Intergroup Conflict

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The Psychology of Intergroup Conﬂict: A Review of Theories and Measures
Article in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · October 2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.01.020
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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INTERGROUP CONFLICT Page 1 of 50
1 This paper has been accepted at the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. It may not exactly
2 replicate the final version published in the journal. It is not a copy of record.
6 The Psychology of Intergroup Conflict: A Review of Theories and Measures
9 Robert Böhm1,*, Hannes Rusch2,3, Jonathan Baron4
10
11
1
12 School of Business and Economics, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
2
13 School of Business and Economics, University of Marburg, Germany
3
14 TUM School of Management, TU München, Germany
4
15 Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, USA
16
17
*
18 Corresponding author:
19 Robert Böhm, School of Business and Economics, RWTH Aachen University, 52062 Aachen,
20 Germany, Phone: +49 241 8097000, Email: robert.boehm@rwth-aachen.de

21 Abstract
22 We review psychological research on intergroup conflict. First, we outline psychological
23 perspectives on forms and functions of groups. Second, we present the most influential
24 psychological theories of intergroup conflict and describe their similarities and differences in
25 predicting individual prejudice, discrimination, and conflict engagement. Third, we review
26 popular measures of intergroup discrimination, including rating measures, behavioral
27 measures, and allocation tasks. Furthermore, we call for a refined semantic framework to
28 structure and differentiate between different measures of intergroup bias. Fourth, we highlight
29 several interventions that can de-bias intergroup relations and facilitate conflict resolution.
30 Lastly, we propose that research on the psychology of intergroup conflict may benefit from a
31 stronger interdisciplinary orientation regarding both theoretical perspectives and methods
32 used and point out promising avenues for future research.
33
34 Keywords: Intergroup Conflict; Intergroup Bias; Discrimination, Conflict Resolution

35 1. Introduction
36 Human prosociality is a Janus-faced phenomenon. Although cooperation within groups is
37 common, cooperation with outsiders is often impaired by prejudice, discrimination and spite.
38 Tensions between groups quickly arise and frequently escalate into intergroup conflicts. In
39 fact, intergroup conflicts have been with us for a long time (Esteban et al., 2012; Gat, 2015),
40 and also today conflict between countries, as well as between ethnic and religious groups
41 remains omnipresent. Taken together, wars and genocides have been estimated to account for
42 more than 200 million deaths in the 20th century (Rummel, 1994). More recently, in 2014
43 alone, 180,000 people died in intergroup violence worldwide and 20,000 individuals in 69
44 countries were killed in terrorist attacks (Institute for Economics & Peace, 2015).
45 Research on the cognitions, emotions, and motivations underlying intergroup conflict
46 has a long history in psychology. In fact, intergroup conflict has even been named the
47 “problem of the century” in social psychology (Fiske, 2002).1 This research has concerned
48 such diverse topics as perceptions of group membership, behavioral consequences of
49 categorizing oneself and others into groups, or the effects of situational and personality
50 differences on intergroup relations. Accordingly, as can be seen in Figure 1, there has been a
51 steady increase in the number of research articles focusing on topics related to intergroup
52 conflict in leading social psychology journals over the last 25 years.
1
Social psychology, as a sub-discipline of psychology, deals with human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in
the actual of imagined presence of others. Since intergroup interactions are by definition social phenomena,
much psychological research dealing with intergroup conflict can be attributed to social psychology (but see
section 6.3 for research in cognitive psychology relevant to intergroup conflict, and Cameron et al., 2001, for a
review of research on the ontogeny of prejudice and discrimination in developmental psychology).
53
54 Figure 1. Conflict-related papers published in some of the leading journals of (social) psychology, 1990-
55 2015. Note. Web of Science search for terms ‘intergroup conflict’, ‘intergroup bias’, ‘ingroup bias’,
56 ‘discrimination’, or ‘war’ in the publication titles of the journals Psychological Science, Journal of Personality
57 and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
58 European Journal of Social Psychology. 1990 was selected as start point as Psychological Science began
59 publishing then.
60
61 After a brief introduction to the terminology used in psychological research on forms
62 and functions of social groups (section 2), this paper provides an overview of selected
63 psychological theories of intergroup conflict (section 3). Naturally, we cannot review this
64 abundant literature exhaustively. Rather, we focus on those theories and pioneering empirical
65 works that have emerged as the most influential ones in the literature. Second, we provide a
66 structured overview of the measures used to assess conflict-related individual attitudes and
67 behaviors (section 4). Third, we suggest a refined way of classifying phenomena relevant to
68 the study of intergroup conflict (section 5). To this end, we outline how the ‘social semantics’
69 developed by West and colleagues (West et al., 2007) could be extended by a group-
70 membership dimension. Such ‘social group semantics’ may provide a useful framework for
71 structuring and connecting previous and future research. Finally, we summarize important
72 empirically informed interventions that can be used to de-bias intergroup relations (section 6).
73 2. Prologue
74 2.1 Definitions of Groups
75 Humans are a group-living species. In modern times, we grow up in family groups, study in
76 classes, work in teams, do team sports ourselves or support sports teams as members of fan
77 clubs. Moreover, we are all members of national and ethnic groups, gender groups, and
78 cultural groups. Most of us see ourselves as belonging to several groups at the same time. But
79 what exactly is a group? A very broad psychological definition defines a group “as two or
80 more individuals who are connected to one another by social relationships” (Forsyth, 2014, p.
81 3). As is common in the psychological literature, we will use the label ‘in-group members’ to
82 refer to those individuals who share a given group membership with the target individual and
83 ‘out-group members’ to refer to individuals who are members of other groups, i.e., who do
84 not share that group membership with the target individual.
85 Different characteristic features of groups have been used to define what constitutes a
86 group. These include structural, rather objective characteristics like outcome interdependence.
87 In this view, whether a set of individuals represents a group depends on how these
88 individuals’ outcomes of social interaction relate to each other. Such outcome
89 interdependence can vary in degree (weak vs. strong) and type (positive vs. negative). For
90 instance, strong positive interdependence between individuals can create a ‘common fate’
91 (Lewin, 1948), which, in turn, can lead to group formation by the respective individuals.
92 Likewise, differentiated but interdependent roles, such as the possibility for some individuals
93 to control the scope of action of other individuals or their outcomes (Sherif and Sherif, 1969),
94 may also prompt group formation. Other definitions rest on more subjective aspects like
95 identifying oneself as belonging to a certain group and/or being recognized as a member of
96 that group by others (Brown, 1988; Tajfel, 1981). Cues that may lead to such social
97 identification range from minimal, apparently meaningless criteria (e.g., similar preferences
98 for paintings; Tajfel et al., 1971) to shared firm beliefs (e.g., moral views regarding issues
99 such as refugees or abortion; Parker and Janoff-Bulman, 2013).
100 2.2 Perceptions of Groups
101 The ability to differentiate between different groups as well as to identify oneself as a member
102 of certain groups relies on a number of socio-cognitive principles. Humans can categorize
103 themselves at various levels of abstraction, for example as a singular and independent
104 individual (called ‘personal identity salience’) or as part of an inclusive social category
105 (‘social identity salience’). At the highest (superordinate) level of abstraction, neither the
106 personal nor the social identity is salient, but all humans are perceived as belonging to a
107 single category, which is then set off against non-human animals. Accordingly, personal
108 identity is defined as those aspects of the self that make an individual unique, whereas social
109 identity is thought of as those characteristics of the self that classify it in relation to social
110 categories. Importantly, interacting individuals can perceive the exact same objective
111 interaction very differently, depending on which level of categorization is salient for them at
112 the moment. For example, the interaction of two individuals can be represented as an
113 interindividual interaction (i.e., two unique individuals), as an intragroup interaction (i.e., two
114 members of the same group) or as an intergroup interaction (i.e., two members of different
115 groups). This observation is important for understanding why much psychological research on
116 intergroup conflict investigates individuals or dyads, while trying to activate and manipulate
117 these individuals’ personal vs. social identity salience.
118 Building on cognitive principles of categorical perception, the social categorization
119 processes just described have been analyzed further in self-categorization theory (Turner et
120 al., 1987). According to this theory, individuals can differ in their ‘relative accessibility’, i.e.,
121 in their abilities to cognitively access the different levels of categorical abstraction,
122 depending, for example, on their past experiences, expectations, current goals or motives. For
123 instance, snowboarders may be ready to differentiate between skiers and snowboarders
124 whereas someone who is not interested in winter sports may perceive skiers and
125 snowboarders as a single social category.
126 The theory further poses that social categorization also depends on ‘comparative fit’,
127 i.e., different social identities are easier to distinguish when the difference within social
128 categories is perceived as small, compared to the difference between social categories (the so-
129 called ‘meta-contrast principle’). For instance, in the presence of a skier, a snowboarder might
130 categorize another snowboarder as an in-group member and the skier as an out-group
131 member. But in the presence of a skier, a snowboarder, and a swimmer, the snowboarder
132 might categorize the skier and the snowboarder as in-group members and the swimmer as an
133 out-group member.
134 Lastly, self-categorization theory assumes that in addition to relative accessibility and
135 comparative fit, ‘normative fit’ may influence the categorization process. To evaluate
136 normative fit, a target individual’s attributes and behaviors are compared to own expectations
137 about what ordinary in-group members and ordinary out-group members are likely to be and
138 act like.
139 Beyond the principles of mere social categorization, perceptions of the cohesiveness of
140 different groups (by both group members and outsiders) can differ substantially. Even if a set
141 of people meets all criteria for what constitutes a group, groups can still differ in how strongly
142 they are perceived as cohesive units, i.e., groups can differ in ‘entitativity’ (Campbell, 1958).
143 Interaction frequency, common goals and outcomes, group member similarity, and subjective
144 importance of the group are all related to perceptions of entitativity, whereas factors like
145 group size, continuance, and permeability of group boundaries are less important (Lickel et
146 al., 2000). Based on their level of entitativity, groups have been categorized as ‘intimate
147 groups’ and ‘task groups’, both with high entitativity, ‘social categories’ with medium
148 entitativity, or ‘loose associations’ with low entitativity. Judgments of a group’s entitativity,
149 in turn, are likely associated with perceptions of and reactions to intergroup conflict (Lickel et
150 al., 2001; Stenstrom et al., 2008).
151 2.3 Functions of Groups
152 Although these approaches to the study of group formation and reactions to group
153 membership differ in their subtleties, they all agree that the group dimension of social
154 interaction is an integral part of human cognition and behavior. They all take for granted that
155 humans have a tendency to readily identify with and interact within groups. In light of the
156 evolutionary history of our species, many scholars argue, this is not surprising, as homo
157 sapiens was not the first to discover and reap the benefits of group living. Likely, already the
158 common ancestors of humans and chimpanzees or even earlier species in our lineage did so
159 (see e.g., Glowacki et al., in press, this issue). Obviously, living in self-organized groups can
160 have crucial advantages compared to being on one’s own (e.g., Brewer and Caporael, 2006;
161 Wilson, 2012). Hunting and protection against natural hazards or conspecific enemies, for
162 example, are more effective if carried out by a group. More generally, task sharing and
163 specialization within groups yield efficiency advantages. Thus, it is likely that human
164 psychology is adapted to group living (Tooby and Cosmides, 2010).
165 In line with this evolutionary perspective, psychological research has shown that
166 humans have a ‘need to belong’, i.e., an inherent desire to be accepted as a group member,
167 and thus to be part of a greater social unit with positive and stable relationships (Baumeister
168 and Leary, 1995). Accordingly, humans are prone to bond and synchronize with others who
169 are physically and psychologically similar, which is particularly important for the question of
170 whom they form groups with. Moreover, there is some indication that a lowered sense of
171 belonging is associated with depression (e.g., Pittman and Richmond, 2007) and suicidal
172 behaviors (Joiner et al., 2002). The need to belong is also related to the individual tendency to
173 conform, i.e., to match attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, under both
174 informational uncertainty (‘informational influence’, i.e., individuals conform to other group
175 members when they do not know what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; e.g., Sherif, 1936) and certainty
176 (‘normative influence’, i.e., individuals conform to other group members despite knowing that
177 this is ‘wrong’; e.g., Asch, 1951). Normative influence is stronger, for example, when the
178 individuals’ own group is in competition with another group (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955).
179 Furthermore, normative influence is stronger when individuals are observed by in-group
180 members, whereas informational influence is stronger when individuals act in private (for a
181 meta-analysis, see Bond, 2005). Hence, individuals’ need to belong lays the psychological
182 groundwork for shared beliefs, values, and norms, all of which are important features of many
183 groups.
184 Being connected to others in a group also comes with the risk of being exploited,
185 though, because actions in the interest of the in-group often involve costs for the individual
186 group member (e.g., Bornstein, 2003). The interplay of individual costs and benefits that
187 eventually leads to either effective and stable groups or the dissolution of unstable groups is
188 described in social exchange theory (Thibaut and Kelley, 1959). In a similar vein, optimal
189 distinctiveness theory (Brewer, 2003) describes a continuum between individual uniqueness
190 (i.e., differentiation from others) and psychological homogeneity (i.e., assimilation to others)
191 and states that an optimal distinctiveness level exists that satisfies both these opposing needs.
192 Optimal distinctiveness theory concedes, however, that this optimal level can differ among
193 individuals because of different cultural norms and individual socialization. Thus, optimal
194 distinctiveness theory provides a more general psychological framework for the level of
195 identification with different in-groups, both in terms of selection and strength, as well as the
196 need for differentiation from out-groups.
197 In summary, groups are units of two or more people connected through social
198 relationships, often accompanied by a positive interdependence in goals and outcomes, as

