PSYC3002 Lecture 2: Social Psychology of Group Processes & Social Change PDF

The Social Psychology of Group Processes & Social Change PSYC3002 Lecture 2: Theories of Groups & Intergroup Behaviour Dr Charlie Crimston [email protected]  What exactly is a group?  Early theories exploring the scientific study of groups WHAT ARE SOME CURRENT INTERGROUP SOCIAL ISSUES...

The Social Psychology of Group Processes & Social Change PSYC3002 Lecture 2: Theories of Groups & Intergroup Behaviour Dr Charlie Crimston [email protected]  What exactly is a group?  Early theories exploring the scientific study of groups WHAT ARE SOME CURRENT INTERGROUP SOCIAL ISSUES? 2/29/2024 2/29/2024 THE INTRAGROUP LEVEL  Intragroup theory focuses on the dynamics and processes that occur within a single social group.  Understand how individual behaviour and attitudes are influenced by membership in a particular group and the norms, roles, and relationships that exist within that group.  Social facilitation, group socialisation, groupthink, interdependence, social identity THE INTERGROUP LEVEL Interactions, attitudes, and behaviours that occur between different social groups Understand how individuals perceive, categorize, evaluate, and interact with members of their ingroup vs. outgroup members Relative deprivation, realistic conflict , social dominance, interdependence, social identity (1) Intergroup behaviour is characterized by less trust and more competitiveness than interpersonal behaviour (2) People tend to favour their own group over outgroups  Interdependence  Frustration aggression  Relative deprivation  Realistic conflict  Social identity  An understanding the social psychology of groups and group behaviour by understanding the interactions of at least two people.  Groups are understood to be interacting individuals who have effects on each other.  It assumes that groups are more than aggregates of individuals.  The fundamental unit of analysis remains the individual. SOCIAL INTERDEPENDENCE  Social interdependence refers to  a relationship between two or more people  in which the outcomes that each person receives are jointly determined by the decisions and behaviours of o that person o the others in the relationship.  Outcomes are the material and non-material things that accrue to people in social situations.  A social interdependence analysis of groups assumes that behaviour can best be understood by analysing the good and bad “things” that people get in their interactions with others.  The 2 x 2 matrix Other person Choice A Choice B Choice A 4,4 0,0 Choice B 0,0 0,0 You Choice A Choice B Choice A 0,0 0,1 Choice B 1,0 1,1 + Choice A Choice B Choice A 3,3 0,3 Choice B 3,0 0,0 Partner Control Actor Control = Choice A Choice B Choice A 3,3 0,4 Choice B 4,0 1,1 Social Dilemma  Social dilemmas characterise a great many social situations.       Using water Climate change Fishing in open waters Stockpiling (face masks/vaccine/toilet paper) Driving a car Admitting a mistake in personal relationships Cooperation  o Cooperation is behaviour directed toward maximizing collective welfare. o Not necessarily helping or coordination. Competition  o Competition is behaviour directed toward maximizing one’s own welfare relative to other(s). Individualism   Individualism is behaviour directed toward maximizing one’s own welfare independent of others. FACTORS INFLUENCING BEHAVIOUR IN SOCIAL DILEMMAS  Value of Outcomes in the Matrix 50% Mean Cooperation Levels 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% "points" cents ("pennies") 10 cents ("dimes") FACTORS INFLUENCING BEHAVIOUR IN SOCIAL DILEMMAS  Isolation and Communication Median Percentage Cooperation 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Isolation See Only Hear Only See & Hear Proposed by Dollard et al. (1930-40s) “the occurrence of aggressive behaviour always presupposes the existence of frustration and, contrariwise, the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression”. Goal interference Frustration Source of frustration beyond reach AGGRESSION (often displaced onto a “scapegoat”) Miller & Bugelski (1948): At a summer camp, some people were given a frustrating experience (experimental condition) and some were not (control condition). Both before and after the frustrating experience, the experimenters measured participants’ attitudes towards minority groups. The participants who received the frustration showed more negative attitudes toward minorities after the manipulation … the attitudes of the people in the control condition did not change over time. Mixed results followed … For example, in one paradigm some participants would be arbitrarily failed on a puzzle task (frustration condition) whereas some would not (control condition). Cowen et al. (1958) found that participants in the frustration condition showed increased negativity toward minority groups, but Stagner & Congdon (1955) found no evidence for scapegoating. LIMITATIONS OF FRUSTRATIONAGGRESSION THEORY (1) Difficult to predict the target of aggression - Miller (1948) predicted that people pick scapegoats that are neither too similar nor too dissimilar to the real source of frustration. - But