Chapter 9: Aggression Between Social Groups

Question 1

What is intergroup aggression and collective violence?

Answer 1

Collective violence: violence that is committed to advance a particular political or social agenda
ex. war or terrorism between groups, state-perpetrated violence (genocide, torture), organized violence crime
For example, the Rwandan Genocide; between April and July 1964, approximately 800,000 Tutsis massacred by Hutus

Intergroup aggression can be hostile (ex. letting off steam after the defeat on one’s favoured sports team) and instrumental (ex. attacks by political activists to achieve a particular objective)

Question 2

What are the two theories of intergroup violence and aggression?

Answer 2

1. Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1981)

2. Realistic Group Conflict Theory (Sherif, 1958)

Question 3

What is the social identity theory?

Answer 3

Intergroup aggression is placed in the context of the psychological need to establish and maintain a positive identity.
From a young age, we naturally divide others into those inside vs. outside our group
ex. when we arrived at university, we grouped ourselves with our residence
Our self-concept derives, in part, from the status and accomplishments of our ingroups
- we take pride in groups success by partaking in BIRGing (basking in reflected glory)
ex. when Canadian athletes win medals at the Olympics we often take part in celebrating their success
- we take pride in outgroup’s failures
ex. Montreal fans take pride in the fact that Toronto has not won a Stanley Cup in 52 years
Prejudice can develop from the need to feel good about oneself

Question 4

Under the social identity theory, what is the outgroup homogeneity effect?

Answer 4

Humans tend to be innately suspicious of outsiders, which can lead to “us” vs “them” mentality
The outgroup homogeneity effect is the tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which people in outgroups are alike; we see outsiders as very similar to each other
ex. we know little about North Koreans, so when we see a picture of them lined-up in military form we believe they are all like this
There seems to be a neuronal aspect to this, neurons fire when we think of someone who is similar to us

Question 5

Under the social identity theory, what is the minimal group paradigm?

Answer 5

The minimal group paradigm (Tajfel, 1971) is how people show favoritism toward their own groups, even when the groups are novel and arbitrary

ex. dot overestimaters vs. underesterimaters
ex. participants assigned to group W or X by a flip of a coin, and then told to divide money between the two groups (without themselves receiving any), found that they give more money to their own group even though they have nothing in common besides the same result of the coin flip

Question 6

What is the realistic group conflict theory?

Answer 6

People develop prejudice as a result of perceived conflict over resources, especially when resources are scarce
ex. disputed claims for land, natural resources, competition with immigrants for jobs, social benefits
- if relationships are cooperative, positive attitudes and behaviors are developed towards the out-group
- if relationships are competitive, negative attitudes and discriminating behaviour develop
These prejudices and competitiveness gets passed down from generation to generation

Question 7

Under the realistic group conflict theory, what is the Robbers Cave study (Sherif et al., 1961)?

Answer 7

Boys, unknowing that they were participants, were divided into two groups at a summer camp
Phase 1: ingroup formation
- groups were kept separate from each other, they know there was another group but didn’t see them, allowed to create an ingroup
Phase 2: intergroup conflict
- groups brought together to compete for rewards, this led to intense intergroup hostility (name-calling, fighting)
Phase 3: Reduction of Intergroup Conflict
- shared activities (sharing meals, bonfires, etc.) did not reduce hostility
- hatred turned to friendship following introduction of superordinate goals; both groups needed to work together to meet goals such as fixing broken water pump, or pushing broken bus uphill
The important aspect of part 3 was the success of the superordinate goal, if the teams were unsuccessful at reaching their goal they would blame each other and relationships would deteriorate further.

After a competition, 70% of group rated the other group negatively, but after cooperation only 20% rated them negatively

Question 8

What is dehumanization? Why do we dehumanize, what does it facilitate?

Answer 8

Dehumanizing someone is seeing others as less than human, leads to an absence of empathy
ex. slavery, Hitler describing Jews as “subhuman”, calling immigrants “cockroaches”

As humans we are wired to sympathize with suffering humans, so by dehumanizing them, we are overriding this hardwiring

Dehumanization facilitates cyber crimes on a personal level (money scams, revenge porn attacks), or on a larger scale (costs to businesses, election hacking)

Question 9

What is deindividuation?