199 well as a social hierarchy. Perceptions of others as in-group or out-group members are the
200 result of a cognitive categorization process. Everyone belongs to various groups that may
201 differ in their level of perceived entitativity. Becoming a member of and conforming to stable
202 groups, as well as differentiating the in-group from other groups, is an integral characteristic
203 of human psychology. In the next section, we introduce and summarize major psychological
204 theories that describe the relations between groups, and hence, the causes of intergroup
205 conflict.
206 3. Intergroup Conflict
207 3.1 Definition and Types of Intergroup Conflict
208 From a psychological perspective, broadly defined, intergroup conflict is the perceived
209 incompatibility of goals or values between two or more individuals, which emerges because
210 these individuals classify themselves as members of different social groups. Several scholars
211 have suggested distinguishing between different types of conflict. For instance, conflicts have
212 various sources. They can arise over (scarce) economic resources (e.g., money, territory),
213 values (e.g., what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’), power (e.g., influence on the other party’ behaviors
214 or outcomes), or a combination of these (Katz, 1965). Moreover, conflicts can be located on a
215 scale ranging from tractable to intractable conflicts (Bar-Tal, 2011). Tractable conflicts
216 concern goals of low importance that are partially compatible and partially incompatible
217 between the involved parties (‘mixed-motive’ situations). Hence, they are likely to be
218 resolved quickly and are rather short-lived. Intractable conflicts, in contrast, concern goals of
219 high importance (e.g., resources indispensable for the group’s existence) and are perceived as
220 unsolvable (‘zero-sum’ situations). Intractable conflicts often have a longer duration than
221 tractable ones, leading to a history of hostility between the parties involved.
222 3.2 Psychological Theories of Intergroup Conflict