this formula is a little vague, and not borne out by a great deal of anecdotal evidence. (2) Frustration neither necessary nor sufficient to cause aggression (1) Rather than defining frustration as a response to goal interference, Berkowitz argued that frustration is a subjective experience; whether people are deprived or not is not as important as whether they think they’ve been deprived. (2) Berkowitz came up with a more concrete and theoretically plausible explanation for how we pick our scapegoats: the most likely choice for a scapegoat is an outgroup that has been in conflict with the group in the past, or an outgroup that you know doesn’t like your group. (3) Berkowitz argued that the fundamental cause of aggression was not frustration per se but any aversive event; e.g., pain, extreme heat or cold, loud noises, overcrowding.  A number of experimental studies leant support to Berkowitz’s predictions regarding the importance of subjective thoughts and socio-historical context in driving the amount and direction of aggression Field studies showed that riots were more likely to occur in very hot weather (1) Aggression conceived as irrational and spontaneous (2) Individual explanation for intergroup behaviour (3) No consideration of social norms (4) No explanation for intergroup cooperation A descendant of frustrationaggression theory, relative deprivation theory argues that the basic cause for aggression is a discrepancy between the standard of living people have, and the standard of living they think they’re entitled to.  Hovland and Sears (1940), claimed to have found a correlation between the lynching of AfricanAmericans and falling cotton prices in the United States  However… EVIDENCE FOR RELATIVE DEPRIVATION Cantril (1965) devised a measure in which people were asked to indicate how they valued their past, present, and future life as compared to their “ideal” good life. This measure of relative deprivation is strongly correlated with (a) levels of civil unrest across 13 nations (Gurr, 1970) (b) Support for Black power and militant political action in the aftermath of a riot in Detroit (Crawford & Naditch, 1970) Egoistic relative deprivation refers to one’s sense that you have less than you’re entitled to relative to your own aspirations or relative to what other individuals have. Fraternalistic relative deprivation refers to the sense that your group has less than it’s entitled to relative to its aspirations or relative to what other groups have. 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20 -25 prejudice doubly egoistically collectively doubly gratified deprived deprived deprived Fraternal deprivation Quebec nationalism Egoistic deprivation Fraternal deprivation Collective protest Egoistic deprivation Individual stress 1. At times, relative deprivation is associated with greater generosity towards minorities. 2. At times, it is relative gratification that is associated with prejudice and intolerance. Sherif argued that intergroup aggression is caused primarily by competition for scarce resources. According to realistic conflict theory, it is when one group’s interests are in conflict with another group’s interests that intergroup relations deteriorate.  Phase 1: usual camp activities  Phase 2: Boys were divided into two groups across friendship lines  Phase 3: range of competitive activities  Phase 4: solving conflict: work towards superordinate tasks  Realistic group conflict theory:  Negative stereotypes/prejudice emerge in response to competition for resources  Mutually exclusive goals! us v/s them External threat or superordinate task requiring groups to cooperate we us v/s them Group Memberships Lead to Cognitive Transformations  Intragroup vs. Intergroup Social Dilemma Behaviour with ad hoc “Team-mates” (American university students) Percentage of Cooperation Intragroup 77.5% Intergroup 45.0%  Q1. What is the difference between intergroup and intragroup perspectives?  Q2. According to interdependence theory, what are the different strategies that individuals might engage in?  Q3. How can interdependence theory help us to understand the decisions of individuals (and even groups) in social settings?  Q4. How did Berkowitz’s reformulation strengthen frustration aggression theory?  Q5. What are some intergroup scenarios that frustration aggression and relative deprivation cannot really explain?  Q6. In many of these ideas, how are our perceptions (relative to objective truths) important?  Q7. What do the boys camp studies tell us about the origins of prejudice? 48  van Lange, P. A. M., & Rusbult, C. E. (2011). Interdependence theory. In P. A. M. van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology (Volume 2, pp. 251-272). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.  Powdthavee, N., Riyoanto, Y. E., Wong, E. C. L., Yeo, J. X. W., & Chan, Q. Yu. (2021). When face masks signal social identity: Explaining the deep face-mask divide during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE, 16(6): e0253195. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253195  Tajfel, H. (1970). Experiments in intergroup discrimination. Scientific American, 223, 96-102. 49