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🪵 The Threshold

Alliances flourish where every group is a minority

Properties2
tagsja-picks, contrarian_or_surprising, singleton, xref, category/contrarian-or-surprising
aliases@roderick_m_kramer_social_2011, loc. 1415, @jost_political_2004, loc. 2751, @reynolds_future_2007, loc. 264

4 min read

Alliances flourish where every group is a minority

Evidence

This logic is perfectly compatible with the leniency contract interpretation of the process of in-group minority influence (Crano, 2010c; Crano & Alvaro, 1998; Crano & Seyranian, 2008), which holds that majority members’ concern with maintaining the cohesion and wellbeing of the group results in the majority’s lenient treatment of the minority, and this leniency indirectly enhances the minority’s chances for success (Crano & Chen, 1998). Paradoxically, perhaps, a positive value placed on group membership by majority group members, who require the continued integrity of the group, is necessary if the minority is to have a chance of influencing the majority. Of course, other conditions apply if the minority is to prevail. However, these arguments do not apply if the in-group minority’s position threatens the group’s integrity or its continued existence. In that circumstance, the majority is likely to circle the wagons and reject outside influences. However, short of threats to the continued existence of the group, the fundamental precondition for minority influence is that the targets of minority influence, the members of the majority, care about the continued survival of the group. If this condition is not met, then there is little to motivate the majority to bother with the plaints of the minority, and without a viable minority, the majority will stagnate. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1415 (#complicates, via linked claim)

For the moment, we can note that both individual mobility and some forms of social creativity can work to reduce intergroup conflict over scarce resources—though with different implications. The former is destructive of subordinate-group solidarity and provides no antidote to negative social identity at a group level. The latter may restore or create a positive self-image but, it can be surmised, at the price either of a collective repression of objective deprivation or, perhaps, of spurious rivalry with some other deprived group. It is interesting in this context that the French Canadians, having recently gained a more assertive identity, are now apparently more disparaging of other minority groups than are the English Canadians (Berry et al., 1977). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2751 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Research by Robert Putnam has confirmed the seemingly self-evident logic that the greater the ethnic diversity in a community, the lower the degree of trust between members. Other scholars have noted that intercommunal tensions tend to present problems when the minority group breaks the level of ten percent of the general population. At that point, fears among the majority population tend to increase. — Michael A. Reynolds and Thomas D. Grant, The Future of Europe and Its Muslims, 264 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Nearly everyone belongs to some minority vulnerable to majority will — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 824; Minority groups each claim unique oppression, blocking cross-group alliances — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 7; Majority group cohesion, not weakness, is the precondition for minority influence — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1415 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

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