C82SAD Intergroup Behaviour

What is Intergroup Behaviour?

• Intergroup behaviour is “any perception, cognition, or behaviour that is influenced by people’s recognition that they and others are members of distinct social groups” (Hogg & Vaughan, 2005, p. 392)

• Examples of intergroup behaviour:• International and intra-national conflicts• Political confrontations• Interethnic relations• Negotiations between unions and management• Competitive team sports

What is Intergroup Behaviour?

• Intergroup behaviour is regulated by individuals’ awareness of and identification with different social groups

• Therefore presence of the group can be real, but it can also be implied – remember Allport (1935)

• As in definition of social psychology – this a common assumption that social behaviour is influenced by the social categories to which we belong – known as a ‘metatheory’

• Intergroup behaviour brings together literature on:• Social influence and social facilitation• Group processes• Prejudice and discrimination

Relative Deprivation and Social Unrest

• Berkowitz (1962) suggests that intergroup prejudice and discriminatory behaviour is a function of:

• Aversive events (e.g., extreme climactic conditions)• Aggressive associations (e.g., situational cues, past

associations)

• Berkowitz used this in his ‘long hot summer’ explanation for collective violence using LA Watt’s (1965) and Detroit (1967) race riots which occurred during excessive ‘heatwave’ conditions

• Perceptions of ‘relative deprivation’ was an important factor

Collective ViolenceRelative deprivation

Frustration

Aversive environmental conditions(e.g., ‘heatwave’) amplifies frustration

Individual acts of aggression exacerbated byaggressive stimuli (e.g., armed police)

Individual acts of aggression

Aggression becomes more widespread andAssumes role of dominant response

Source: Berkowitz (1972)

Aggression spreads rapidly through socialfacilitation process

Collective violence

Collective Violence• Race riots in Watts suburb of Los Angeles

in 1965 occurred after the perceived injustice of the arrest of 3 black family members

• Tensions boiled over and riots broke out• $35m property was damaged, 34 people

were killed, and the military had to be called in to restore order

• High level of unemployment, deprivation, and highly secularised (99% of the population were African-American)

Collective Violence• Race riots in South Central Los Angeles in

1992 were seen as a direct response to the jury acquittal of 4 white policemen for the beating on Rodney King

• Set against a background of rising unemployment and deep disadvantage in black communities

• 50 dead and 2300 injured• Attacks symbolised by beating of white

truck driver Reginald Denny

Relative Deprivation

• Relative deprivation: “A sense of having less than we are entitled to” (Hogg & Vaughan, 2005)

• Deprivation is not absolute but relative to other conditions (c.f., Orwell, 1962 – taking overcrowding for granted)

• Viewed as a precondition for intergroup aggression (Walker & Smith, 2002)

• Relative deprivation introduced in Stouffer et al.’s (1949) and is formed through comparisons between experiences and expectations (Gurr, 1970)

Relative Deprivation

• Formalised by Davies (1969) in the J-Curve hypothesis

• J-Curve: A graphical representation of the way in which relative deprivation rises when attainments suddenly fall short of rising expectations

Relative DeprivationLi

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Timet1 t2

Relativedeprivation

Attainments

Source: Davies (1969)

Relative Deprivation

• While there is some suggestion that relative deprivation is responsible for intergroup aggression and conflict, it has not been supported by systematic research

• There is little evidence that people’s expectations are constructed on the basis of immediate past experience based on survey data (Taylor, 1982)

Types of Relative Deprivation

Runciman (1966) made the distinction between:• Egoistic relative deprivation: A feeling of

personally having less than we feel we are entitled to, relative to our personal aspirations or to other individuals (comparisons with other similar individuals)

• Fraternalistic relative deprivation: Sense that our group has less than it is entitled to, relative to the collective aspirations or other groups (group vs. group comparisons)

• These types of deprivation have been found to be independent in survey studies (Crosby, 1982)

Types of Relative Deprivation• Research has implicated fraternalistic relative deprivation

with social unrest• Vanneman and Pettigrew’s (1972) survey found that whites

with more negative attitude towards blacks were more likely to perceive their group as relatively poorer compared to blacks even though demographically they were better off

• A study on black militancy in the US was associated with perceptions of fraternalistic relative deprivation (Abéles, 1976)

• Militant ‘Francophones’ in Canada felt more dissatisfaction and frustration when making intergroup salary comparisons (a fraternalistic indicator of relative deprivation) compared with those making egoistic comparisons (Guimond & Dubé-Simard, 1983)

• Muslims in India were found to express greatest hostility toward Hindis (who were better off as a group) if they felt that were fraternalistically deprived (Triparthi & Srivasta, 1981)

Factors Affecting Relative Deprivation

• Strong group identification: Strong identification with the group is necessary for fraternalistic deprivation to influence perceptions and collective action (Kelly & Breinlinger, 1996)

