Social Identity Is a Source of
Group Conflict

People seem
predisposed to find
and act on
differences between
groups
1
Universal History of Ethnic Atrocities

Examples
–
–
–
–
–
–
Jivaro tribes of the Amazon
Taliban vs. Buddhists in Afghanistan
Nazi attempts to exterminate Jews,
Gypsies, Communists, Homosexuals
Palestinian/Israeli conflict
Sunni-Shite-Kurd hatreds
US vs. Iraqis
2
Sherif Robbers Cave Experiments
1948, 1953 & 1954




Three 3-week long experiments
Bring together normal 11-12 year olds in camp
Structured exercise to examine development and destruction of group
identity and rivalry
Overview:
–
In-group formation

Spontaneous interpersonal choices
 Arbitrary division into two matched groups
–
Intergroup conflict & hostility

Win-lose competition
 Planned frustration
–
Conflict resolution

Between group joint activity no change in hostility
 Between group interdependence with common goal  reduced hostility
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/
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Group formation

When kids arrive together, allow them to form
friendship
 Split friends into two bunks
–
Give bunks joint experiences
–

Pitching tents, cooking food, building bridge,
organizing sports, portaging canoe, skits
Leads to:
–
Common identity
– Concentration of friends within bunks
– Differentiated social structure

–
Status & communication patterns
Differentiated norms of behavior
Percentage of boys with a
best friend in their own
bunk

In Expt. 3, kids arrived & are kept separate
Group A
Group B
Before
After
100
80
60
40
20
0
6
Intergroup Competition


Set up win/loose competition
Guarantees one group is
frustrated at the expense of
the other
–

One group gets the “good”
food
Leads to substantial
intergroup rivalry & hostility
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In-group/out-group stereotyping
Kids evaluate own
group & other groups
on adjectives
brave, tough, friendly,
sneaky, stinkers, and
smart alecks

Own group judged
far more positively
Stereotypes of Outgroup & Ingroup
5.0
Favorability of rating

4.5
4.0
3.5
Rattlers
Eagles
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
Outgroup
Ingroup
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Strong inter-group hostility is also
behavioral
9
Reducing the conflict


Mere, pleasant contact
doesn’t help
Groups participate side-byside, with little intermingling or
resolution of conflict
(E.g. firecracker excursion)
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Contact Hypothesis
Six conditions for contact to
reduce prejudice:

Mere exposure to a
minority for extended
periods (e.g.,
desegregation) reduces
prejudice





Mutual interdependence
Common goal
Equal status
Friendly, informal
environment with 1-on-1
contact
Perception of other as
typical of group, not an
“exception”
Social norms that promote
and support equality among
groups
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Reducing the conflict(II)


Interdependent activity towards a
common goal reduces conflict
A single episode wasn’t enough
–
Repairing water supply
– Freeing supply truck
– Raising money to pay for movie

Series leads to development of
new procedures for cooperation,
which generalized
–
E.g. Turn-taking from cafeteria to
campfire
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Freeing the truck
14


Cooperation reduces
between group hostility
But in-group favoritism
isn’t eliminated
Percentage of boys who had a
best friend in the out-group
Cooperation helps
40
35
Eagles
30
Rattlers
25
20
15
10
5
0
Before cooperative After cooperative
activites introduced activites introduced
•Out-group
friendships
before & after cooperation
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Sherif’s Summary of his Research



The Robber’s Cave experiments showed
that competition for scarce resources
produced in-group bias
An over-arching goal can reduce the
problem
But this description isn’t quite accurate
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What Leads to These Effects?