Answer 9

Deindividuation is the loss of personal identity as a result of becoming immersed into a group; it can lead to deviant acts, and impulsive behaviours
- can cause the “mob mentality”; ex. black friday, riots after team losing championship game

Question 10

How did Zimbardo study anonymity (deindividuation) on aggression?

Answer 10

IV.1: individuated (participants wearing name tags and regular clothes) vs. deindividuated (participants wearing white lab coats and hoods, given a number)
Told it was a study of stress on creativity
DV: shocks delivered to confederate, that they could see through a one-way mirror
Found that anonymous participants delivered shocks twice as intense as identifiable participants

Question 11

How did Johnson and Downing follow-up on Zimbardo’s experiment of uniforms?

Answer 11

They tested if uniform led to the results of Zimbardo experiment
IV.1: type of uniform (KKK vs. nurse outfit)
IV.2: individuated (with name tag) vs. deindividuated (no name tag)
DV: intensity of shock in teacher-learner paradigm; they could change intensity of shock for each wrong answer made by confederate
Deindividuated KKK uniformed participants heightened the shock the most, but deindividuated nursing uniformed participants lowered it the most
This means it is not the deindividualization of participants, it is the type of uniform worn that leads to aggressive results

Question 12

What did Deiner et al. (1976) find in anonymity in children?

Answer 12

They set up research stations in 27 homes in Seattle on Halloween, the children were told they could take only one piece of candy
IV.1: alone child vs. group of children
IV. 2: asked name and address of child (non-anonymous) vs. not asked name and addressed (anonymous)
DV: how much candy child took alone
Anonymous children in group were most likely to transgress (take extra candy, money), than both groups of individuated children

Question 13

What is suiciding baiting most common?

Answer 13

Mann (1981) studied when people are more likely to bait suicidal individuals to jump, he found that they are more likely when:
- crowd is large (300+)
- it is after dark
- greater physical distance from the victim
These allow for a deindividuation of the victim and an anonymity of the baiter

Question 14

What other aggressive act is found to be associated with deindividuation?

Answer 14

Online trolling studied by Barlett et al. (2013), found that perceived anonymity found to be key predictor of negative online behaviours, especially when no name or picture on profile

Question 15

What are some reasons that deindividualization causes aggression?

Answer 15

Reasons deindividuation causes aggressive behaviour:

• less personal accountability
• distracts people from their moral standards
• obedient to group norms

Question 16

Describe Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)?

Answer 16

Participants were young men randomly assigned to roles of guard or prisoner in a simulated prison
Several factors produced deindividuation: guards given reflective sunglasses, prisoners given numbers to be identified by instead of their names
The guards became abusive to prisoners, extreme psychological abuse inflicted on the prisoners
Experiment was supposed to last two weeks, but only last six days because of out-of-hand abuse

Question 17

What are three proposed ways of reducing aggressive intergroup behaviour?

Answer 17

1. Make discrimination illegal
2. Role play/Education
3. The contact hypothesis

Question 18

How could making discrimination illegal reduce aggressive intergroup behaviour?

Answer 18

It is already illegal for employers and landlords to discriminate based on CAGE and sexuality
The problem is that it is impossible to outlaw prejudice, there are loopholes to the laws
This might work via self-perception (ex. person changes attitude to be consistent with behaviour)

Question 19

How could role play/education reduce aggressive intergroup behaviour?

Answer 19

For example, Jane Elliott’s “Brown eyes/blue eyes” experiment taught white middle-class students what racism is by segregating people based on eye-colour
She changed the privilege from day-to-day, gave blue-eyed students advantages and then gave them to brown-eyed students
The students with the advantaged eye colour out-performed disadvantaged students that day and discriminated against the other group
Role play and education works by promoting empathy, putting people in others shoes

Question 20

When does the contact hypothesis work in reducing aggressive intergroup behaviour?