• Perceived effectiveness of action: People who believe that taking action e.g. protesting will redress the imbalance shown in their perceived fraternalistic relative deprivation

• Perceptions of injustice: Perceptions that you have less than you are entitled (distributive justice) and victim of unfair procedures (procedural injustice) (Tyler & Lind, 1992)

• Ingroup-outgroup comparisons: Likelihood for action depends on the similarity of the outgroup e.g. ‘paradox of the contented female worker’ (Crosby, 1965)

• Key feature of intergroup behaviour is ‘enthnocentrism’ = “the view of things in which one’s own group is at the centre of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it” (Sumner, 1906, p. 13)

• Sherif (1962) believed that perspectives on enthnocentrism should not be explained in terms of individual or interpersonal processes but intergroup relations

• “We cannot extrapolate from the properties of individuals to the characteristics of group situations” (Sherif, 1962, p. 8)

• Intergroup relations: Relations between two or more groups and their respective members – whenever individuals belonging to one group interact with another group or its members in terms of their group identifications, we have an instance of intergroup behaviour (Sherif, 1962)

Realistic Conflict

• Competition between groups over scarce resources results in conflict and ‘ethnocentrism’

• E.g., Sherif’s (1966) summer camp experiments

• Example of ‘realistic’ intergroup hostility and intergroup-co-operation

• Four phases:1. Spontaneous friendship formation2. Ingroup formation3. Intergroup competition4. Intergroup cooperation (superordinate goals)

Realistic Conflict

Realistic Conflict

Notable points from Sherif’s (1966) summer camp experiments:

• Latent enthnocentrism existed in absence of competition• Ingroups formed despite the fact that friends were

actually outgroup members• Prejudice, discrimination, and ethnocentrism arose as a

consequence of real intergroup conflict• Boys in summer camp did not have authoritarian or

dogmatic personalities• The less frustrated group (winning group) was usually

the one that expressed greater intergroup aggression• Simple contact between members of opposing groups

did not improve intergroup relations

Realistic Conflict Theory

• Sherif (1966) proposed realistic conflict theory• Individuals who share common goals that

require interdependence will tend to cooperate and form a group

• Individuals who have mutually exclusive goals (e.g., scarce resources) will be involved in interindividual competition which prevents group formation and contributes to the collapse of an existing group

• At the intergroup level, mutually exclusive goals between groups results in realistic intergroup conflict and ethnocentrism while shared (superordinate) goals results in cooperation

Social Identity: Minimal Groups

• Formation of groups spontaneously creates intergroup conflict and ethnocentric attitudes very quickly – even without ‘realistic conflict’

• Spontaneous emergent of conflict studied by Tajfel et al. (1971) using the ‘minimal group paradigm’

• Minimal group paradigm: Experimental methodology to investigate the effect of social categorisation alone on group behaviour

• Truly a ‘minimal group’ effect:• Groups formed on a flimsy criterion• No past history or possible future• Members had no knowledge of other members• No self-interest in the money allocation task

Social Identity: Minimal Groups

• Allocation of points in grid game to ingroup and outgroup in minimal group paradigm

• Four possible strategies:• Fairness• Maximum joint profit• Maximum ingroup profit• Maximum difference

Minimal group experiments (Tajfel, 1981)

Group Formation

Matrix 1 Klee

Group

Kandinsky

Group

19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25

Matrix 2 Klee

Group

Kandinsky

Group

23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 13 25 27 29

Matrix 3 Klee

Group

Kandinsky

Group

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25

Matrix 4 Klee

Group

Kandinsky

Group

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Social Identity: Minimal Groups

Therefore: Mere awareness of being in a group can influence

individuals’ perceptions of other group members Individuals become ‘depersonalised’ – group

attributes rather than personal become ‘salient’ in group situations

The group does not have to be well defined Strong effect in hundreds of minimal group

experiments which: Allocated people to groups completely randomly Removed the money-points

Social Identity Approach

• Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) is the leading theory in social psychological analysis of group processes

• Social identity theory: Theory of group membership and intergroup relations based on self-categorisation, social comparison, and the construction of a shared self-definition in terms of ingroup defining properties

• Self-categorisation theory: • Sub-theory of identity theory (Turner et al., 1987) a

significant development in the ‘Social Identity Approach’

• Theory of how the process of categorising oneself as a group member produces social identity and group and intergroup behaviours

Social Identity Approach

• According to social identity theory people have a ‘social identity’ which is the self-concept which is derived from membership of social groups

• This is distinct from ‘personal identity’ – group processes are not confined to personality traits and interpersonal relations (relations between individuals)

• Social identities prescribe appropriate behaviour and specific tactics for group members (e.g., group norms)

• Social identities predict a number of processes including:– Ethnocentrism– Ingroup favouritism– Intergroup differentiation– Stereotyping – Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of

a social group and its members

Self-Categorisation Theory

• Recall: two processes that are responsible – social categorisation and social comparison

