GROUP

DYNAMICS AND
INTERGROUP
RELATIONS
BY:
Dr. Khusboo
Assistant Professor
Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies
GROUPS
“A group is a social unit consisting of a number of individuals who stand in role and status of
relationship to one another, stabilizing in some degree at the time and who process a set of
values or norms of their own behavior, at least, in matters of consequence to the group”. – Sherif
and Sherif
NATURE OF GROUPS
NATURE OF GROUPS
 There are different types of groups which are created to get some specific results in any
organizations. The team members agree to a general task, become mutually dependent relative
in their action, and work together with each other to support its success. There are three views
on the nature of act between team members. The first is normative, which explain how to carry
out performance and manage the team. The second view is includes of a set of method, group
building, role play, self managed groups and sensitivity training of the members. The third is
referred as a team dynamic from the point of sight that the internal nature of any groups.
 Interdependence- The primary characteristic of groups is that members of a group are
Interdependent on one another for the group to maintain its existence and achieve its objective.
In short, interdependence involves the need to work together to successfully achieve a goal.
 Interaction- There must be interaction in groups for its existence. Without purposeful
interaction, a group does not survive. Roles, norms, and relationships between
members of a group are developed through interaction.
NATURE OF GROUPS
 Common Goals- The people who form the group are brought together for some reason or
purpose. While most members of a group have personal goals, a group is largely defined by
the common goals of the group.
 Cohesiveness- One-way team members comprehend the idea of communicating in groups and
teams is when they experience a sense of harmony or cohesiveness with other members of the
group. When we understand that we are part of something bigger, we experience a feeling of
unity or wholeness and can find a purpose that is greater than our personal desires and goals.
 Synergy- One advantage of working as a team is that they allow us to achieve things we
wouldn’t be able to achieve on our own. The Theory of synergy suggests that
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
DECISION MAKING
 One important factor that helps groups to outperform individuals on decision-making tasks is
the type of interdependence they have. In general, positively interdependent (cooperative)
groups tend to make better decisions than both negatively interdependent (competitive) groups
and individuals, particularly in complex tasks.
 These process gains come from a variety of factors. One is that when group members interact,
they often generate new ideas and solutions that they would not have arrived at individually.
 Group members are also more likely than individuals to notice and correct mistakes that can
harm sound decision making. They additionally have better collective memory, meaning that
many minds hold more relevant information than one, and superior transactive memory, which
occurs when interactions between group members facilitate the recall of important material.
 Also, when individual group members share information that is unique to them, they increase
the total amount of data that the group can then draw on when making sound decisions
DECISION MAKING
 Groups can make effective decisions only when they are able to make use of the advantages
outlined above that come with group membership. However, these conditions are not always met
in real groups.
 Groupthink occurs when a group that is made up of members who may actually be very
competent and thus quite capable of making excellent decisions nevertheless ends up making a
poor one as a result of a flawed group process and strong conformity pressure.
 Groupthink is more likely to occur in groups in which the members are feeling strong social
identity—for instance, when there is a powerful and directive leader who creates a positive group
feeling, and in times of stress and crisis when the group needs to rise to the occasion and make an
important decision. The problem is that groups suffering from groupthink become unwilling to
seek out or discuss discrepant or unsettling information about the topic at hand, and the group
members do not express contradictory opinions. Because the group members are afraid to express
ideas that contradict those of the leader or to bring in outsiders who have other information, the
group is prevented from making a fully informed decision.
DECISION MAKING
 Cognitive Process Losses: Lack of Information Sharing:

Although group discussion generally improves the quality of a group’s decisions, this will only
be true if the group discusses the information that is most useful to the decision that needs to be
made. One difficulty is that groups tend to discuss some types of information more than others.
In addition to the pressures to focus on information that comes from leaders and that is
consistent with group norms, discussion is influenced by the way the relevant information is
originally shared among the group members.

The problem is that group members tend to discuss information that they all have access to
while ignoring equally important information that is available to only a few of the members, a
tendency known as the shared information bias
DECISION MAKING
 GROUP POLARIZATION:

One common decision-making task of groups is to come to a consensus regarding a judgment,

such as where to hold a party, whether a defendant is innocent or guilty, or how much money a
corporation should invest in a new product. Whenever a majority of members in the group favors a
given opinion, even if that majority is very slim, the group is likely to end up adopting that
majority opinion. Of course, such a result would be expected, since, as a result of conformity
pressures, the group’s final judgment should reflect the average of group members’ initial opinions.