223 Intergroup conflict affects the perceptions (e.g., stereotyping, prejudice), emotions (e.g., fear,
224 hate), and behaviors (e.g., discrimination, aggression) of the individuals involved. A plethora
225 of theories have been proposed to explain this ‘psychology of intergroup conflict’. In this
226 section, we largely ignore differences in the methods used to test these theories (but see the
227 next section for an overview). Rather, we focus on the underlying processes assumed to be
228 responsible for positive discrimination against in-group members and negative discrimination
229 against out-group members. Note that the following overview of theoretical accounts is by no
230 means exhaustive. Instead, we focus on the most influential accounts from a historical
231 perspective. In addition, we include several more recent accounts that appear to us as being of
232 particular interest for an interdisciplinary audience.
233 3.2.1 Personality Theories
234 After WWII, scholars tried to explain how people could actively engage in, or willingly
235 accept, the cruelties of the Holocaust. In their famous book The Authoritarian Personality
236 (1950), the sociologist Theodor W. Adorno and his colleagues argued that such a fascistic
237 potential must be rooted in a dysfunctional personality syndrome, that is, a certain
238 combination of basic personality traits. The most important of these traits was assumed to be
239 authoritarianism, which is characterized by the belief in absolute obedience or submission to
240 an authority, leading to the (acceptance of) oppression of subordinates. Adorno et al. (1950)
241 proposed that the authoritarian personality develops in early childhood as a result of
242 hierarchical and authoritarian parent-child relationships. Accordingly, children who are
243 strongly dominated and threatened by their parents should be more likely to develop an
244 authoritarian personality.
245 Later research refined the concept, renamed it as ‘right-wing authoritarianism’ (RWA;
246 e.g., Altemeyer, 1998), and particularly focused on its psychometric assessment. Empirical
247 research using respective questionnaires showed that people who score high on RWA are
248 more favorable of punishment and control of norm deviators (Narby et al., 1993). Moreover,
249 it was found that RWA correlates positively with prejudice against ethnic and racial
250 minorities (e.g., Duckitt and Farre, 1994).
251 Another individual difference variable that seems important for an individual’s
252 proneness to be prejudiced and discriminatory toward out-groups is ‘social dominance
253 orientation’ (SDO; Sidanius and Pratto, 2001). SDO predicts an individual’s endorsement of
254 in-group dominance and a general orientation toward group-based inequality (Ho et al.,
255 2015). Social dominance theory provides a psychological explanation of support for group-
256 based social hierarchies. According to this perspective, group-based hierarchies can be age-
257 based, gender-based, or based on more arbitrary characteristics (e.g., race, ethnicity, religious
258 affiliation, sexual orientation). These hierarchies assign more power and higher status to
259 people at the top (e.g., older people in age-based hierarchies, men in gender-based
260 hierarchies). In such hierarchies, discrimination is legitimized by culturally shared ideologies.
261 There are legitimizing beliefs, captured by SDO, that enhance the hierarchy and therefore
262 intergroup inequality (high SDO; e.g., racism) or attenuate the hierarchy and therefore
263 increase intergroup equality (low SDO; e.g., diversity).
264 Note that measures of RWA and SDO are typically moderately positively correlated,
265 but recent meta-analytical evidence suggests that they are largely independent and operate via
266 different psychological processes (Perry et al., 2013; Sibley and Duckitt, 2008). However,
267 SDO and RWA share a major limitation with all purely personality-based approaches:
268 situational factors are largely ignored (e.g., relationship and interdependence between
269 groups). Other theoretical approaches therefore focus more on the identification of situational
270 factors that may increase individuals’ willingness to engage in intergroup conflict, while
271 conceding that personality characteristics may have a moderating role in this process.
272 3.2.2 Realistic Group Conflict Theory
273 Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues, for instance, proposed a highly influential situation-based
274 perspective on intergroup conflict. Based on Campbell’s (1965) original formulation, Sherif’s
275 realistic group conflict theory states that prejudice and discrimination are the result of
276 competition over limited resources between groups (e.g., money, power, social status; Sherif,
277 1966). Such a negative interdependence in the groups’ (incompatible) goals leads to a zero-
278 sum representation of intergroup interactions in which the strength of perceived conflict
279 depends on the level of negative group interdependence (i.e., the scarcity of the contested
280 resources). In contrast, if groups have a positive interdependence, e.g., because they need to
281 jointly work on a task to reach a superordinate goal, intergroup relations are positive. Hence,
282 realistic group conflict theory identifies the causes of intergroup conflict in external and
283 ‘realistic’ factors, i.e., actual needs.
284 Realistic group conflict theory is based on one of the most famous social psychological
285 study series – the Robber’s Cave experiments (Sherif et al., 1961; Sherif and Sherif, 1953).
286 These field experiments took place at Robber’s Cave State Park (Oklahoma, US). One of the
287 studies involved 20 twelve-year-old boys who were unknown to each other but had a similar
288 family background (white, middle-class, protestant). The boys were randomly assigned to two
289 groups and separately brought to the study site without awareness of the existence of the other
290 group. In the first stage of the experiment (in-group formation), the groups had to complete
291 some joint within-group tasks that required cooperative planning and execution (e.g., carrying
292 a canoe through rocky terrain). The boys also chose names for their groups and decorated
293 flags and shirts with these names. This stage aimed to create some identification with and
294 attachment to the own group. In the second stage (friction phase), the groups were made
295 aware of each other and competed over resources (e.g., in tug-of-war contests). That is,
296 members of just the wining team received prizes (e.g., a pocket knife). Out-group hostility
297 increased, starting with name-calling and culminating into burning the opponents’ flag and
298 stealing out-group members’ private property. In fact, this stage was cut short because the
299 hostilities between the groups became too intense. In the third and final stage of the
300 experiment (integration phase), the researchers introduced superordinate goals that could be
301 achieved only by joint collaboration between the two groups (e.g., repair of the common
302 drinking water supply). Subsequently, the experimenters observed a slow but substantial
303 increase of positive intergroup relations (e.g., joint activities in the evening). Hence, these
304 findings provide support from an ecologically valid experiment that competition over limited
305 resources between groups may lead to severe perceived intergroup conflict, even among
306 otherwise ‘normal’ individuals. Despite potential criticism that may be raised regarding
307 ethical issues of the Robber’s cave experiments and its generalizability to (male and female)
308 adults, Sherif’s studies certainly had a great impact on the understanding of the psychology of
309 intergroup conflict.
310 3.2.3 Social Identity Theory
311 Henry Tajfel and John Turner’s social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986, 1979) stands
312 in stark contrast to realistic group conflict theory. It proposes that prejudice and
313 discrimination occur naturally when an individual categorizes someone else as a member of
314 an out-group. Accordingly, competition over resources is not necessary to induce intergroup
315 conflict. Even Sherif’s own investigations at Robber’s Cave indicated that children showed a
316 preference for engaging in intergroup competition once they learned about the existence of the
317 other group, even before the actual intergroup conflict games started. Thus, negative
318 interdependencies between groups appear as a sufficient but not as a necessary factor for
319 discriminatory preferences to be revealed. Accordingly, social identity theory is closely
320 related to self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987; see section 2.2). It rests on the idea
321 that individuals represent themselves either as an individual or as a group member depending
322 on their currently activated level of categorization. In the state of a salient social identity,
323 individuals are motivated to increase ‘positive distinctiveness’, that is, a positive self-concept
324 due to a favorable comparison of their in-group to an out-group on relevant dimensions.2
2
The importance of relative intergroup comparisons is also stressed in relative deprivation theory (Gutt, 1970;
Runciman, 1966). According to this rather sociological account, collective (or fraternal) relative deprivation
results from social comparisons of the in-group with out-groups when the own group receives less of a valuable
325 Social identity theory proposes a direct link between a positive social identity and self-esteem,
326 achieved through the in-group’s relative standing.3 Individuals can follow different strategies
327 to achieve positive distinctiveness. When group boundaries are permeable (i.e., individuals
328 are able to change group membership), individuals may use ‘individual mobility’ to maximize
329 positive distinctiveness. For instance, I may look for a new sports team to cheer if my current
330 team is chronically unsuccessful. If group boundaries are perceived as impermeable and
331 group relations as rather stable, however, ‘social creativity’ strategies are predicted. For
332 instance, group members of the lower-status group may draw comparisons on a new
333 dimension that is more favorable for the in-group (e.g., the own company may sell fewer
334 products than the direct market competitor but is more socially and environmentally
335 sustainable) or change the comparison standard (e.g., a soccer team that is less successful in
336 international competitions may compare with national competitors). Lastly, if group
337 boundaries are stable but group relations are considered to be unstable, individuals may
338 engage in ‘social competition’. By discriminating against out-group members, the relative
339 standing of the in-group increases and social identity is boosted. Thus, although the
340 discriminatory consequences of social comparisons are the most prominent part of social
341 identity theory, discrimination is predicted only in specific circumstances, as just described.4
342 The predictions of social identity theory – in particular the social competition strategy –
343 have been tested in numerous experiments (for reviews, see e.g., Hogg et al., 2004; Hornsey,
344 2008). Noteworthy are Tajfel and colleagues’ own experiments using the so-called ‘minimal
resource than it is perceived to be entitled to receive, leading to feelings of injustice and dissatisfaction.
Collective
3
As an alternative process, uncertainty-identity theory (Hogg, 2000) suggests that not the increase of self-
esteem but the reduction of individual uncertainty in subjectively relevant domains may increase the likelihood
of social categorization and intergroup discrimination.
4
Note that a salient categorization on the collective level (Turner et al., 1987, see section 2.2) should in
principle eliminate any form of intergroup discrimination between members of former subcategories. However,
research on in-group projection (for a review, see Wenzel et al., 2007) has shown that different group
memberships are used as a frame of reference for a common (collective) superordinate group (i.e., the own group
is perceived as more prototypical for the superordinate group). As a consequence, intergroup discrimination may
still appear because the in-group is represented as a ‘better’ prototype of the higher-level collective formation
and out-group members are perceived to deviate from the desired characteristics of the superordinate category.
345 group paradigm’ (Tajfel et al., 1971; for an overview, see e.g., Brewer, 1979). In this
346 experimental setup, participants are divided into two groups based on trivial criteria. For
347 example, in the most famous version, participants state their preference regarding paintings by
348 Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Afterwards, they are assigned either to the “Kandinsky
349 Group” or the “Klee Group”, both of which allegedly consist of individuals who share the
350 same stated aesthetic preference.5 In the next step, participants take part in a resource
351 allocation task in which they have to distribute valuable points between an unknown in-group
352 member and an unknown out-group member (identified via numbers, e.g., “Klee Group
353 member no. 12”). Hence, the minimal group procedure excludes influences like
354 communication, stereotypes based on real groups, history of conflict, status hierarchies, or
355 shared fate of in-group members. Over several experiments, it was shown that – although
356 fairness in resource allocations between in-group and out-group members plays an important
357 role – participants tended to maximize the in-group member’s absolute gain (at cost to the
358 out-group member). Furthermore, and in line with social identity theory, participants were
359 willing to accept an absolutely lower gain for the in-group member when the out-group
360 member’s gain was reduced even more as a result.
361 3.2.4 Integrated Threat Theory
362 Integrated threat theory (Stephan and Stephan, 2000) considers both structural (e.g., scarce
363 resources) and psychological (e.g., social categorization) sources of intergroup conflict. Its
364 main focus is on the conditions leading to individual perceptions of threat that affect attitudes
365 and behaviors. The theory distinguishes between personal and intergroup threat. Personal or
366 self-directed threat concerns the individual’s own resources or personal identity. In contrast,
5
In fact, participants are either randomly assigned to one of the groups or all participants are assigned to the
same group. This excludes the potential confound that real differences in preferences between groups exist. For
minimal group procedures that do not rely on deceiving participants, see e.g., Böhm et al., 2013; Chen and Li,
2009; Güth et al., 2009.
367 intergroup threat puts the whole group’s freedom, beliefs, or other characteristics under attack
368 or at risk.
369 There are different forms of threat. In line with realistic group conflict theory (Sherif,
370 1966; see section 3.2.2), realistic threat is the perception of material resource threat, e.g., risk
371 to the in-group’s safety, economy, politics, or well-being. In line with social identity theory
