Social Conflict within and between Groups

Carsten K. W. De Dreu, Carsten K. W. De Dreu

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317679332
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Intergroup competition and conflict create pervasive problems in human society, giving rise to such phenomena as prejudice, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and interstate war. Citizens, policy makers, social workers, schoolteachers, and politicians wrestle with these problems, and with difficult questions these issues pose:

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• What causes conflict to escalate?

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• How should we manage conflict within communities, and also in society at large?

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• Is conflict always bad, or does it have other more beneficial consequences?

Social Conflict within and between Groups provides an overview of contemporary research from the social sciences on these questions. It brings together the research output of a number of leading researchers in psychology, management and economics, sociology and political science, and draws on the outcomes of ten prominent research programs conducted over the past five years. The chapters cover a range of fascinating topics, including prejudice and discrimination in multi-ethnic societies, and conflict and negotiation in the field of industrial relations. The authors also consider the possibilities for intervention at the interpersonal, intergroup and societal level.

This is the first volume to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the various scientific approaches to studying the origins and consequences of social conflict. It will be of great interest to researchers, graduates and upper-level undergraduate students from across the social and behavioural sciences.

1	Intergroup conflict and negotiating settlement
	Carsten K.W. De Dreu, Hillie Aaldering, and Ozum Saygi

Introduction

Intergroup competition and conflict create pervasive problems in human society, giving rise to such phenomena as prejudice, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and interstate war (Choi & Bowles, 2007; Fiske, 2002). At the same time, however, intergroup competition and conflict provide critical impetus for social change and innovations, both within and across groups and the larger societies within which they operate (Alexander, 1990; De Dreu, 2010a; De Dreu, Aaldering, & Saygi, in press). This chapter considers intergroup competition and conflict from two complementary perspectives—social identity theory and interdependence theory—and (representative) negotiation as a strategy for regulating intergroup competition and conflict. Negotiation holds great promise for settling disputes in a constructive and long-lasting manner, so that rivaling groups can co-exist and thrive. We conclude with a summary of the main insights and a description of some avenues for new research.

Origins of intergroup competition and conflict

Conflict between groups includes at least three critical and interrelated components (De Dreu, 2010a): (a) its antecedent conditions (i.e. what triggers conflict?); (b) its core social interaction processes (i.e. how do conflicting parties regulate conflict?); and (c) its main consequences (i.e. what does conflict do to the parties’ functioning, well-being, and welfare?). Others before us defined conflict as the clashing of goals and aspirations (e.g. Pruitt & Rubin, 1986), or as situations in which one party’s goal pursuit is blocking or impeding another party’s goal striving (e.g. Deutsch, 1973). A core ingredient in both definitions is that one party experiences or anticipates outcome deprivation: when one’s outcomes—tangible or symbolic— are or will fall below a reasonable standard because of the actions or inactions of another party (De Dreu, 2010a; Pruitt, 1998). Tangible outcomes include the availability of and/or access to desirable resources such as water, territory, or money. Symbolic outcomes include status and recognition, respectful treatment, and basic rights. Tangible and symbolic outcomes are often related (e.g. possessing scarce resources comes with high status), and both types of outcomes matter greatly to people and their groups.

Importantly, for both tangible and symbolic outcomes, deprivation implies a standard against which obtained or anticipated outcomes are evaluated (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978). One such standard is one’s level of aspiration (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986): Deprivation is experienced when outcomes fall below the outcome one aspired to, and social conflict emerges when such deprivation is attributed to the (in)actions of some other individual or group. Another standard that is often used is a comparison level of alternatives, or the outcome that would have been received in an alternative relation (also see Akkerman et al., this volume). Thus, a social psychology unit may experience outcome deprivation because the status and respect its work receives within its university falls well below the status and respect its work would receive in another university. Finally, outcome deprivation is experienced when one’s own group’s outcomes relative to those of a comparison group are below what one sees as reasonable or justifiable, that is as “unfair.”¹

This scholarly approach on outcome deprivation allows an open view of what happens once parties experience outcome deprivation—how they feel and think, what motivational forces are released, and how they manage the tension with their protagonist. Second, it allows an open view as to what possible consequences social conflict may have—does social conflict always produce destructive outcomes in terms of wasted resources and reduced well-being, or can it also have more constructive outcomes such as enhanced creativity and innovation, better decision making, and improved social relations?

