Chapter Outline

01 Intergroup Conflict: Us versus Them

02 Intergroup Bias: Perceiving Us and Them

Intergroup Conflict Resolution:

03 Uniting Us and Them
Intergroup Conflict:
Us Versus Them
 Competition and Conflict
• Realistic Group Conflict Theory - a conceptual framework
arguing that conflict between groups stems from competition for
scarce resources, including food, territory, wealth, power, natural
resources, and energy.

• Discontinuity Effect - the markedly greater competitiveness of

groups when interacting with other groups, relative to the
competitiveness of individuals interacting with other individuals.
• One-on-one interactions: dyadic interactions,
such as playing chess, walking to class with
another person.
• Within-group interactions: interacting with
other members of one’s group, such as a club
meeting or a classroom discussion.
• One-on-group interactions: interacting as a
single individual with a group, such as a student
meeting with the honor council.
• Group-on-one interactions: interacting as a
part of a group with a single individual, such as
a class confronting a teacher over a grading
policy.
• Group-on-group interactions: interacting as
part of a group with another group, such as a
soccer game or a joint session of two classes.
Causes of Discontinuity
• Greed - Individuals are greedy, but groups are even greedier.
• Fear - people fear groups more than they fear individuals. They describe groups as
more abrasive (competitive, aggressive, and proud) and less agreeable
(cooperative, trustworthy, and helpful) than individuals
• Social Identity - individuals who identify with their group tend to act to maximize
the group’s collective outcomes, even if that comes at a cost to those outside of
the group

 Social Dominance Theory - an approach to oppression and domination assuming

that conflict between groups results from dynamic tensions between hierarchically
ranked groups within society.
 Intergroup Aggression

● Frustration–aggression hypothesis - an early motivational model that argued that

individuals become more aggressive whenever external conditions prevent them from
reaching their goals.
● General aggression model - a framework for organizing biological, environmental, social, and
psychological factors that influence the expression of hostile, negative behavior, including (1)
person and situational inputs; (2) cognitive, affective, and arousal states, and (3) cognitive
appraisals.
● Scapegoat theory - an explanation of intergroup conflict arguing that hostility caused by
frustrating environmental circumstances (such as abuse by others or failure) is released by
taking hostile actions against members of other social groups.
 Norms and Conflict
● The Norm of Reciprocity - Groups, like
individuals, tend to obey the norm of
reciprocity. They answer threats with
threats, insults with insults, and
aggression with aggression.
Evolutionary Perspectives
● Evolutionary psychology suggests
natural selection favored individuals who
preferred ingroup members over
outgroup members. This theory suggests
that evolutionary pressures have
resulted in the tendency for individuals
to respond more negatively to outgroup
members who are male rather than
female.
 Conflict Intensification

Verbal abuse
Intergroup Discrimination
Exclusion Physical Violence
 Cultural Norms

Dignity Cultures
societies that stress the
importance of personal
integrity and individual worth Honor Cultures

cultures where people strive to

Face cultures avoid offending others, but will
respond aggressively if they feel
they or their group has been
societies that emphasize insulted in some way
hierarchy, humility, and
harmony
Intergroup Bias:
Perceiving Us
and Them
 Conflict and
Categorization
We have different feelings towards
members of the ingroup and members of
the outgroup, and these evaluative biases
are further sustained by cognitive and
emotional biases that justify the evaluative
ones—stereotypic thinking, misjudgment,
and intensification of emotions, as well as
social identity.
 The Ingroup-Outgroup
Bias
● Favoring one’s own group over all
others.
● Each group nourishes its own pride
and vanity, boasts itself superior,
exalts its own divinities, and looks
with contempt on outsiders
 Ingroup Positivity &
Outgroup Negativity
● We favor our own group and
derogate the outgroup.
● Example:
- Groupings for class activity/
requirement