372 (Tajfel and Turner, 1986, 1979; see section 3.2.3), symbolic threat, on the other hand,
373 concerns non-material goods like the in-group’s morals, values, norms, attitudes, and esteem.6
374 These considerations lead to a two (target of threat: individual vs. in-group) by two (form of
375 threat: realistic vs. symbolic) matrix, with each combination evoking different consequences.
376 Threat appraisals to the group are assumed to evoke anger, whereas personal threats are likely
377 to evoke fear. Realistic threat causes feelings of insecurity and frustration, whereas symbolic
378 threat tends to cause emotions that devaluate the out-group (e.g., contempt, disgust). In
379 general, the more credible a certain type of threat is perceived, the greater the perceived stake
380 size and the immediacy of the behavioral/emotional reaction. For instance, intergroup threat
381 has been shown to increase the likelihood of negative stereotyping, distorted perceptions of
382 the out-group’s intentions, and even the dehumanization of out-group members (for a meta-
383 analysis, see Riek et al., 2006). In addition, reactions also depend on the power of the
384 threatened group. High power groups may perceive themselves vulnerable and react with
385 more forceful measures, including direct intergroup violence. Low power groups, in contrast,
386 may react more carefully so as not to risk retaliation; they rather take indirect
387 countermeasures like sabotage, non-violent protest, and disobedience (Stephan and Stephan,
388 2000).
389 In summary, integrated threat theory provides a broader perspective on the role of
390 intergroup (and personal) threat perceptions. It stresses the importance of both realistic and
6
Note that perceptions of realistic and symbolic threat are typically moderately correlated, although they have
unique relations to out-group attitudes (Riek et al., 2006). Not surprisingly, realistic threat may lead to symbolic
threat (e.g., to justify conflict) and vice versa.
391 symbolic threats for the emergence of intergroup conflict. As such, integrated threat theory
392 demonstrates how negative intergroup behaviors may result from both structural and
393 psychological factors. Moreover, in a revised version of the theory (Stephan and Renfro,
394 2002), interindividual personality differences like SDO (Sidanius and Pratto, 2001; see
395 section 3.2.1) but also cultural differences are considered as variables that can affect the
396 perception of threats.
397 3.2.5 Theory of Bounded Generalized Reciprocity
398 Experimental work testing the predictions of social identity theory has repeatedly found that
399 mere categorization of individuals as in-group and out-group members can produce
400 intergroup discrimination, mostly in the form of in-group favoritism (see section 3.2.3).
401 Complementing the proximate explanations that social identity theory offers for these
402 observations, bounded generalized reciprocity theory (Yamagishi et al., 1999) suggests to also
403 take a cost/benefit-perspective into account. It stresses that belonging to groups that are
404 characterized by high levels of intragroup trust and cooperation has material advantages for
405 its members. Therefore, bounded generalized reciprocity theory poses that in-group members
406 are more likely to cooperate with each other in order to maintain a positive reputation, such
407 that they can continue to benefit from belonging to the group. More generally, Yamagishi and
408 colleagues argue that social groups are a container of expectations, in that individuals expect
409 positive reciprocity from in-group members by default but less so, or not at all, from out-
410 group members (Yamagishi et al., 1999; Yamagishi and Mifune, 2009). The higher the
411 perceived entitativity of a group (see section 2.2), the more this container is filled with
412 expectations of generalized reciprocity (Yamagishi and Kiyonari, 2000).7 It is further
413 proposed that such group-bounded favoritism occurs only if individuals expect direct or
414 indirect reciprocity from fellow in-group members. In other words, it is the individuals’
7
Note that there is evidence that social categorization may also cause perceptions of reciprocity between in-
group members (Platow et al., 2012). Hence, structural interdependences, social categorization, and perceptions
of reciprocity can (to a certain degree) mutually affect each other.
415 motivation to maximize material self-interest that leads to intergroup discrimination. As such,
416 the theory aims at explaining differences in individuals’ willingness to cooperate with in-
417 group compared to out-group members, rather than providing an explanation for negative and
418 hostile behaviors toward out-group members.
419 To support this theoretical perspective, Karp et al. (1993) conducted an experiment in
420 which participants had to allocate resources between an in-group and an out-group member
421 (after minimal groups had been created, see section 3.2.3). The crucial experimental
422 manipulation consisted in whether the participants’ own outcome was a fixed amount –
423 independent of their allocation decision and therefore explicitly excluding the possibility of
424 reciprocity between in-group members – or depended on another in-group member’s
425 allocation decision. Thus, the latter condition incorporated indirect interdependence between
426 in-group members in the form of mutual (or multilateral) fate control (see Thibaut and Kelley,
427 1959). Karp et al. (1993) observed in-group biased allocations (i.e., giving more resources to
428 the in-group compared to the out-group member) when participants were in an interdependent
429 relationship with their in-group members, but not when their outcomes were fixed. In a
430 similar vein, other studies found substantial reductions of in-group favoritism when the
431 allocator in a dictator game knew that the recipient would not be informed about the
432 allocator’s group membership (Ockenfels and Werner, 2014; Yamagishi et al., 1999).
433 A recent meta-analysis compared the differential predictions of social identity theory
434 and the theory of bounded generalized reciprocity (Balliet et al., 2014), finding that
435 reciprocity concerns have an independent and additional explanatory value for the emergence
436 of intergroup discrimination in the domain of cooperative behavior (over and above mere
437 social categorization). Importantly, the meta-analysis by Balliet et al. (2014) found an overall
438 small to medium effect size indicating that cooperation with and prosociality toward in-group
439 members (in games like the dictator game, prisoner’s dilemma, public goods, and trust game)
440 is larger than toward out-group members. Moreover, no significant differences in the extent of
441 such discrimination between artificial (minimal) vs. natural groups, country of the
442 participants, and sex of the participants were found (although there is a tendency that men are
443 more likely to engage in intergroup conflict and discrimination, see e.g., McDonald et al.,
444 2012).
445 3.2.6 The Co-Evolutionary Theory of Parochial Altruism
446 A prominent evolutionary approach to explaining why humans so readily discriminate against
447 out-groups is the theory of parochial altruism as arising from intergroup conflict (Choi and
448 Bowles, 2007; for overviews, see De Dreu et al., 2014; Rusch, 2014; Yamagishi and Mifune,
449 2016). The theory aims to explain our readiness to incur high individual costs in order to
450 promote in-group success in competitions with out-groups as an adaptation to the high-
451 conflict environments humans were exposed to in ancestral times (Glowacki et al., in press,
452 this issue). The theory assumes that collective action against enemies resembles a public good
453 problem from the in-group’s perspective: contributions to the own group’s success are costly
454 to the individual (e.g., risk of injury or death in violent intergroup conflict) but the outcomes
455 of the collective action (i.e., winning or losing an intergroup competition) are shared among
456 all group members, irrespective of their individual contribution (but see, Rusch, 2014, 2013;
457 Rusch and Gavrilets, in press, this issue). Accordingly, ‘parochial altruism’ in the context of
458 this theory describes individual behavior that is (i) costly to the target individual, (ii)
459 beneficial for the target’s in-group, and (iii) costly for members of an out-group, all at the
460 same time (Choi and Bowles, 2007). Unlike other theories, this account assumes that an
461 individual’s contribution to intergroup conflict does not need to be compensated through
462 direct or indirect benefits for the contributing individual, i.e., that fighting for the in-group
463 may represent true altruism (Bowles, 2008). Using mathematical models supposedly
464 approximating the demographic conditions of the late Pleistocene/early Holocene, proponents
465 of co-evolutionary parochial altruism theory then suggest that high levels of violent
466 intergroup encounters and moderate levels of migration and gene flow between groups may
467 have favored a co-evolution of altruistic and parochial behavioral traits, that is: human
468 altruism and belligerence may have evolved through mutually reinforcing each other (Bowles,
469 2009; Choi and Bowles, 2007; García and van den Bergh, 2011; for a review, see Rusch,
470 2014).
471 In recent years, psychologists and other social scientists have begun to test
472 experimentally how individuals react to different configurations of individual, group, and
473 collective interests in situations of intergroup conflict, putting the proposed relationship of
474 altruism, parochialism, and conflict engagement under scrutiny. Their findings are mixed:
475 some studies found a positive correlation between individual-level prosociality and the
476 participation in intergroup conflict that benefits the in-group while harming the out-group
477 (e.g., Abbink et al., 2012), whereas others found quite the opposite (De Dreu, 2010;
478 Thielmann and Böhm, 2016; for further evidence and discussions, see Rusch et al., 2016).
479 Additional findings suggest that structural conditions are more important drivers of intergroup
480 aggression than personality traits like altruism or parochialism. For instance, individuals were
481 found to be more likely to engage in individually costly aggression against out-groups if the
482 in-group is perceived to be in a defensive (vs. offensive) position (i.e., ex ante protection
483 against potential out-group harm; Böhm et al., 2016; Halevy, 2017) or when the out-group
484 showed harmful aggression beforehand (i.e., ex post retaliation of out-group harm; Böhm et
485 al., 2016; De Dreu et al., 2016; Halevy et al., 2010).
486 4. Measures of Intergroup Conflict and Discrimination
487 As section 3 has shown, psychological explanations of individuals’ willingness to engage in
488 intergroup discrimination and conflict vary considerably. Unsurprisingly, the methods, in
489 particular the dependent measures, used in psychological (laboratory) research to assess
490 intergroup prejudice and discrimination are manifold as well. In this section, we review the
491 most established measures. We distinguish three classes: (1) rating measures, (2) behavioral
492 measures, and (3) allocation tasks, including first- and third-party allocation tasks, intergroup
493 allocation tasks, and team games as subcategories.
494 4.1 Rating Measures
495 Rating measures are questionnaire-based self-reports, e.g., participants’ agreement or
496 disagreement with certain statements or their attribution of certain characteristics to in-group
497 vs. out-group members. A prominent self-report measure is evaluative or adjective rating.
498 Here, participants are asked to evaluate an in-group (vs. an out-group) member on certain
499 positive and negative value-laden adjectives (e.g., friendly, open-hearted, nasty, egoistic) on
500 n-point scales. Such positive and negative in-group and out-group member evaluations can
501 then be combined into an overall measure of intergroup bias. Applying such an evaluative
502 measurement approach, it is usually found that unknown in-group members are rated more
503 positively than unknown out-group members, merely based on their group membership (for
504 an overview, see Diehl, 1990).
505 Another way of measuring intergroup bias is via participants’ preferred descriptions of
506 in-group and out-group members behaviors (Maas et al., 1989). Here, participants are asked
507 to select among several descriptions of desirable vs. undesirable behaviors shown by in-group
508 vs. out-group members. The descriptions to choose from vary in their level of abstraction, for
509 example, with descriptive action verbs indicating a lower level of abstraction (e.g., ‘The out-
510 group member is helping to carry the bag.’) and with adjectives indicating a higher level of
511 abstraction (e.g., ‘The in-group member is helpful.’). The assumption underlying this
512 measurement approach is that rather abstract descriptions are more likely to be taken to
513 describe properties of a person (rather than of a situation; Semin and Fiedler, 1988).
514 Intergroup bias (the so-called ‘linguistic intergroup bias’) can then be observed, when in-
515 group members engaging in desirable behaviors and out-group members engaging in
516 undesirable behaviors are preferably described using a high level of linguistic abstraction,
517 whereas the opposite is true for in-group (out-group) members engaging in undesirable
518 (desirable) behaviors (as in the examples given above).
519 There are also a number of rather indirect measures, assessing intergroup bias via
520 response latency procedures (e.g., the ‘implicit association task’ and its variants, e.g.,
521 Greenwald et al., 1998).8 These kinds of measures try to assess evaluations of in- and out-
522 groups of which the participant is largely unaware and hence, whose expression is assumed to
523 lie beyond conscious control (for an overview, see Hewstone et al., 2002). While such
524 measures may be particularly useful if explicit expressions of intergroup bias are likely to be
525 intentionally inhibited due to social desirability (see e.g., Devine et al., 2001), their validity
526 and reliability as well as their predictive power are subject to ongoing debate (e.g., Gawronski
527 et al., 2007; Gawronski and Payne, 2010).
528 4.2 Behavioral Measures
529 The literature also contains several creative (although sometimes deceptive) behavioral
530 measures that can be used to examine specific aspects of prejudice and discrimination. We
531 highlight only two prominent examples.
532 Milgram (1965) devised the so-called ‘lost letter-technique’ to examine prejudice
533 toward out-groups (e.g., Hellmann et al., 2015; Weiner and Lurey, 1973). Milgram dispersed
534 letters with varying addressees like medical institutions, friends of the Communist party or
535 friends of the Nazi party. All envelopes were sealed, stamped, and dispersed in public places,
536 e.g., in shops, telephone booths, or under car windscreen wipers. The idea was that the letter
537 return rate by addressee (all letters were actually addressed to the same postal address, namely
538 that of the experimenter himself) is a proxy for the attitudes people have toward the respective