Here we firstly discuss two complementary perspectives on the emergence of outcome deprivation and the function of intergroup competition and conflict. The next section describes how intergroup conflict can be regulated through (representative) negotiations and discusses research in this area.

Social identity theory

Intergroup competition and conflict can be understood from the perspective of social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; also see Verkuyten and colleagues, this volume). The theory posits that people: (a) quickly and often automatically categorize themselves and others into an in-group and an out-group; (b) base their self-views and evaluations in part on the features and characteristics of the group(s) to which they belong; and (c) strive to develop, maintain, and improve a positive social identity. A positive social identity is achieved by, first of all, in-group favoritism: One emphasizes the positive features and characteristics, and downplays the negative features and characteristics, of one’s own group. To some extent, a positive social identity is also achieved through out-group derogation: One downplays the positive features and characteristics, and emphasizes the negative features and characteristics, of relevant comparison groups. Both in-group favoritism and out-group derogation can be explicit, as when individuals allocate resources more to in-group than to out-group members (e.g., Bornstein, Crum, et al., 1983). Both tendencies can also be implicit: For example, people respond more quickly to positive attributes associated with their in-group and to negative attributes associated with a rival out-group (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaij, 2003; for reviews see Dovidio & Gaertner, 2010; Yzerbyt & Demoulin, 2010).

In-group favoritism alone or in combination with out-group derogation creates intergroup bias—an unfair response that devalues or disadvantages another group and its members while valuing or privileging members of one’s own group (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2010). Such unfair responses trigger negative emotions, protests, and possibly even aggression and violence on the part of the disfavored and excluded individuals (Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002). Put differently, through positive social identity striving, groups and their members indirectly (through in-group favoritism) and directly (through out-group derogation) deprive out-groups of a positive social identity, of respectful and fair treatment, and of (access to) scarce resources. Social identity striving, in short, promotes intergroup conflict.

The primacy of the in-group

There is a wealth of research probing the conditions that stimulate or inhibit in-group favoritism and/or out-group derogation, thus amplifying or reducing intergroup bias and the ensuing deprivation and conflict (for recent reviews, see e.g. Dovidio & Gaertner, 2010; Hewstone et al., 2002; Yzerbyt & Demoulin, 2010). One important insight emerging from these research literatures is that intergroup bias is driven more by in-group favoritism than by out-group derogation (also see Scheepers et al., this volume). Consider, for example, a series of recent studies by Halevy and colleagues (Halevy, Bornstein, & Sagiv, 2008; Halevy, Chou, Cohen, & Bornstein, 2010; Halevy, Weisel, & Bornstein, 2012; also see De Dreu, 2010b; De Dreu, Greer, et al., 2010). These authors developed a team game in which individuals were randomly assigned to in-groups and out-groups and could, at a cost to themselves, contribute to a pool that benefitted their in-group (“in-group favoritism”) or to a pool that punished the out-group (“out-group derogation”). Results showed strong in-group favoritism and little out-group derogation; individual group members donated considerable personal resources to the pool benefitting their in-group and much less to the pool that punished the out-group. These results are important because they suggest that intergroup conflicts do not necessarily arise out of a desire among group members to hurt out-groups but, rather, to help their in-group. A similar conclusion derives from an interdependence analysis of intergroup competition and conflict, to which we turn now.

Behavioral game theory and interdependence theory

A complementary perspective on the emergence of intergroup conflict derives from interdependence theory (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978), which builds on and extends the broader theory of games (Colman, 2003; Luce & Raiffa, 1957), and Deutsch’s theory of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1973). It considers the ways in which parties (individuals or groups) influence each other’s outcomes through their individual or coordinated actions. Within this class of theories, it is assumed that outcome interdependencies create a mixture of cooperative and competitive motives (Deutsch, 1973; Komorita & Parks, 1995). Joint cooperation creates better outcomes for each party than mutual competition, yet each party is better off by competing when the other is cooperating. In the words of Harvard economist and Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling:

These are the “nonzero-sum” games involved in wars and threats of war, strikes, negotiations, criminal deterrence, race war, price war, and blackmail; maneuvering in a bureaucracy or in a traffic jam; the coercion of one’s own children … These are the “games” in which, though an element of conflict provides the dramatic interest, mutual dependence is part of the logical structure and demands some kind of collaboration or mutual accommodation— tacit, if not explicit—even if only in the avoidance of mutual disaster.

