Psychological processes in intergroup contact

Intergroup Contacts

The study of how groups relate and outgroup prejudice has taken on a role of vital importance today, considering the riots in France, the threat of terrorism, labor disputes and other group dynamics, such as gang violence, that beset our society. Until now, there has been little scholarly work that systematically reviewed social psychological theories of intergroup relations. Studies by Billig, LeVine and Campbell, and Kidder and Stewart were done in the 1970's, but recent work has replaced some of their theories. Books on the subject by editors Austin & Worchel, Garner & Kalin and Turner & Giles in the 1980's treated studies on the subject, but no major theories emerged as the emphasis on cognitive processes resulted in a corresponding neglect in the area of emotion. Furthermore, the focus of most studies has been almost always on small, closed groups rather than societal groups that are open and have changing membership. (Taylor, 1994, p. 3)

However, Donald M. Taylor says he is optimistic about the role social psychology can and will play in understanding intergroup relations, and how it can help explain the phenomenally increasing threat to society by radical groups. He addresses, through the studies within his volume, affirmative action, tokenism and multiculturalism as well as documenting how European-based theories are, for the first time, having a major impact on theory and research in North America. (1994)

Recent studies on ingroup bias and intergroup relations have demonstrated new and interesting data about the dynamics of group interaction and now negative incidental affect decreases category salience and prejudice. New theoretical perspectives have arisen from a shift in attention from the perpetrators of discrimination to its victims.

In a volume edited by Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder (2001), group-based identities are explored, as well as how they relate to intergroup conflict, how ethnic, religious and national identities lead to oppression, violence, rebellion, war, mass murder and genocide. The editors also present how intergroup conflicts change people's identities and social identity may be harnessed to reduce conflicts between groups or to understand identity and conflict.

The last 20 years of social psychological research on ingroup bias and intergroup relations have cast doubt on the validity of the functional relationship between ingroup and outgroup attitudes and behavior presumed by Sumner who claimed that ethnocentrism was:

differentiation [that] arises between ourselves, the we-group, or in-group, and everybody else, or the other-group, out-groups. The insiders in a we-group are in a relation of peace, order, law, government, and industry, to each other. Their relation to all outsiders, or other-groups, is one of war and plunder. (1906)

Finding exception to this presumption, a study for a doctoral dissertation by Christina Edmonds on the influence of perceptions of parent racial attitude and intergroup contact on adolescent cross-race relationships, published this year, demonstrates that, in spite of the perception that groups have considerable weight in the area of peer attitudes in preteens and adolescents, parental attitudes actually had the larger effect. In research on cross-race-relationships in Edmonds' study, one group members' evaluations of their parental and personal attitudes towards who should make the rules for adolescents' dating and friendship choices showed that parents evaluated cross-race friendship differently, but also that their attitudes had a significant effect on the actual experiences of the participants. (2006)