539 groups. And indeed, Milgram found that more letters were sent back if they were addressed to
8
Other approaches to assess implicit biases are based, for instance, on memory tasks (e.g., Crisp and Hewstone,
2001) or psychophysiological measures (e.g., Phelps et al., 2000).
540 more reputable groups (e.g., return rate of 72% for letters to the medical institution vs. 25%
541 for letters to the Nazi party).
542 Another behavioral measure of intergroup prejudice rests on the idea that individuals
543 seek contact with in-group members but avoid contact with out-group members (Bogardus,
544 1925). This can be assessed via the physical distance participants prefer to in-group vs. out-
545 group members. One possibility to capture such approach/avoidance tendencies in the lab is to
546 measure the individual willingness to take a seat that is closer to (vs. further away from) a
547 member of each group. For instance, Goff et al. (2008) measured how participants would
548 position chairs to have a ‘comfortable conversation’ with other in-group vs. out-group
549 members (for a similar measure, see e.g., Macrae et al., 1994). The physical distance between
550 the chairs then served as an objective measure of prejudice, with a greater distance to the out-
551 group compared to the in-group member indicating more prejudice. Goff et al. (2008) indeed
552 found that participants who expected an interaction with an out-group member were more
553 likely to increase physical distance than those who thought they would speak with an in-group
554 member.
555 Behavioral assessments like these two examples measure rather spontaneous intergroup
556 behaviors. However, they are quite domain-specific and often unable to uncover the
557 motivations underlying the observed behaviors. Allocation tasks are able to overcome these
558 limitations to some extent.
559 4.3 Allocation Tasks
560 The measures listed in this subsection examine intergroup behavior through studying the
561 allocation of valuable units (e.g., money) to in-group vs. out-group members. By clearly
562 defining the quantitative consequences of certain allocation choices, these measures can also
563 partially distinguish the underlying motivations (e.g., greed, fear, aggression). The
564 psychological literature on allocation tasks in intergroup settings can be classified into four
565 different types: (1) third-party allocations tasks, (2) first-party allocation tasks, (3) intergroup
566 allocation tasks, and (4) team games.
567 4.3.1 Third-Party Allocation Tasks
568 In third-party allocation tasks, the participant is asked to distribute resources between an in-
569 group member and an out-group member. Thus, the allocation choice has no consequences for
570 the decision maker’s own outcome but measures the preference for the welfare of in-group vs.
571 out-group members, independent of own welfare. The allocation decision itself can be used as
572 a direct measure of intergroup bias, i.e., the relative amount of units allocated to the in-group
573 vs. the out-group member. The most prominent example are the reward allocation matrices
574 used by Tajfel and colleagues (e.g., Tajfel et al., 1971). Later research, arguing that the
575 structure of these matrices is biased toward finding intergroup bias, refined the matrices
576 accordingly (e.g., Bornstein et al., 1983; Yamagishi et al., 1999).
577 4.3.2 First-Party Allocation Tasks
578 Given that many real-world allocations require the decision maker to bear individual costs in
579 order to benefit or harm others, an individual’s level of prosociality may play an important
580 role in intergroup conflict. Whereas third-party allocation tasks intentionally exclude costs to
581 the decision maker, these costs are considered in first-party allocations. Participants’
582 willingness to help in-group members and out-group members at a cost to themselves is
583 compared. The relative difference in the two independent allocation decisions serves as a
584 measure of intergroup bias. In principle, the allocation decision can take the form of any two-
585 person game. It only requires that the same game is used in interaction with the in-group and
586 out-group member. For instance, intergroup biased allocations have been found using the
587 dictator game (e.g., Ben-Ner et al., 2009), trust game (e.g., Fershtman and Gneezy, 2001), and
588 prisoner’s dilemma game (Goette et al., 2012).9
9
As evident from the cited papers, first-party allocation tasks are also popular among economists. One reason
for this might be the interest of behavioral economics in other-regarding/social preferences (for an overview, see
589 4.3.3 Intergroup Allocation Tasks
590 In many intergroup interactions, a group rather than an individual makes decisions about the
591 outcomes for the in-group and out-group, e.g., using a majority rule. In principle, the decision
592 is similar to first-party allocation tasks, except that the group’s joint decision affects all
593 members of the in-group equally (thus, there is no conflict of interest among the in-group
594 members; they form so-called ‘unitary teams’, see Bornstein, 2003). In this setting, it can be
595 studied whether interindividual interactions differ from intergroup interactions under the exact
596 same incentives, e.g., two individuals vs. two groups playing a prisoner’s dilemma game.
597 Research has shown that interactions between groups are usually less cooperative than
598 interactions between individuals in various interaction tasks. This phenomenon has been
599 labeled ‘interindividual-intergroup discontinuity’ (for a meta-analysis, see Wildschut et al.,
600 2003). It has been argued that this discontinuity effect may be explained by greater greed
601 and/or fear in intergroup compared to interindividual interactions, or by group decisions being
602 ‘more rational’ because group members attain a more thorough understanding of the game
603 structure through the intragroup discussions that often precede the group decision (for an
604 overview of potential explanations, see Wildschut and Insko, 2007).
605 4.3.4 Team Games
606 Intergroup allocations consider only the conflict of interest between groups, while assuming
607 that the interests of in-group members align. In real-world intergroup conflict, however,
608 intergroup discrimination is often costly to the discriminating individual (see section 3.2.6).
609 Therefore, team games model both a conflict between groups and the potentially conflicting
610 interests of members within a group, i.e., a multi-level conflict (for an overview, see
611 Bornstein, 2003).
e.g., Fehr and Schmidt, 2006) and how such preferences may potentially differ between in-group and out-group
interaction partners.
612 The intergroup prisoner’s dilemma game (Bornstein, 1992) is a prominent example. In
613 this game, players are divided into two equally sized groups. Group members have to decide
614 individually and independently whether to contribute to a public good that increases the
615 payoff of each in-group member but decreases the payoff of each out-group member.
616 Contributions are costly, such that individual payoff maximization would predict withholding
617 contributions. In addition, withholding contributions maximizes social welfare, i.e., the
618 payoffs of all players, taking both groups together. In contrast, contributing to the public good
619 maximizes the payoffs of in-group members and the relative difference in payoffs between
620 groups. Several adaptations of this game have been devised to distinguish, for instance,
621 between the motivations to benefit the in-group vs. harm the out-group and between the
622 motivations to egoistically maximize personal payoff vs. prosocially maximize collective
623 welfare (Halevy et al., 2008). Other adaptations have been proposed to distinguish between
624 offensive vs. defensive intentions (Böhm et al., 2016; De Dreu et al., 2016).
625 In principle, team games are structurally similar to the contest games studied in
626 economics and biology (Kimbrough et al., in press, this issue; Rusch and Gavrilets, in press,
627 this issue). Using team games, it has been shown that groups are more likely to overcome
628 internal free-riding tendencies if the intragroup conflict is embedded in an intergroup conflict
629 (Bornstein and Ben-Yossef, 1994). Furthermore, the motivation to benefit the in-group
630 appears to be a stronger motivation to engage in costly intergroup conflict than the motivation
631 to outcompete or harm the out-group. In fact, participants often try to avoid actively harming
632 out-groups if possible (e.g., Halevy et al., 2012, 2008; Weisel and Böhm, 2015).
633 5. Disentangling Semantics
634 As the previous sections have shown, psychological theorizing about human perceptions,
635 motivations, and behaviors relevant in the context of intergroup conflict is diverse and relies
636 on a variety of measures. Remarkably, these measures differ in their treatment of the three
637 basic types of outcomes that intergroup conflicts can have: those for the target individual, its
638 in-group members, and the out-group members. Accordingly, the intergroup biases they
639 measure are quite different, too (see Table 1).
640 However, psychologists working on intergroup conflict use a substantially overlapping
641 terminology when referring to intergroup bias and typically do not account for these
642 differences in the incentive structures. In our view, this represents one of the most important
643 obstacles to future work in this field – a problem that can be fixed through a refined
644 terminology, though.
645
646 Table 1. Indicators of intergroup bias in different allocation task measures.
647
Measure Actor’s In-group Out-group Indicator of Suggested Label of
Individual Recipients’ Recipients’ Intergroup Bias Intergroup Bias
Outcome Outcome Outcome
Third-Party
Allocation n/a y z y>z Parochialism
Tasks
First-Party x1 y n/a
Parochial Altruism,
Allocation (x1 – y) < (x2 – z)
Composite Measure
Tasks x2 n/a z
Intergroup
Allocation x x z x>z Parochial Mutualism
Tasks
Team Parochial Altruism,
x y z
Games (y > x) ⋀ (y > z) Direct Measure
Note. x, y, z: marginal outcomes (x + y + z = const.) as a consequence of a actor’s decision; n/a: no effect of
decision on this outcome. In-group recipients’ outcome and out-group recipients’ outcome refer to outcomes of
individual group members.
648
649 Take ‘parochial altruism’ as an example (see section 3.2.6). The concept was originally
650 coined to explain a very specific phenomenon, namely individually costly but in-group
651 beneficial behavior that harms an out-group, all at the same time. However, over time, this
652 initially quite precise meaning of the term has softened and parochial altruism has become a
653 catch-all term for a variety of intergroup biases (Cacault et al., 2015). As can easily be seen
654 from Table 1, though, behavior that completely fulfils the original definition of parochial
655 altruism is captured only by team games, in which an individual can contribute to in-group
656 success at a personal cost (y > x) in order to make the in-group fare better than the out-group
657 (y > z). Although a similar structure is also present in first-party allocation tasks, in these the
658 interest of the in-group and the interest of the out-group never are in direct conflict. Hence, an
659 intergroup bias as measured by a first-party allocation task only represents a composite proxy
660 of parochial altruism.
661 The ‘social semantics’ developed by West and colleagues (West et al., 2007), are
662 helpful in disentangling the other ‘biases’ as well. They distinguish four types of social
663 behaviors based on their outcomes for the acting individual, ‘actor’, and the individual(s)
664 affected by the action, ‘recipients’: Mutually beneficial behavior (+/+) benefits all parties,
665 selfish behavior (+/–) benefits the actor at a cost to the recipients, spiteful behavior (–/–) is
666 costly for all parties, and altruistic behavior (–/+) benefits the recipients at a cost to the actor.
667 Accordingly, the intergroup bias measured with intergroup allocation tasks is best described
668 as ‘parochial mutualism’ because the actor’s outcome is aligned with the in-group recipients’
669 outcome. In contrast, the intergroup bias measured through third-party allocation tasks should
670 merely be labeled ‘parochialism’, as it does not bring the actor’s self-interest into conflict
671 with the in-group or out-group recipients’ outcome and is thus neither altruistic nor
672 mutualistic.
673 As these examples show, refined terminology can be of great clarificatory use for the
674 interpretation of theoretical and empirical work on individual group-conditional social
675 behaviors. And, at least in our view, this is more than just quibbling, for example because
676 there are important differences between the trajectories along which mutualism and altruism
677 evolve (West et al., 2011), but also because clear conceptual distinctions can help to design
678 behavioral experiments that differentiate between (parochially) altruistic and (parochially)
679 mutualistic motives more clearly. In addition, clarifying the (differential) motivations that can
680 lead to biased intergroup behavior may also help to increase reproducibility of intergroup bias
681 effects.
682 It should of course be noted that the refinements just suggested are still coarse. They
683 can be extended to include heterogeneous effects of the actor’s behavior on different in-group
684 and out-group recipients, and, importantly, also behaviors that have negligible costs.
685 Additionally, our suggested semantic differentiation does not distinguish between behaviors
686 that do not benefit out-group members (or to a lesser degree than in-group members) vs.
687 behaviors that harm out-group members. However, this distinction might be a psychologically
688 important one (e.g., Mummendey et al., 2000; Weisel and Böhm, 2015). Accordingly, it has
689 been suggested recently to label the former ‘weak’ parochial altruism, and the latter ‘strong’
690 parochial altruism (Böhm, 2016; Böhm et al., 2017). Future research is definitely needed,
691 though, to better understand the psychological underpinnings of these qualitatively different
692 forms of discriminatory out-group treatment.
693 6. Epilogue: De-Biasing Intergroup Perceptions
694 Psychological research has proposed various interventions to de-bias intergroup perceptions
695 in order to avoid or reduce intergroup conflict. These interventions rest on different
696 assumptions about the underlying processes and causes of intergroup conflict as proposed by
697 different theories (see section 3.2). As we cannot describe all these interventions in detail, we
698 provide selected examples in the following.
699 6.1 Changing Incentives
700 According to realistic group conflict theory (see section 3.2.2), groups’ negative
701 interdependence over scarce resources creates intergroup conflict. Consequently, decreasing
702 negative outcome interdependence and increasing positive outcome interdependence should
703 reduce intergroup conflict. Indeed, it has been shown that ‘doing things together’ to achieve
704 shared outcomes can increase intergroup cooperation and liking (Sherif, 1958).
705 6.2 Changing Social Categorizations and Out-Group Perceptions