(Schelling, 1980, p. 83)

Such mixed-motive interdependencies, both within and between groups, have often been modeled as a prisoner’s dilemma (PD). Here, two parties simultaneously and without discussion decide to cooperate or not to cooperate. Both parties are better off when both cooperate than when both fail to cooperate, yet each party is best off when he or she does not cooperate and the other person does (Rapoport & Guyer, 1966; Komorita & Parks, 1995). The PD paradigm models interpersonal and intergroup exchange situations ranging from volunteers in community service to financial traders, from partners sharing a household to soldiers teaming up to fight an enemy, and from colleagues in work organizations to high-ranking consultants preparing a hostile corporate takeover (De Dreu, 2010a; Komorita & Parks, 1995). The PD paradigm can be used to understand, for example, the dilemma during the Cold War, in which the United States and the former Soviet Union continuously had to decide to maintain their level of nuclear arms (the noncooperative choice) or to reduce it (the cooperative choice). Each country was better off by having a strong army than by unilaterally investing in arms reduction, yet both countries were worse off by continuing to invest money in a level of nuclear arms allowing them to fully destroy their counterpart not only once, but over 60 times, with untold damage to other parts of the world, including their own.

Non-cooperation is driven by fear and greed

Behavioral decision and interdependence theories identify two core motives underlying non-cooperation—greed and fear (Coombs, 1973; Van Lange, Liebrand, & Kuhlman, 1990). Greed refers to the desire to maximize self-interest, or that of one’s in-group. For example, the former Soviet Union’s decisions to maintain its arsenal of nuclear weapons may have been driven by the desire to dominate the world and to force the United States into subordination. Greed as a motive need not be limited to tangible resources, but can extend to symbolic striving for status and positive (social) identity (De Dreu, 2010a). And although greed can be “absolute,” in that an individual or group can strive to maximize its own outcomes while being indifferent about outcomes of others, in intergroup competition and conflict, greed is often focused on relative gain vis-à-vis the out-group.

Whereas greed as a motive for non-cooperation may be difficult to justify and is often deemed immoral in interpersonal and small group settings, in intergroup competition and conflict it can and often is justified as pro-social behavior toward one’s in-group (Wildschut, Pinter, Vevea, Insko, & Schopler, 2003). Indeed, noncooperation with an out-group is often labeled heroic and patriotic and is publicly praised. Acting non-cooperatively toward out-groups causes an individual to be perceived as a loyal, reliable, and committed in-group member who deserves to be included rather than excluded from rewarding within-group exchanges (Arrow, 2007; Brewer, 1999; Choi & Bowles, 2007; Gintis, Bowles, Boyd, & Fehr, 2003). Halevy and colleagues (2012) conducted a series of experiments in which they modeled intergroup competition and varied the extent to which fellow in-group members cooperated with the in-group, and competed against the out-group. Participants were then asked to indicate for each in-group member how prestigious and how dominant they felt this person was. Results showed that individuals ascribe greater prestige to fellow in-group members who cooperate with the in-group, and greater dominance to in-group members who compete against the out-group. Thus, greed-driven non-cooperation is an important explanation for the robust observation that intergroup competition and conflict are often intense and hostile, and easily escalate into increasing levels of intensity.

The second motive underlying non-cooperation, fear, refers to the desire to prevent exploitation by other’s non-cooperation (Coombs, 1973) and is inversely related to trust—the positive expectation that one’s counterpart will reciprocate cooperation and not abuse or exploit one’s vulnerability (Berg, Dickhaut, & McCabe, 1995; Pruitt & Kimmel, 1977). Thus, the former Soviet Union’s decisions to maintain its arsenal of nuclear weapons may have been driven by their suspicion that the United States desired to dominate the world and to subordinate the Soviet Union.

Intergroup competition motivates within-group cooperation

In intergroup competition and conflict, greed and fear operate simultaneously at two levels of analysis. Dawes (1980) noted that “soldiers who fight in a large ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1. Intergroup conflict and negotiating settlement
• 2. How values change a conflict
• 3. Humiliation in conflict: Underlying processes and effects on human thought and behavior
• 4. Minority identity and host national identification among immigrants
• 5. Ethnic diversity and dimensions of in-group solidarity: Overview of insights into empirical relationships in Europe
• 6. Escalation and de-escalation of intergroup conflict: The role of communication within and between groups
• 7. Contagious conflict: Spill-over effects of labor conflict between and within organizations
• 8. Human rights promotion, the media and peacemaking in Africa
• 9. New lines of conflict: European integration and immigration
• 10. Bystander conflict: Training interventions for teams in high-stake professions
• Index