Structured group interests, not personalities, drive intergroup hostility

Evidence

Early on, the Robbers’ Cave experiments at a boys’ summer camp (Sherif & Sherif, 1953) had demonstrated that people’s intergroup attitudes were a product of their group’s interests in a specifically structured, intergroup relationship. When relations between the Eagles and Rattlers were structured with repeated zero-sum, win-or-lose contests between groups, reciprocated hostilities quickly developed in the groups’ behaviors and attitudes. Hostilities were dispelled by introducing “superordinate goals” that required cooperation and changed the interests of the two groups from mutually opposed to shared and interdependent (see also Gaertner & Dovidio, ch. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 651

Early on, the Robbers’ Cave experiments at a boys’ summer camp (Sherif & Sherif, 1953) had demonstrated that people’s intergroup attitudes were a product of their group’s interests in a specifically structured, intergroup relationship. When relations between the Eagles and Rattlers were structured with repeated zero-sum, win-or-lose contests between groups, reciprocated hostilities quickly developed in the groups’ behaviors and attitudes. Hostilities were dispelled by introducing “superordinate goals” that required cooperation and changed the interests of the two groups from mutually opposed to shared and interdependent (see also Gaertner & Dovidio, ch. 5 this volume). … Unfortunately, scholars were largely blinded to this implication in the Allportian afterglow that suffused the subjectmatter, and instead the Sherifs’ results were widely interpreted as affirming the significance of hostility in all intergroup relations. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 651

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom & Roberts’ finding that repeated interaction and shared stakes enable cooperation; also echoes the law-merchant reputation equilibria in earlier reading. — connects to: Personal contact with Poles, not abstract pre-judgment, dissolved expellee hostility. — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration…, 1283; Group violence arises from interacting cultural, situational, and motivational influences, not single causes — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 174; Perceived illegitimacy and instability of status drives intergroup hostility — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 807
• DEFINE: Introduces the classic superordinate goals concept from the Robbers Cave studies.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 651; , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 651