Answer 20

The Contact Hypothesis, only works if:

• groups must be approximately equal in status
• groups must be involved in cooperative behaviour, ex. working toward a superordinate goal in a successful manner
• contact must be supported by legitimate authorities (teachers, parents, government)
• contact must be intimate or important

Question 21

What is a success story of the contact hypothesis?

Answer 21

The contact hypothesis was employed successfully in the “jigsaw classroom” (working towards a de-segregated classroom) by Aronson
Children were placed in 6-person racially diverse groups, where each student was responsible for one part of a lesson
The children must learn the material and then teach others in the group to succeed on a test
As a result, the students became reliant on each other and developed respect and confidence in each other
The students in jigsaw groups showed increase in liking for classmates, performed better on tests, enjoyed school more

The robber’s cave study is another success story.

Question 22

What are some proposed ways of reducing aggression in society?

Answer 22

1. Punishment
   - works best when punishment is prompt, and avoidable
   - our justice system does not meet these conditions
   - places with death penalty for murder do not have lower homicide rates
2. Modelling of non-aggressive behaviour
3. Training in communication and problem-solving skills
4. Teaching empathy

Question 23

How have things become less aggressive through time?

Answer 23

• In the past, we had torture as a common practice; blinding, branding, amputation for minor crimes (criticizing the church, government)
• We had widespread slavery
• We had major war and political violence, almost at all times, WWII was the deadliest war of all time (approx. 55 million deaths)
• Since then we had “long peace”; there are still wars but they are on a much smaller-scale
• In the past, it was considered acceptable practice for men to beat wives and children
• Homicide rates were much higher in North America, and have been in steep decline since 1990

Question 24

What are the three risk factors for collective violence?

Answer 24

1. Political factors
   - lack of democratic processes
   - unequal access to political power and to nature resources
2. Societal and community factors
   - inequality between groups in the allocation of goods and services
   - ready availability of weapons
3. Demographic factors
   - rapid demographic change, particularly increases in population density and in the proportion of young people

Question 25

Under the social identity theory, what is the in-group favoritism?

Answer 25

Preferential treatment and evaluation of in-group members solely on the basis of their shared group membership.

Question 26

When are we most likely to show aggression based on our social identity?

Answer 26

A threat to social identity is more likely to elicit aggression in contexts in which the particular identity is salient. For example, they found that when gender or national identity is made to be more salient, they find sexism and terrorism (respectively) to be more of a threat.

Question 27

What did a survey find on gang involvement and violence?

Answer 27

It was approximated that there were 774 000 gang members and 27 000 gangs in the USA in 2008, an increase of 28% since 2002.
In London (2006) 169 youth gangs were reported and 25% had been involved in murders, and were responsible for 20% of all youth crime in the UK
- homicides committed by gangs are far more likely to involve male perpetrators, members of racial or ethnic minorities, and the use of guns, and to occur outside and with multiple participants.

Question 28

How does gender differ within gangs?

Answer 28

Males outnumber females by a ratio of 20:1 as members of violent gangs. When girls are in organised gangs, they do not display the violence at the same rate as do male gangs. Girls are usually a part of a male gang, rather than their being an all girl gang.
Female gang members are often exposed to physical and sexual violence by male members of their gang.

Question 29

Who is typically involved in a gang?

Answer 29

People from socioeconomic disadvantaged communities, racial and ethnic minorities especially.
Gang members are typically more deviant and re-enforce pro-deviance norms through observational learning and peer pressure. However, there is some evidence that gangs acknowledge conventional social norms, and provide assistance to weaker members of the community.

Question 30

According to Decker and van Winkle (1996) what explains gang violence?

Answer 30

They believe threat explains gang violence. Gangs often originate in response to perceived or genuine threats from others. Especially when community institutions (ex. police) do not provide adequate protection and service to the crime-prone neighborhoods.
Threats can be directed at:
- physical safety
- territorial claims
- psychological identity
Threats are usually retaliated with further threats and it escalates into crimes.

Question 31

Why do some people join gangs?

Answer 31

Since there is a lack of community institutions offering protection, gangs can been seen as attractive social groups.
They offer:
- instrumental benefits
ex. protection, material profit through illegal action
- symbolic benefits
ex. power and prestige
- a strong in-group and a derogation of an out-group

Question 32

What is displaced aggression?