Although groups generally do show pressures toward conformity, the tendency to side with the
majority after group discussion turns out to be even stronger than this. It is commonly found that
groups make even more extreme decisions, in the direction of the existing norm, than we would
predict they would, given the initial opinions of the group members. Group polarization is said to
occur when, after discussion, the attitudes held by the individual group members become more
extreme than they were before the group began discussing the topic.
COOPERATION
 Humans need to cooperate with others to survive and to thrive. Cooperation,
or the coordination of multiple individuals toward a goal that benefits the
entire group, is a fundamental feature of human social life.
 Whether on the playground with friends, at home with family, or at work with
colleagues, cooperation is a natural instinct. Humans’ closest evolutionary
relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, maintain long-term cooperative
relationships as well, sharing resources and caring for each other’s young.
Ancient animal remains found near early human settlements suggest that our
ancestors hunted in cooperative groups. Cooperation, it seems, is embedded in
our evolutionary heritage.
COOPERATION
 Yet, cooperation can also be difficult to achieve; there are often breakdowns in
people’s ability to work effectively in teams, or in their willingness to
collaborate with others. Even with issues that can only be solved through
large-scale cooperation, such as climate change and world hunger, people can
have difficulties joining forces with others to take collective action.
 Psychologists have identified numerous individual and situational factors that
influence the effectiveness of cooperation across many areas of life.
 From the trust that people place in others to the lines they draw between “us”
and “them,” many different processes shape cooperation.
INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES IN
COOPERATION
SOCIAL VALUE ORIENTATION
 Social Value Orientation
 One key factor related to individual differences in cooperation is the extent to which people
value not only their own outcomes, but also the outcomes of others. Social value
orientation (SVO) describes people’s preferences when dividing important resources between
themselves and others. A person might, for example, generally be competitive with others, or
cooperative, or self-sacrificing. People with different social values differ in the importance
they place on their own positive outcomes relative to the outcomes of others.
 For example, you might give your friend gas money because she drives you to school, even
though that means you will have less spending money for the weekend. In this example, you
are demonstrating a cooperative orientation.
 People generally fall into one of three categories of SVO: cooperative, individualistic, or
competitive. While most people want to bring about positive outcomes for all (cooperative
orientation), certain types of people are less concerned about the outcomes of others
(individualistic), or even seek to undermine others in order to get ahead (competitive
orientation).
EMPATHIC ABILITY
 Empathy is the ability to feel and understand another’s emotional experience. When we
empathize with someone else, we take on that person’s perspective, imagining the world from
his or her point of view and vicariously experiencing his or her emotions.
 Research has shown that when people empathize with their partner, they act with greater
cooperation and overall altruism—the desire to help the partner, even at a potential cost to the
self. People that can experience and understand the emotions of others are better able to work
with others in groups, earning higher job performance ratings on average from their
supervisors, even after adjusting for different types of work and other aspects of personality.
 When empathizing with a person in distress, the natural desire to help is often expressed as a
desire to cooperate.
EMPATHIC ABILITY
 In one study, just before playing an economic game with a partner in another
room, participants were given a note revealing that their partner had just gone
through a rough breakup and needed some cheering up. While half of the
subjects were urged by the experimenters to “remain objective and detached,”
the other half were told to “try and imagine how the other person feels.”
Though both groups received the same information about their partner, those
who were encouraged to engage in empathy—by actively experiencing their
partner’s emotions—acted with greater cooperation in the economic game
(Batson & Moran, 1999).
 The researchers also found that people who empathized with their partners
were more likely to act cooperatively, even after being told that their partner
had already made a choice to not cooperate (Batson & Ahmad, 2001).
SITUATIONAL
INFLUENCES OF
COOPERATION
COMMUNICATION AND
COMMITMENT
 Open communication between people is one of the best ways to promote cooperation. This is
because communication provides an opportunity to size up the trustworthiness of others. It
also affords us a chance to prove our own trustworthiness, by verbally committing to
cooperate with others.
 Since cooperation requires people to enter a state of vulnerability and trust with partners, we
are very sensitive to the social cues and interactions of potential partners before deciding to
cooperate with them.
TRUST
 When it comes to cooperation, trust is key.
 Working with others toward a common goal requires a level of faith that our partners will repay our
hard work and generosity, and not take advantage of us for their own selfish gains. Social trust, or the
belief that another person’s actions will be beneficial to one’s own interests enables people to work
together as a single unit, pooling their resources to accomplish more than they could individually.
Trusting others, however, depends on their actions and reputation.
