Intergroup Relations Flashcards
What are intergroup relations?
Refers to how different groups get on together, some are able to live in harmony but others end up in conflict.
What is prejudice?
Prejudice: a derogatory attitude or antipathy towards particular social groups and their members
What is discrimination?
Discrimination: negative disadvantaging or derogatory behaviour towards a social group or its members.
How has intergroup discrimination been explained?
Personality approaches Right wing authoritarian (Adorno, 1950 and Altemeyer, 1998) Social dominance orientation (Palto et al. 1994) Competition Robber’s Cave field experiment Realistic Conflict Theory - conflict Cooperation and Shared Goals - harmony Mere categoristation Tajfel Minimal Group studies Social identity theory
What is right wing authoritarianism?
Personality dimension test uses questions to place people high or low on the right wing authoritarian (RWA) scale.
It measures attitudes towards maintaining order in society
Adorno et al. 1950
The authoritarian personality is psychoanalytically inspires
Argued that is was responsible for fascim
It is the result of one’s early childhood experience as strict parenting leads to conflicting feelings of admiration for one’s parents and negative feelings towards the punishments they give.
As these negative feelings cannot be acknowledged they are deflected to less powerful outgroups.
Altemeyers 1988
Came up with the concept of right wing authoritarian personality
Argued that it develops in response to social environments that encourage obedience, conventionalism and aggression.
Scoring highly on the RWA scale predicts support for harsh punishment of criminals and prejudice towards outgroups.
What is social dominance orientation?
Measures attitudes towards hierarchy
Sidanius and Pratto 1999
Proposed social dominance theory which argues that humans are predisposed to form group-based hierarchies.
Once society is organised by status it is sustained by legitimising myths e.g people deserve what they get.
SDO measures the extent to which people enforce these myths over supporting intergroup equality.
Scoring highly predicts intergroup prejudice and opposition to progressive politics.
How did Pettigrew (1958) show that personality approaches are an inadequate explanation of intergroup discrimination?
There are historical examples of intergroup conflict that cannot be explained by personality factors, such as discrimination that develops due to rapid political change.
Pettigrew (1958)
Demonstrated that it is not possible to describe all discrimination in terms of personality factors.
Showed that south afrian and southern US samples at the time of the apartide and the civil rights movement had similar levels of authoritarianism to northern US samples, despite cross-sample difference in levels of discrimination.
Begs an alternative explanation, particularly as social context and the relations between groups seem to be key explanatory factors.
Established that conformity was an important determinant of hostile attitudes towards black people over individual tendencies towards authoritarianism.
Prejudice is socially learned.
If an individual recognises a situation as one where the social norm is to discriminate then that individual will exhibit discriminatory behaviour.
How do Siegel and Siegel (1957) criticise personality approaches to intergroup discrimination?
Argue that SDO and RWA are ideological beliefs which individuals may adopt or abandon rather than fixed personality characteristics.
They assessed authoritarianism in female uni students who had either been assigned to dormitories, which are typically more liberal, or sororities, which are more conservative.
At the start the women had similar levels of authoritarianism
When evaluated again a year later they found that just the experience of being at university reduced authoritarianism.
However exposure to liberal norms substantially reduced levels of authoritarian ideological beliefs.
What is Duckitt’s Dual Process Model (2006)?
Argued for a combination of personality and the social context an individual lives in.
People who score highly for RWA typically believe that the world is a dangerous place.
This belief can either stem from the experience of crime, disorder and threat or having a socially conformist personality.
People who score highly for SDO typically believe that society is a competitive jungle.
This belief can either stem from experiencing the world as a competitive place or the personality dimension of tough mindedness.
What were Sherif’s hypotheses in the summer camp field experiments?
The focus was on the effects of social context, specifically how a competitive context might create intergroup conflict and a cooperative context might create group harmony.
Hypothesis: when two groups have conflicting aims - when one group can only achieve its aims at the expensive of another - groups will become hostile
Hypothesis 1: pleasant social contacts between members of conflicting groups will reduce friction between them
Hypothesis 2: as competition generates friction, working in a common endeavour should promote harmony
What was the experimental design of Sherif’s Robbers Cave Field Experiment?
Robber Cave was the third in a series of experiments
The first one failed as the boys worked out that they were being manipulated into conflict and ganged up on the experimenters.
Recruited 22 well adjusted, white, middle-class, 11 year-old boys from local schools with no previous behavioural issues in order to rule out personality differences.
Interviewed teachers and parents and consulted school and medical records as well as conducting personality tests and observing the boys play.