● Overall, however, ingroup love is

stronger than outgroup hate
 Double-Standard
Thinking
● Judging the actions and attributes
of one’s own group positively but
viewing these very same
behaviors or displays negatively
when the outgroup performs
them.
 Linguistic Intergroup Bias
● positive ingroup descriptions and negative
outgroup descriptions are abstract and
vague, while negative ingroup descriptions
and positive outgroup descriptions are
specific and observable.
● Abstract statements are vague and harder to
prove wrong, while concrete statements are
specific, and easy to brush off as exceptions
to the rule, therefore keeping stereotypes
intact (Whitley & Kite, 2010). 
Implicit Intergroup Biases
• Even when people deny any and all
preferences based on race, color, or creed,
the IAT tells a different story: whites favor
whites over blacks; U.S. citizens favor
Americans over Canadians; members of
fraternities favor other fraternity members
over independent students; Catholics favor
Catholics over Protestants; the young favor
the young over the old; and so on. These
biases occur even when people are
striving to suppress their biases.
 Cognitive Consequences of Categorization

Outgroup-Homogeneity
Group Attribution Error Law of Small Numbers
Effect
• Assuming outgroup • We base judgments • We base judgments about
members are all the same about individuals on the another group based on
• “they are alike; we are general characteristics of observations of a small
diverse” the whole group number of individuals
Cognitive Consequences of Categorization

Ultimate Attribution Error Stereotypes

• Attributing negative actions
performed by members of the
outgroup to dispositional qualities
and positive actions to situational,
fluctuating circumstances.
• We rely on cognitive
generalizations about
qualities and characteristics
of members of a particular
group
 Stereotype
Content Model
• A theory of group perception
positing that people’s
stereotyped views about social
groups reflect their beliefs
about the warmth and
competence of the
stereotyped group.
 Exclusion and Dehumanization

01 02 03

Group Hate Moral Exclusion Dehumanization

• When group members believe that
previously harmful acts of outgroup
members intentionally harmed the
ingroup
• opponents in a conflict Believing that other
come to view each other individuals lack the qualities
as undeserving of morally thought to distinguish human
mandated rights and beings from other animals
protections
 Categorization and Identity

Identity and Intergroup Conflict

● The biasing effects of group membership are even more substantial when:
(1) individuals identify with their group rather than simply belonging to it
(2) the relative status of existing groups is salient
● When individuals feel that the value of their group is being questioned, they
respond by underscoring the distinctiveness of their own group and by derogating
others
 Categorization and Identity

Identity and Self-Esteem

● Individuals who experience a threat to their self-esteem tend to discriminate more

against outgroups, and low-status, peripheral members of the group are often the
most zealous in their defense of their group and in the rejection of the outgroup
● Schadenfreude- They take pleasure when other groups fail
 Categorization and Identity

Identity and Self-Esteem

● In some cases, derogating outgroup members raises certain forms of self-esteem

and praising the ingroup tends to bolster self esteem—but only so long as the
ingroup’s norms support that bias
● Though people are quick to praise their ingroup, they still think that they are
superior to most people—including all the members of their own group.
 Intergroup Contact
• Contact Hypothesis - the prediction
that contact between the members of
different groups will reduce intergroup
conflict.
• Superordinate Goals – a goal that can
only be attained if two or more
individuals or groups work together by
pooling their efforts and resources.
• Cooperation and Cohesion
• A Common Enemy
• The Importance of Friendship
Extended contact hypothesis - the prediction that cross-
group friendships not only increase the two friends’ acceptance of
the respective outgroups but also cause other members of their
groups to become more positive toward the outgroups as well.
 Decategorization Recategorization
encourages members to
recognize the collapsing the boundaries
individuality of the between groups
outgroup members.

Cognitive
Cures for
Common ingroup Conflict
identity model
Cross-categorization
suggests that involves making salient, multiple
recategorization reduces group memberships and intergroup
conflict yet can promote forgiveness urges members to
the retention of identities accept and move beyond prior
conflicts.
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