Realistic conflict for resources (Sherif)
 Cognition:
–

Motivation:
–

Side effect of the cognitive processes of categorization
Self-enhancing biases
Evolution:
–
To get benefits from sociality, human developed an inherited
propensity to exclude others
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Mere Classification Predicts
Group Discrimination

Tajfel and Turner’s extension: The Minimal Groups
Paradigm
–
–
–
What are the minimal conditions necessary to set these
processes in motion.
To study this process, Tajfel and Turner sought to create a
control group, which they termed a “minimal” group.
This minimal group was simply to have a name, nothing
else. Tajfel and Turner expected this to have no effect.
They were then going to add other aspects of group identity.
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Classification
–
–
Subjects: Young boys from local private schools,
all previously acquainted
Each boy was privately (randomly) informed that
he was


–
–
Evaluative: Accurate or an inaccurate rater in dot
judgment.
Non-judgmental: An under estimator or an over estimator
in dot judgment.
Based on this assignment, the boys were divided
into these two groups for a second task.
As part of this task, the boys were to allocate
points, which could be turned into money.
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Estimate the number of dots
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Payoffs
Possible strategies the subjects could use for
distributing the money:
Maximize In-group Profit
Minimize Out-group Profit
Maximize Joint Profit
Maximize differences
Subjects received no money regardless of the
distribution strategy.
21
Strong in-group preference
–
–
Subjects in minimal groups showed strong bias for their “in-group.”
Even though more money could be made by following other
strategies (e.g., maximize joint profit), subjects chose to “maximize
the differences” between their own group and the out-group.
Rewards to In- vs. Out-Group
0
1
2
3
Reward
4 5 6
7
8
9 10
Under
estimators
Over estimators
In-group
Good estimators
Out-group
Bad estimators
22
Easy to induce these in-group/out-group
differences through mere classification

Jane Elliott:
–
Context: Murder of Martin Luther King (1968)
– Iowa grade school teacher conducts exercise
categorizing kids by eye-color, to teach them
about effects of racial prejudice
– Promote a stereotype of superiority/inferiority
– 450 kids experience the experiment from
1968-1984


Jane Elliot video (YouTube)
Frontline: A Class Divided (Start 1:40)
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Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory
–
–
We like in-groups because we are motivated to
achieve and maintain a positive self-image.
This self-image has two components.


–
Personal Identity
Social identities, which derive from our associations with
groups.
Thus, when our group succeeds, we succeed,
which bolsters our self-image.
27
Evolutionary Thesis


Humans are a genetically social species
For sociality to evolve, human needs an inherited disposition primed to
exclude others
–
To protect benefits of group coalitions, humans need adaptation to

Distinguish the in-group from out-group
 Exclude cheaters
 Exclude those without resources
–
To protect dyadic cooperation, humans need adaptation to avoid interaction
with:

Cheaters
 Unpredictable people
 People without resources
–
To prevent disease & parasites from social contact, humans need
adaptations to

Recognize the potentially infected
 Avoid physical interaction
28
Evidence of Biological basis
Neurotransmitter/hormone oxytocin promotes in-group favoritism & outgroup derogation
Human administered oxytocin (but not
placebo) were more altruistic towards an ingroup in a group prisoner’s dilemma game
Dutch subjects administered oxytocin (but
not placebo) in a moral dilemma task were
more willing to sacrifice a outgroup member
(Arab or German) than a Dutch person to
save a larger group
De Dreu, C. K. W., Greer, L. L., Handgraaf, M. J. J., Shalvi, S., Van Kleef, G. A., Baas, M., . . . Feith,
S. W. W. (2010). The neuropeptide oxytocin regulates parochial altruism in intergroup conflict among
humans. Science, 328(5984), 1408-1411.
De Dreu, C. K. W., Greer, L. L., Van Kleef, G. A., Shalvi, S., & Handgraaf, M. J. J. (2011). Oxytocin
promotes human ethnocentrism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(4), 1262-1266.
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What Do You Do About It?

Recategorization
Super-category – circle of inclusion
– Find cross-cutting categories
– Super-ordinate goal
– Common enemy
–

Declassify
–
Methods to get members to think of others as
individuals, not exemplars of their groups
– Contact hypothesis – get to know others in
context of equal status and communication

Mutual differentiation
–
Acknowledge differences
– Emphasize complementary
•Gaertner,
S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Banker, B. S., Houlette, M., Johnson, K. M., & McGlynn,
E. A. (2000). Reducing intergroup conflict: From superordinate goals to decategorization,
recategorization, and mutual differentiation. Group Dynamics, 4(1), 98-114.
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Circles of Inclusion
•USA
•Rust
•Cleveland/
Browns
Belt
•Terrorist
•Bible
Belt
•Pittsburgh/
Steelers
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