Homogenous background
Didn’t know each other prior to the camp.
The boys knew nothing of the experiment, the parents knew some detail but not enough to displace ethical concerns.
They were split into two groups of equal size and separately taken to Robbers Cave State park in Oklahoma
At the camp the boys lived in two separate cabins and measures such as staggered meal times were put in place to ensure they did not know that there was a second group there.
The researchers acted as camp staff so as to be discrete and all experiments were conducted within the framework of regular camp activities.
What was the first stage of the Robbers Cave field study?
Ingroup formation
Members of each group performed tasks requiring mutual cooperation in order to reach shared, meaningful goals.
Groups named themselves ‘Rattlers’ and ‘Eagles’
This was to encourage a sense of group identity.
Devised a game to test the boys evaluations of each other
Target board with no marks on the front to make an objective judgement of distance from the bullseye
Flashing lights behind so observer can see exactly where ball hit
Boys consistently overestimated the performances by the most highly regarded members of their group and underestimated those with the lowest social status.
What was the second stage of the Robbers Cave field study?
Intergroup friction
Hypothesis: when two groups have conflicting aims - when one group can only achieve its aims at the expensive of another - groups will become hostile
The Rattlers and Eagles competed against each other in a series of tasks with the ultimate winner gaining rewards including team trophies, individual medals and four penknives.
This was to encourage intergroup friction
They competed in a series of events including baseball, tug of war, tent pitching races, cabin inspections, skits and songs and treasure hunts.
Started calling rivals ‘stinkers, sneaks and cheaters’ terms which highlight the mistrust and contempt towards outgroup members.
Ingroup solidarity, cooperativeness and morale increased but this didn’t carry over into relations with the other group.
The last three events were conducted separately ensuring that the experimenters could manipulate the results so as to maintain a sense of competition.
This was necessary as one team had two fewer members who had left due to homesickness.
The rewards were exhibited prominently in the canteen to keep competition salient.
How did hostilities escalate in the robbers cave field study?
Flags
Eagles noticed that the rattlers had forgotten to take one of their flags from the baseball pitch and set it on fire.
This resulted in retaliation from the rattlers who subsequently ran off with one of the eagles flag.
In response the eagles ripped up the rattlers other flag which ended in a fight that the researchers had to break up.
Was realised that there was no need for the experimenters to implement the plans to escalate hostility.
Cabin raid
The rattlers raided the eagles cabin, turning over beds and ripping window screens.
They stole a pair of jeans and painted them with the phrase ‘the last of the eagles’
The eagles retaliated by putting rocks into socks and had to be stopped by the experimenters.
Instead they went back and made a mess.
The Eagles won the tournament - in response the rattlers stole their prizes and said that the eagles would have to ‘get down and crawl’ causing the experimenters to have to intervene.
How did the experimenters assess intergroup bias in the robbers cave field study?
All members had to pick up as many beans as possible in a minute and they were told that each members beans would then be projected on a screen for both to be judged.
Participants had to individually estimate the number of beans for all the ingroup and outgroup members.
The experimenters did not show genuine photos but ones of 35 beans each time.
They found that individuals judged there to be more beans for the ingroup than the outgroup, indicating ingroup bias.
What was the first part of stage 3 of the robbers cave field study?
Hypothesis 1: pleasant social contacts between members of conflicting groups will reduce friction between them
Members of both groups had to cooperate in order to achieve superordinate goals.
First tested if contact alone was enough to resolve tensions.
Groups watched movies and fireworks together and shared meal times.
Failed to produce intergroup harmony.
The joint meal resulted in a food fight and eagles refused to get out of the truck if they would have to shoot their fireworks with the rattlers.
Intergroup contact alone failed to alleviate the mutual animosity
When social contact didn’t work, how did experimenter reduce intergroup conflict in the robbers cave field study?
Hypothesis 2: as competition generates friction, working in a common endeavour should promote harmony
Rattlers and eagles were given tasks that required them to work together to achieve common superordinate goals.
This interdependence was intended to create harmony.
Breakdown of the water supply
Water came to camp in pipes from a tank
Arranged to interrupt it then called boys together to form inform them
Volunteered to search it for trouble and did so harmoniously
Requesting a movie
Said camp couldn’t afford to rent one
Two groups got together, figured out how much each group would have to contribute, chose the film by a vote and enjoyed it together
Broken down truck
Truck meant to go and get food wouldn’t start when people were hungry
Boys got the rope they’d used in tug-of-war and pulled together to start the truck
Didn’t immediately dispel hostility but gradually cooperative acts reduced friction and conflict
New friendships developed between individuals in the two groups
Actively seeking opportunities to mingle: decided to hold a joint campfire, took turns presenting skits and songs, and requested to go home on the same bus together and when they stopped for refreshments the group who had $5 bought malted milks for everyone
At the end of stage 2 boys had been asked to list their friends and who were sneaks.