 One common example of the difficulties in trusting others that you might recognize from being a
student occurs when you are assigned a group project. Many students dislike group projects because
they worry about “social loafing”—the way that one person expends less effort but still benefits from
the efforts of the group. Imagine, for example, that you and five other students are assigned to work
together on a difficult class project. At first, you and your group members split the work up evenly. As
the project continues, however, you notice that one member of your team isn’t doing his “fair share.”
He fails to show up to meetings, his work is sloppy, and he seems generally uninterested in
contributing to the project. After a while, you might begin to suspect that this student is trying to get
by with minimal effort, perhaps assuming others will pick up the slack. Your group now faces a
difficult choice: either join the slacker and abandon all work on the project, causing it to collapse, or
keep cooperating and allow for the possibility that the uncooperative student may receive a decent
grade for others’ work.
GROUP IDENTIFICATION
 Another factor that can impact cooperation is a person’s social identity, or the extent to which
he or she identifies as a member of a particular social group. People can identify with groups
of all shapes and sizes: a group might be relatively small, such as a local high school class, or
very large, such as a national citizenship or a political party. While these groups are often
bound together by shared goals and values, they can also form according to seemingly
arbitrary qualities, such as musical taste, hometown, or even completely randomized
assignment, such as a coin. When members of a group place a high value on their group
membership, their identity (the way they view themselves) can be shaped in part by the goals
and values of that group.
 When people strongly identify with a group, their own well-being becomes bound to the
welfare of that group, increasing their willingness to make personal sacrifices for its benefit.
We see this with sports fans. When fans heavily identify with a favorite team, they become
elated when the team wins and sad when the team loses. Die-hard fans often make personal
sacrifices to support their team, such as braving terrible weather, paying high prices for tickets,
and standing and chanting during games.
PREJUDICE,
STEREOTYPING
AND
DISCRIMINATION
STEREOTYPES
 One of the processes that occur when people meet someone new is the assignment of that
person to some kind of category or group. This assignment is usually based on characteristics
the new person has in common with other people or groups with whom the perceiver has had
prior experience. This social categorization is mostly automatic and occurs without conscious
awareness of the process. Although this is a natural process, sometimes it can cause problems.
 When the characteristics used to categorize the person are superficial* ones that have become
improperly attached to certain ideas, such as “red hair equals a bad temper,” social
categorization can result in a stereotype, a set of characteristics that people believe is shared by
all members of a particular social category (Fiske, 1998). Stereotypes (although not always
negative) are very limiting, causing people to misjudge what others are like and often to treat
them differently as a result.
PREJUDICE AND
DISCRIMINATION
 When a person holds an unsupported and often negative
stereotyped attitude about the members of a particular
social group, it is called prejudice. When prejudicial
attitudes cause members of a particular social group to
be treated differently than others in situations that call
for equal treatment, it is called discrimination. Prejudice
is the attitude and discrimination is the behavior that can
result from that attitude. Although laws can be made to
minimize discriminatory behavior, it is not possible to
have laws against holding certain attitudes. In other
words, discrimination can be controlled and in some
cases eliminated, but the prejudicial attitude that is
responsible for the discrimination cannot be so easily
controlled or eliminated.
TYPES OF PREJUDICE AND
DISCRIMINATION
 There are many kinds of prejudice. There are also many kinds of discrimination that occur as a
result of prejudice. There’s ageism, or prejudicial attitudes toward the elderly or teenagers
(among others); sexism; racism, or prejudice toward those from different ethnic groups;
prejudice toward those from different religions, those from different economic levels, those who
are overweight, those who are too thin, and so on.
 Prejudice can also vary in terms of what type of people or groups make the most likely targets. In
any society, there will always be in-groups and out-groups, or “us” versus “them.” The in-group
is all the people with whom a particular person identifies and the out-groups are everyone else.
 The formation of in-groups and out-groups begins in childhood and continues as children
become adults. Once an in-group is established, prejudice toward and discriminatory treatment
of the out-group or groups soon follow. Members of the out-groups are usually going to become
stereotyped according to some superficial characteristic, such as skin color or hair color, and
getting rid of a stereotype once formed is difficult at best.
 The realistic conflict theory of prejudice states that increasing prejudice and discrimination are
closely tied to an increasing degree of conflict between the in-group and the out-group when
those groups are seeking a common resource, such as land or available jobs.