• People represent social categories and groups as prototypes = a ‘fuzzy’ representation of the typical/defining features of a category

• Two principles driven by prototypes:• Metacontrast principle: Maximising the ratio of ‘differences to

ingroup positions’ to ‘differences to outgroup positions’• Entitativity: The property of a group that makes it seem like a

coherent, distinct, and unitary entity

• Depersonalisation = The perception and treatment of self and others not as unique individual persons but as prototypical embodiments of a social group

Metacontrast Principle

Me

Other member

Other member

Other member

Intragroup contrastse.g. Depersonalisation

Prototype ofOutgroup members

Intergroup contrastse.g. Dehumanisation

Prototype ofIngroup members

Social comparisonprocesses

Categorisation and Relative Homogeneity

• Social categorisation gives rise to some clear stereotyping effects

• Accentuation effect: Overestimation of similarities among people within a category and dissimilarities between people from different categories

• Relative homogeneity effect: Tendency to see outgroup members the same, and ingroup members as more differentiated (Brigham & Barkowitz, 1978)

• The homogeneity effect is affected by group size as well – when a group is a majority the outgroup is seen as less variable when the group is a minority the ingroup is seen as less variable (Simon & Brown, 1987)

Categorisation and Relative Homogeneity

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Source: Brigham and Barkowitz (1978)

Categorisation and Relative Homogeneity

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Majority Minority

Race of participant

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Variability ofoutgroup

Variability ofingroup

Source: Simon andBrown (1987)

Collective Behaviour and the Crowd

• Collective behaviour = The behaviour of people en masse such as in a crowd, protest, or riot

• People in crowds usually behave in a uniform manner and can be volatile, highly emotional, and in violation of social norms

• People do not usually resort to impulsive, aggressive and selfish behaviour because this contravenes social norms and individuals are clearly identifiable

• In crowds identifiability is significantly reduced and people resort to such behaviours if there is sufficient cause

• Deindividuation is an important mediating factor (e.g., Zimbardo, 1970; Zimbardo et al., 1982)

• However, aggression and antisocial behaviour may be overridden by norms associated with the group (Johnson & Downing, 1979)

Collective Behaviour and the Crowd

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Source: Johnson &Downing (1979)

• Much effort has been made to identify sources of group co-operation rather than conflict

• Realistic conflict theory (Sherif, 1966) suggests that the existence of superordinate goals and cooperation reduces intergroup hostility, also avoidance of mutually exclusive goals

• Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) suggests that hostility will be reduced if intergroup stereotypes become less derogatory and polarised and legitimised non-violent forms of intergroup competition exist

Inter-Group Co-operation

• Much effort has been made to identify sources of group co-operation rather than conflict

• Solutions sought to break down out-group prejudice are...

(1) Promoting interpersonal contact to break-down attitudes derived from social comparison

(2) Creating super-ordinate goals to promote intergroup cooperation on a task with mutual benefit…

….= Minimizing importance of group boundaries and perceptions of group differences

Inter-Group Co-operation

• Contact hypothesis (Allport , 1954): View that bringing members of opposing social groups together will improve intergroup relations and reduce prejudice and discrimination

• Allport suggested that contact should meet certain criteria:• It should be prolonged and cooperative (c.f. Sherif, 1966)• Integration should be institutionally supported• Groups should be of equal social status

• A ‘melting pot’ policy: Intergroup contact policy aiming to be ‘colour blind’ and ignore intergroup differences

• Ignores fact that some groups have been disadvantaged in the past• Ignores reality of ethnic/cultural differences• Minority groups become ‘stripped’ of their identity and may lead to

perceptions of disadvantage

• Multiculturalism: policy drawing attention to and responding to reality of intergroup differences to change negative attitudes and preserve integrity of cultural groups (Hornsey & Hogg, 2000)

• Research has indicated that contact alone is not sufficient and attitudes towards outgroup members tend to change only if contact is positive and if the person is highly typical member of the outgroup (Wilder, 1984)

Interpersonal Contact

Interpersonal Contact

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More favorable

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Source: Wilder (1984)

• Sherif (1966) illustrated the effectiveness of superordinate goals (goals that have an outcome of mutual benefit to groups) to reduce intergroup conflict

• European Union is a good example illustrating the effectiveness of a superordinate identity (Europe) in inter-subgroup relations (nations within Europe) (e.g., Cinnirella, 1997)

• Resistance against a shared threat is a common superordinate goal (Dion, 1979)

• Will not work if groups fail to achieve the goal (e.g., Worchel, et al., 1977)

• Unsuccessful intergroup cooperation to achieve as superordinate goal may worsen intergroup relations if failure can be attributed to the outgroup (e.g., Worchel & Novell, 1980)

Superordinate Goals