They were asked again at the end of stage 3 and reported being glad to answer again as they had changed their minds.
There was a greater percentage nomination of friends from other groups in stage 3
What is Realistic conflict theory?
Social relations between individuals and groups depend on the compatibility of the goals they are pursuing.
Mutually exclusive goals lead to competition and conflict.
Goals that require interdependence create harmony.
How has realistic conflict theory been criticised?
Competition may not be necessary for intergroup bias.
Observations from Sherif’s study reveal that bias existed prior to participants having to compete with the other group.
There was some awareness that there was another group on the campsite as they overheard them playing baseball
Expressed an immediate desire to ‘run them off’
They were then explicitly informed of another group - saying that they had challenged them to a baseball game.
Angry responses ‘They can’t, We’ll challenge them first … they’ve got some nerve.’
Territorial ‘They better not be in our swimming hole.’
Evident antipathy towards the other group even before there was competition for resources.
What did Tajfel aim to do in his Minimal Group Studies (1971)?
Establishing the minimal conditions for intergroup discrimination
Reduced groups to their most minimal properties
To exclude any influences of prior attitudes towards outgroup members, created new groups using arbitrary criteria.
‘Can the very act of social categorisation … lead under certain conditions to intergroup behaviour which discriminates against the outgroup in favour of the ingroup?’
Baseline conditions for differential intergroup behaviour
Aimed to establish at what point conflict and discrimination between groups starts
Follows on from Sherif but takes the cause of discrimination even further.
Led to the development of social identity theory
Emphasises the importance of the social context behaviour was learnt and internalised in and the cognitive aspects of prejudice explained by social categorisation as a way of understanding and giving order to one’s social environment and how to act in it.
Believed discrimination does not have to origniate in a history of hostility or social conflict.
The fact of division into groups alone is enough to generate discriminatory behaviour as this cues norms of intergroup behaviour.
Thus the social construct of ‘us’ and ‘them’ combines with the inherent hostility in intergroup categorisation to develop a generic norm of discrimation behaviour towards outgroups.
What are the key features of the experimental design in the minimal group studies?
There was no face-to-face interaction within the ingroup or with the outgroup
Complete anonymity
No link between the criteria for categorisation and task requirements
No personal loss or gain for answers so self interest is ruled out.
Responses involve real rewards
Compare the preference for benefit of ingroup at the cost of the outgroup with obtaining the maximum benefit for all.
A clear alternative to discrimination that is more sensible is provided.
What was the experimental procedure in the minimal group studies?
14-15 year old schoolboys allocated to minimal groups supposedly on responses to a dot-estimate task (under vs over estimators) or preferences for abstract paintings (Klee vs Kandinsky). Participants were put in separate cubicles and told to divide points between an anonymous ingroup and outgroup member using reward matrices that presented different allocations options. The matrices were designed to measure the pull of a particular reward strategy when set in opposition to others. Fairness: equal points to ingroup and outgroup Maximum joint profit: most points across overall group Maximum ingroup profit: most points for ingroup Maximum difference: largest possible difference between ingroup and outgroup points - in favour of ingroup Particularly interested in the form of discrimination that involved sacrificing the reward the ingroup gets to maximie reward for both groups Maximum joint profit (utilitarian) Maximum ingroup profit (ingroup favouritism) Maximum difference( ingroup favouritism or maximum difference strategy)
What were the results of the minimal group studies?
Experiment 1: same group
When allocating between two members within the same group participants tended to opt for fairness
The task is not inherently favourable for competitive responses
Fairness is less common when dividing between ingroup and outgroup member
Participants favour the ingroup regardless of whether the basis for intergroup classification potentially justified discrimination (accuracy of dot estimates)
Experiment 2: different group
Participants maximise ingroup profit over overall profit
Participants preferred maximum difference over maximum ingroup profit
Maximising the difference between their ingroup profit and the outgroup profit was more important than maximising profit for all and for their own group.
This shows that individuals want to favour their ingroup at the expense of the outgroup despite group categorisation that is not meaningful beyond minimal context.
What are the conclusions of the minimal group studies?
Outgroup discrimination is triggered without competition
Categorisation into a group is sufficient for outgroup discrimination regardless of criteria for group
Positive distinctiveness of the ingroup is more important than maximising profit.