706 Social identity theory (see section 3.2.3) posits that intergroup conflict may arise even in the
707 absence of negative interdependences between groups as a result of social categorization
708 processes. Interventions derived from this perspective aim to change individuals’ level of
709 categorization (for an overview, see e.g., Hewstone et al., 2002). First, ‘decategorization’
710 seeks to eliminate social categorization through dissolving the perception that opposing
711 groups form homogeneous units (‘differentiation’ and ‘personalization’). Supporting the
712 effectiveness of this strategy, it has been shown that an interpersonal focus decreases
713 intergroup bias (e.g., Bettencourt et al., 1992). Second, ‘recategorization’ seeks to change the
714 level of categorization from ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ (i.e., salience of subordinate social identities) into
715 ‘we’ (i.e., salience of the superordinate level of categorization). There is evidence that such a
716 higher level of categorization reduces intergroup bias over time (e.g., Dovidio et al., 1995;
717 Gaertner et al., 1990).
718 Although both decategorization and recategorization can reduce biased intergroup
719 perceptions and behaviors, eradicating or replacing original categorizations may not always
720 be possible or could threaten individuals’ need for assimilation and differentiation (Hewstone
721 et al., 2002). Therefore, other approaches aim to reduce intergroup conflict while maintaining
722 the individuals (different) social identities. A prominent intervention of this kind is intergroup
723 contact (for an overview, see Pettigrew, 1998). Following Allport’s (1954) original
724 formulation, it has been suggested that interpersonal contact between members from different
725 groups can improve attitudes toward out-groups given that (i) individuals perceive to have
726 equal status, (ii) the contact situation encourages cooperation and promotes common goals,
727 (iii) has normative and institutional support, and (iv) allows for the development of friendship
728 through repeated and meaningful interaction; ideally, then, positive experiences made with
729 individual out-group members generalize to a more positive attitude toward the out-group as a
730 whole.
731 Meta-analytical evidence indeed found that intergroup contact reduces intergroup bias
732 by enhancing knowledge about the out-group, reducing anxiety about intergroup contact, and
733 increasing empathy and perspective taking (for meta-analyses, see Pettigrew and Tropp, 2008,
734 2006). Hence, among other things, intergroup contact can reduce perceived out-group threat
735 (see section 3.2.4). More indirect forms of intergroup contact have also been shown to
736 decrease intergroup bias (for a review, see Dovidio et al., 2011), e.g., observing an in-group
737 member experiencing positive intergroup contact (Mazziotta et al., 2011), or even just
738 imagining a positive intergroup interaction (e.g., Crisp et al., 2009).
739 Other interventions focus on increasing the salience of shared group memberships. For
740 instance, two individuals from different working teams may be fans of the same sports team
741 or may have graduated from the same school. Highlighting such overlapping group
742 memberships has also been shown to reduce intergroup bias (e.g., Crisp et al., 2006; Crisp and
743 Hewstone, 1999).
744 6.3 Changing Perceptions of Mutual/Opposing Interests
745 The theory of bounded generalized reciprocity (see section 3.2.5) assumes that individuals are
746 prone to perceive aligned interests with in-group members and, in turn, to readily engage in
747 costly in-group cooperation, while avoiding cooperation with or even actively harming out-
748 group members. Some theories even suggest that such ‘default’ perceptions and preferences
749 may have been shaped by evolutionary adaptation processes (see section 3.2.6). Yet, there are
750 several interventions that aim to reduce intergroup bias by reshaping individuals’ cognitive
751 representations of how their personal interests relate to those of in-group and out-group
752 members. We describe four of such interventions.
753 First, intergroup bias is supported by the ‘illusion of morality as self-interest’ (Baron,
754 2012, 2001, 1997). People tend to think that individually costly contributions that benefit their
755 group are actually in their self-interest. They reason, “What I contribute helps my group. I am
756 a member of my group. Therefore, my contribution helps me.” However, this reasoning
757 neglects the fact that in many cases their personal return is actually lower than their
758 contribution. This illusion is larger when the group is easily identified as the individual’s in-
759 group (Baron, 2012, 2001). However, when group members are forced to calculate the self-
760 interest benefit of their contribution, along with its benefit for others, both the self-interest
761 illusion and in-group bias itself are reduced.
762 Second, intergroup bias is greater when outsiders are thought of as a group rather than
763 as individuals (Baron, 2012). It has been shown that supposing that out-group harm would
764 occur to an identified individual (even if identified by just a name) would reduce the
765 willingness to support such harm. In one experiment (Baron, 2012), for instance, participants
766 made hypothetical decisions about proceeds from investments of funds contributed by
767 workers in a company with offices in different countries. American participants were more
768 intergroup biased when the ‘other office’ was in China or India than when it was in the U.S.
769 Importantly, this effect was greater when they voted on decisions about entire offices than
770 when they made decisions about themselves and a single co-worker in another office. These
771 results suggest that intergroup bias is associated with abstract representations of groups rather
772 than direct experience of individual human beings. Thus, intergroup bias might be
773 ameliorated by focusing on the humanity of individual out-group members.
774 Third, intergroup bias is greater when the option that helps the in-group but hurts the
775 out-group is an omission than when it is an act (e.g., Baron, 2012; Weisel and Böhm, 2015).
776 In general, people evaluate harmful acts as morally worse than equally harmful omissions.
777 They are willing to let out-group members suffer harm by failing to help them, in order to
778 help their in-group. But they are much less willing to take an action that hurts out-group
779 members to the same extent, for the same in-group benefit. Thus, reframing harmful
780 omissions as if they were actions, e.g., opposing a reform, or failing to oppose a regression in
781 policy, can increase people’s inclination to think about the out-group harm they would cause.
782 Fourth, intergroup bias is supported by beliefs about the moral duty of in-group
783 members toward one another (e.g., Baron, 2012; Baron et al., 2013; Buchan et al., 2009).
784 These findings suggest that many individuals are not parochial but are, in their value
785 judgments, truly cosmopolitan. Still, they show intergroup bias because they accept certain
786 malleable cultural norms about what our duties are. Challenging such cultural norms, for
787 instance, by demanding justification, could therefore reduce intergroup bias (Singer, 1981).
788 7. Discussion and Outlook
789 To summarize: Research on psychological mechanisms underlying potentially conflictual
790 intergroup relations is a rich field consisting of partially complementary, partially competing
791 theories, working with a plethora of rating instruments as well as observational and allocation
792 (game) measures (see Table 2 for a synoptic overview). Still, an undisputed assumption at the
793 intersection of all theories, and a core insight of virtually all empirical work on the topic, is
794 that humans readily condition their attitudes and behaviors on markers of group membership.
795 Yet, our understanding for why this is so diverge and the list of personality traits and
796 situational factors that can turn co-existing groups into enemies still is tentative and partially
797 disputed.
798
799 Table 2. Research on intergroup conflict in psychology.

