of uncertainty relief and gives the group a positive valence which → ingroup favouritism

optimal distinctiveness theory (Brewer, 1991)

people have competing needs:

• need for assimilation: feeling like you belong in a collective

• need for differentiation: feeling like you are special and distinct.

• People want to identify with groups that allow them to have a balance of both of these needs.

self anchoring theory (Cadinu and Rothbart)

explains ingroup favouritism in minimal group contexts.

• when there is very little pre existing knowledge about the ingroup and outgroup

• might be helpful for explaining ingroup favouritism for new group memberships

Ingroup bias occurs due to social projection.

social projection

tendency to predict other people’s feeling, thoughts and behaviours based on our own feelings, thoughts and behaviours. the self is an informational base in social judgement, and we use social projection more when a target is similar to us (happens more with ingroup members), positive social projection leads to ingroup favouritism

terror management theory

awareness of impending, inevitable deaths

literal immortality vs symbolic immortality

literal: transcending death through belief in an afterlife

symbolic: future group members will remember you when you are gone

main ideas of terror management theory

we are motivated to meet values and standards of our groups allows us to achieve symbolic and or literal immortality. the possibility of our ingroup becoming extinct threatens our ability to achieve immortality. if our group is forgotten, we are forgotten as well. we favour people who strive to uphold our cultural worldview and disfavour practitioners of other worldviews since it raises the possibility that we are wrong.

what is mortality salience?

being reminded of your inevitable, impending death (COFF, GRAV)

evolutionary theories

propose that favouring ingroups over outgroups is evolutionarily adaptive, argues that for humans, outgroups brought resource conflict and diseases. Similar to realistic conflict theory, but focus is on how evolutionary past made us what we are today

why are ingroup favouritism and outgroup derogation seperate?

Ingroup favouritism does not have to mean feeling negatively about the outgroup. Outgroup derogation is actively acting negatively to the outgroup, while ingroup favouritism is feeling positively about your group.

integrated threat theory: four types of trheat

• realistic threat: when the outgroup threatens the ingroups safety, power, and/or access to resources (like realistic conflict theory)

• symbolic threat: when an outgroup threatens the ingroup’s beliefs and values (threat arises from differences in values and standards)

• intergroup anxiety: personal fear or discomfort when interacting with outgroup members (typical way of measure is having participants answer questions about interacting with an outgroup member, then rating emotional response with a semantic differential scale)

• negative stereotypes: overgeneralized beliefs about outgroup members (can harm intergroup relations by making conflict more likely)