 SCAPEGOATING Conflicts between groups are usually greater when there are other
pressures or stresses going on, such as war, economic difficulties, or other misfortunes. When
such pressures exist, the need to find a scapegoat becomes stronger. A scapegoat is a person or
a group, typically a member or members of an out-group, who serves as the target for the
frustrations and negative emotions of members of the in-group. (The term comes from the
ancient Jewish tradition of sending a goat out into the wilderness with the symbolic sins of all
the people on its head.)
 Scapegoats are going to be the group of people with the least power, and the newest
immigrants to any area are typically those who have the least power at that time. That is why
many social psychologists believe that the rioting that took place in Los Angeles, California, in
the spring of 1992 occurred in the areas it did. This was the time of the infamous Rodney King
beating. Rodney King was an African American man who was dragged out of his car onto the
street and severely beaten by four police officers. The beating was caught on tape by a
bystander. At the trial, the officers were found not guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. This
decision was followed by a series of violent riots.
 The puzzling thing about these riots is that the greatest amount of rioting and violence did not
take place in the neighborhoods of the mostly White police officers or in the African American
neighborhoods. The rioting was greatest in the neighborhoods of the Asian Americans and
Asians who were the most recent immigrants to the area. When a group has only recently
moved into an area, as the Asians had, that group has the least social power and influence in
that new area. So the rioters took out their frustrations not on the people seen as directly
responsible for those frustrations but on the group of people with the least power to resist.
OVERCOMING
PREJUDICE
EQUAL STATUS CONTACT
 EQUAL STATUS CONTACT Contact between social groups can backfire under certain circumstances,
however, as seen in a famous study (Sherif et al., 1961) called the “Robber’s Cave.” In this experiment
conducted at a summer camp called Robber’s Cave, 22 White, well-adjusted 11- and 12-year-old boys
were divided into two groups. The groups each lived in separate housing and were kept apart from each
other for daily activities.
 During the second week, after in-group relationships had formed, the researchers scheduled highly
competitive events pitting one group against the other. Intergroup conflict quickly occurred, with name-
calling, fights, and hostility emerging between the two groups.
 The third week involved making the two groups come together for pleasant, noncompetitive activities, in
the hopes that cooperation would be the result. Instead, the groups used the activities of the third week as
opportunities for more hostility. It was only after several weeks of being forced to work together to
resolve a series of crises (created deliberately by the experimenters) that the boys lost the hostility and
formed friendships between the groups. When dealing with the crises, the boys were forced into a
situation of equal status contact, in which they were all in the same situation with neither group holding
power over the other. Equal status contact has been shown to reduce prejudice and discrimination. It
appears that personal involvement with people from another group must be cooperative and occur when
all groups are equal in terms of power or status to have a positive effect on reducing prejudice
THE JIGSAW CLASSROOM
 One way to ensure that contact between people from different backgrounds will occur in a
cooperative fashion is to make success at a task dependent on the cooperation of each person
in a group of people of mixed abilities or statuses. If each member of the group has
information that is needed to solve the problem at hand, a situation is created in which people
must depend on one another to meet their shared goals. Ordinarily, school classrooms are not
organized along these lines but are instead more competitive and, therefore, more likely to
create conflict between people of different abilities and backgrounds.
 In a “jigsaw classroom,” students have to work together to reach a specific goal. Each student
is given a “piece of the puzzle,” or information that is necessary for solving the problem and
reaching the goal. Students then share their information with other members of the group.
Interaction between diverse students is increased, making it more likely that those students
will come to see each other as partners and form friendly relationships rather than labeling
others as members of an out-group and treating them differently. This technique works at the
college level as well as in the lower school grades
INTERGROUP
CONFLICT
WHAT IS INTERGROUP
CONFLICT?
 Intergroup conflict is a term that refers to disagreement or confrontation between two or more
groups and their members. This confrontation can involve physical violence, interpersonal
discord, and psychological tension.
 Intergroup conflict is a major factor that affects group-level movement patterns and space use
and ultimately shapes the evolution of group living and sociality.
 The first person to describe intergroup conflict was Thomas Hobbes in his work “Leviathan.”
In this book, Hobbes argued that humans are innately selfish and aggressive and will engage in
conflict with others in order to survive and thrive.
 This view of human nature was later echoed by many other theorists, including Freud and
Darwin. That is to say, intergroup conflict is not a new phenomenon. It has been around since
the beginning of time and has played a role in shaping human history.
 From wars between countries to battles between gangs, intergroup conflict has always been a
part of the human world (Hewstone & Greenland, 2000).
 However, it was not until the early 1900s that sociologists began to study intergroup conflict in
a systematic way, most often to figure out ways to reduce or mitigate it.