800
Description
A formal definition of intergroup
conflict The perceived incompatibility of goals or values between two or more
individuals, which emerges because the involved individuals classify
themselves as members of different social groups.
Important theories of intergroup Personality theories, e.g., right-wing authoritarianism (e.g., Altemeyer,
conflict 1998); social dominance orientation (e.g., Sidanius and Pratto, 2001)
Realistic group conflict theory (Sherif, 1966)
Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986, 1979)
Integrated threat theory (Stephan and Stephan, 2000)
Theory of bounded generalized reciprocity (Yamagishi et al., 1999)
Theory of parochial altruism (Choi and Bowles, 2007)
Methods used to study intergroup Primarily experiments using different measures of intergroup prejudice
conflict and discrimination, e.g., rating measures, behavioral measures, allocation
tasks (third-party, first-party, and intergroup allocations, team games)
801
802 Given the complexity of the matter and the partially incompatible views of the workings
803 of human psychology on which some of the theories presented above are based (e.g.,
804 culturalistic vs. naturalistic), we hold that an all-embracing convergence on ‘the’
805 psychological theory of intergroup relations is not to be expected soon, if ever. However, we
806 do think (i) that a unified semantic framework would be of great help in moving this field of
807 research forward (see section 5); (ii) that, given the plethora of existing empirical work in this
808 field, the time is ripe for intensified meta-analytical work (e.g., Aberson et al., 2000; Balliet et
809 al., 2014; Bettencourt et al., 2001; Riek et al., 2006); and (iii) that studies that compare the
810 robustness of previously reported effects across different measurement methods are a very
811 important next step (see section 4). Moreover, we see a great potential for future research in
812 psychology (iv) that integrates theories and methods from other scientific disciplines. For
813 instance, anthropological and biological research may help psychologists to identify important
814 modulators of individual behaviors in intergroup conflict, e.g., intra- and intergroup
815 heterogeneity in status, power, or incentives (e.g., Gavrilets and Fortunato, 2014; Glowacki et
816 al., 2016). Research in economics and management could support psychologists in devising
817 novel and more fine-grained behavioral (game) measures of intergroup discrimination (for an
818 overview, see Kimbrough et al., in press, this issue). Moreover, bio-physiological methods
819 (e.g., neuro-imaging, hormone-level tracking) may serve as an additional tool to further
820 explore and understand the psychological processes involved in intergroup conflict (e.g.,
821 Cikara and Van Bavel, 2014; De Dreu et al., 2011). We believe that the synergies as well as
822 the frictions that such exchanges of theoretical views and methodological approaches produce
823 will certainly yield stimulating impulses for the advancement of the field(s).
824 All in all, we are optimistic that the psychological study of intergroup conflict will
825 blossom forth in the nearer future, in particular because ending ongoing intergroup conflicts
826 and preventing new ones from escalating remains one of the most pressing problems of the
827 century (Fiske, 2002).