Answer 32

Displaced aggression denotes retaliatory aggression towards an out-group member who was not involved in the initial confrontation or who is treated with a level of violence that is disproportionate to the initial provocation.
- very common in gangs

Question 33

What does Vasquez (2010) suggest to reduce gang violence?

Answer 33

They suggest that social identification with the gang must be weakened, by potentially strengthening a positive personal identity to override the social identity as a gang member.
ex. through job programmes
There is some evidence that individuals leave gangs with the beginning of a new life event, such as a new job, partner, or child; but only when supported by a legal income.

Question 34

According to Craig (2002) what are characteristics that distinguish hate crimes from other forms of aggression?

Answer 34

1. Targets
   - hate crimes are directed specifically at members of negatively stereotypes social groups
2. Symbolic function
   - a message of hate is communicated by the community
3. Instrumental function
   - behaviour of the disliked target groups is controlled and restricted (ex. by keeping them away from certain locations)
4. Presence of multiple perpetrators
   - hate crimes are typically committed as group actions
5. Increased distress
   - hate crime victims may be more traumatized than victims who are not targeted for their group membership
6. Deteriorating social relations
   - hate crimes spread a climate of suspicion and fear in communities

Question 35

What was the prevalence of hate crimes in 2009?

Answer 35

The FBI recorded 6604 hate crime incidents:

• 48.5% racial bias
• 19.7% relgious bias
• 18.5% sexual-orientation bias
• 11.8% ethnicity/national bias
• 1.5% disability bias

Question 36

What is deemed to be the main cause of hate crimes?

Answer 36

Prejudice: a negative evaluation of others by virtue of their membership of a certain social group, and it is linked to discrimination at the behavioural level.
- prejudice stems from in-group/out-group; some men are homophobic because it poses a threat to their gender roles and masculinity
However, there is no straightforward relationship between prejudice and aggression
- whether they will act aggressively depends on mediating factors such as fear of retaliation and anonymity
Been found that men with anti-gay prejudice are prejudice against them because they are angry with them.
So rather than behaving aggressively towards members of a particular out-group, prejudiced people show a higher tendency to engage in aggressive behaviour in general; against targets from all kinds of social out-groups

Question 37

What is delegitimization?

Answer 37

If the perception of an out-group as different and inferior is accompanied by feelings of fear, then deligitimisation is likely to occur. Its function is:

a. to maximize the difference between one’s own in-group
b. to provide a justification for the exploitation or other ill treatment of the out-group
- we deligitimise people by putting the blame on them for their misfortunes

Question 38

What are the three proposed conditions by Zimbardo that give rise to aggression in crowds?

Answer 38

a. anonymity
b. diffusion of responsibility
c. large group size
- under these conditions individuals engage in actions characterized by impulsiveness, irrationality, and regression to primitive forms of behaviour

Question 39

How does Diener and Mullen explain heightened aggression when in a crowd?

Answer 39

We have a change of attentional focus when we are in a crowd. When people are on their own, their attention is typically focused on the self, and they monitor their own behaviour against the standard of their personal norms and values. Being apart of a larger crowd shifts attention away from the self on to the situation, reducing people’s ability to regulate their behaviour in accordance with their personal norms. In groups we pay more attention to situational cues, particularly the aggressive behaviour of other group members.

Mullen found that as crowd size grew, lynchings became more brutal and violent.

Question 40

What is the emergent norm theory (Turner and Killian)?

Answer 40

The emergent norm theory proposed that crowd members base their behaviour on what they perceive to be the specific norms shared among the group. This means that behaviour may become more or less aggressive depending on the normative stance towards aggression that is associated with the group.
- there’s a shift rather than a loss of normative control

Question 41

What is the social identity model of de-individuation effects (SIDE, Reicher)?

Answer 41

SIDE stipulates that immersion in a group elicits a shift from person identity to social identity that increases the salience of group norms.
- a meta-analysis found little evident that deindividuation promoted aggressive behaviour, rather behaviour was more influenced by situational norms