INTERGROUP
CONFLICT
MODELS
THE AGGRESSOR-DEFENDER
MODEL
 The aggressor-defender model of intergroup conflict is one that dominates the
thinking of many leaders in public life. In this view, one group sees the other
as an aggressor.
 This could occur in a conflict including warfare among nations, strife between
racial groups, controversies among scientists, and so on.
 The aggressor is seen as motivated by evil and illegitimate aims, while the one
being aggressed upon by noble, morally correct, and legitimate motivations.
 As a result, following this logic, the ones being aggressed must increase their
deterrent power to ensure that the aggressors cannot reach their goals.
THE CONFLICT-SPIRAL
MODEL
Meanwhile, the conflict-spiral model contends that conflict breeds conflict. In turn,

each party extends and intensifies the conflict by reacting in a punitive or defensive
way to the other party’s behavior.
 Consequently, a continuing spiral of escalation ensues, trapping both parties. In this
conflict perspective, the initial source of friction may be consequential.
 However, rather than focusing on the initial cause of the conflict, the conflict-spiral
model describes the dynamic, interactive process by which individuals or groups find
themselves caught in an upward spiral of hostilities.
 The conflict spiral model does not only describe escalation. De-escalation of
intergroup conflict can occur in a spiral fashion.
 For example, the strategic arms limitation talks and summits between the United
States and the Soviet Union caused a step-by-step retreat from nuclear confrontation.
THE STRUCTURAL CHANGE
MODEL
 Finally, the structural-change model of intergroup conflict is also concerned
with the dynamic interaction between parties in the course of the conflict.
Unlike the conflict-spiral model, however, this view holds that certain
enduring changes take place that perpetuate the conflict.
 For example, military elites often gain large amounts of power during a war.
They may gain a stake in perpetuating hostilities so that they will not lose their
power and privileges to civilian authorities (Rusch & Gavrilets, 2020).
 This view comes with one major caveat, however: not all conflicts last long
enough that they can bring about major institutional changes. Indeed, societies
may return to their pre-conflict conditions after the initial conflict is resolved.
INTERVENTIONS
INTERVENTIONS FOR
CONFLICT
 First, there are several conflict options to consider when the conflict is minor or can be dealt
with at the individual or group level. It is essential to include the team and other group
members in the conflict discussion to ensure that they feel understood and remove any
intergroup aggression. The methods of the various group-level conflict resolution that can be
used are:
• Common Goal: If groups working together have differing goals for the project, it can be
beneficial to set a goal for the whole team that may only be achieved by all groups working
together. This should be tied to the most critical aspects of the project in case the conflict
resumes shortly after the goal is reached.
• Demonstration: Executives and upper-level employees should focus on fairness and ethical
behavior, especially when approaching and giving feedback on the project to the team or in
employee-facing situations. This will allow employees to see the dedication and amplify these
characteristics.
• Open Communication: Encouraging employees to speak up if there is something they
disagree with, reminding employees that the team is all united to work for the good of the
company, and ensuring that everyone understands the value that they and their coworkers add
to the company will all create open lines of communication that can stop conflict quickly.
• Avoidance: Avoidance will not resolve the underlying conflict, but it may allow a group to
work together for a time by simply working around the conflict. It can also allow the group to
achieve a purpose that reorients them to the original goal.
• Authoritative Command: Authoritative command should only be used on a minor conflict
that cannot be resolved through other processes but can be avoided through a decision based
on management. It will not resolve the conflict, but it will help the team to decide what to do
next instead of being stuck in gridlock.
• When conflict is larger than a simple misunderstanding between two or more groups with
competing ideas, or if the options above did not solve the conflict, it may be best to move the
conflict out of groups and into an alternative dispute mechanism. These can be in-house
problem-solvers, or the group living company may offer outside help. When alternative
dispute resolution is used in a group, it should encourage healthy and constructive conflict.
Still, it should also resolve the heart of the conflict so that a group will not end up in the same
situation. Alternative dispute resolution will require all parties to be on board with the idea and
willing to work with the facilitators.
CONCLUSION
 Intergroup conflict is often a part of projects in the workplace. It can encourage healthy
competition and cooperation, driving all groups to improve. However, it can cause group
issues and eventually jeopardize the entire project. Suppose a conflict begins to appear in
group bias that threatens the project. In that case, it is important to identify the cause, prepare
for initial setbacks, and address and resolve the intergroup conflict beforehand. Intergroup
conflict is unnecessary and can be avoided through creativity, cooperation, and planning.
THANK YOU