828 Acknowledgements
829 We are grateful to Kevin Laughren for conducting the literature search underlying Figure 1.
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The Psychology of Intergroup Conﬂict: A Review of Theories and Measures

Article in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · October 2020

Robert Böhm Hannes Rusch

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6 The Psychology of Intergroup Conflict: A Review of Theories and Measures

9 Robert Böhm1,*, Hannes Rusch2,3, Jonathan Baron4

20 Germany, Phone: +49 241 8097000, Email: robert.boehm@rwth-aachen.de

22 We review psychological research on intergroup conflict. First, we outline psychological

25 predicting individual prejudice, discrimination, and conflict engagement. Third, we review

26 popular measures of intergroup discrimination, including rating measures, behavioral

31 stronger interdisciplinary orientation regarding both theoretical perspectives and methods

32 used and point out promising avenues for future research.

34 Keywords: Intergroup Conflict; Intergroup Bias; Discrimination, Conflict Resolution

36 Human prosociality is a Janus-faced phenomenon. Although cooperation within groups is

45 Research on the cognitions, emotions, and motivations underlying intergroup conflict

48 such diverse topics as perceptions of group membership, behavioral consequences of

52 conflict in leading social psychology journals over the last 25 years.

61 After a brief introduction to the terminology used in psychological research on forms

74 2.1 Definitions of Groups

84 not share that group membership with the target individual.

88 individuals’ outcomes of social interaction relate to each other. Such outcome

95 identifying oneself as belonging to a certain group and/or being recognized as a member of

99 such as refugees or abortion; Parker and Janoff-Bulman, 2013).

100 2.2 Perceptions of Groups

117 these individuals’ personal vs. social identity salience.

118 Building on cognitive principles of categorical perception, the social categorization

125 snowboarders as a single social category.

133 out-group member.

138 act like.

150 al., 2001; Stenstrom et al., 2008).

151 2.3 Functions of Groups

164 psychology is adapted to group living (Tooby and Cosmides, 2010).

196 need for differentiation from out-groups.

198 relationships, often accompanied by a positive interdependence in goals and outcomes, as

206 3. Intergroup Conflict

207 3.1 Definition and Types of Intergroup Conflict

222 3.2 Psychological Theories of Intergroup Conflict

232 particular interest for an interdisciplinary audience.

233 3.2.1 Personality Theories

239 authoritarianism, which is characterized by the belief in absolute obedience or submission to

244 authoritarian personality.

250 minorities (e.g., Duckitt and Farre, 1994).

252 proneness to be prejudiced and discriminatory toward out-groups is ‘social dominance

260 hierarchies). In such hierarchies, discrimination is legitimized by culturally shared ideologies.

263 increase intergroup equality (low SDO; e.g., diversity).

272 3.2.2 Realistic Group Conflict Theory

283 ‘realistic’ factors, i.e., actual needs.

309 intergroup conflict.

310 3.2.3 Social Identity Theory

319 discriminatory preferences to be revealed. Accordingly, social identity theory is closely

324 due to a favorable comparison of their in-group to an out-group on relevant dimensions.2

360 member’s gain was reduced even more as a result.

361 3.2.4 Integrated Threat Theory

396 perception of threats.

397 3.2.5 Theory of Bounded Generalized Reciprocity

412 expectations of generalized reciprocity (Yamagishi and Kiyonari, 2000).7 It is further

418 hostile behaviors toward out-group members.

424 reciprocity between in-group members – or depended on another in-group member’s

445 3.2.6 The Co-Evolutionary Theory of Parochial Altruism