Social Psychological Approaches to Peace Building

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Social Psychological Approaches to Peace Building

• Neil Ferguson

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Intergroup Co-operation Superordinate Goals

• Positively interdependent Relationships.
• Sherifs Superordinated Goals
• Ryan, A. H. Kahn, A. (1975). Effects of
  intergroup orientation on group attitudes and
  proxemic behaviour. Journal of Personal Social
  Psychology, 31, 302-310.
• Bias in peoples intergroup evaluations was
  reduced after a co-operative intergroup act
• But it was not eliminated

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The Outcome

• Worchel, S. (1977). Intergroup co-operation and
  intergroup attraction. The effects of previous
  interaction and outcome of combined effort.
  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 2,
  131-140.

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Worchel et al (1977)

• Co-operative encounters were preceded by a
  history of co-operation, independence or
  competition
• The co-operative encounter increased cohesion in
  the groups with histories of co-operation or
  independence
• But only successful co-operation helped relations
  in previously competing groups
• Failure caused the groups to blame each other for
  the failure.

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Intergroup Contact

• Contact Hypothesis (Allport, 1954 Amir, 1969).
• Use of Special Occasions
• Hewstone, M. Brown, R. (1986). Contact and
  Conflict in Intergroup Encounters. Oxford
  Blackwell.
• Contact must be meaningful, prolonged and involve
  cooperation

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Intergroup Contact

• Sherif (1966, p.88) reports Far from reducing
  conflict , these situations served as occasions
  for rival groups to berate and attack each
  other.
• Contact must be meaningful, prolonged and involve
  some co-operative activity.
• This should take place in an official framework
  with support for the integration.
• Parties should be equal.
• Contact must be voluntary.
• Take place in a pleasant surrounding.
• Involve the opportunity for friendship.
• Need to provide information to dispel ignorance
  and highlight similarities
• Need to discuss differences and legitimize
  difference
• Need to allow for generalization from the
  individual to the level of group members

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So is the Contact Hypothesis

• a lovely idea assaulted by a gang of ugly facts

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Impact of the Contact Hypothesis

• Positive effects of contact demonstrated in many
  domains including attitudes towards
• The elderly
• Homosexuals
• Children with disability
• Racial and ethnic groups
• Pettigrew, T.F., Tropp, L.R. (2006). A
  meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory.
  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90,
  5, 751-783.
• Meta-analysis of 713 studies shows reliable
  effects, with greater intergroup contact
  associated with lower levels of prejudice.
• In addition, the more structured contact
  situations were more successful.

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Problems

• Generalisation.
• Representatives of the group.
• Intergroup Anxiety.
• This anxiety may be caused by low- or
  poor-quality contact, negative expectations or
  stereotypes about the out-group, or a history of
  intergroup conflict.
• Importantly, intergroup anxiety is associated
  with poor recall of the contact experience,
  increased avoidance, and increased out-group
  stereotyping (Wilder, 1993).
• Prototype Sub-typing.
• Disconfirming information related to the group
  stereotype has the greatest impact.
• Change, inertia or active presentation.

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Three Approaches to Contact

• Forget about current social identity
• DECATEGORIZATION
• Highlight current social identity
• SALIENT CATEGORIZATION
• Create a new social identity
• RECATEGORIZATION

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Contact Models

• Decategorisation (plus personalisation)
• Brewer Miller
• Salient Categorizations (Comparative
  interdependence)
• Hewstone Brown
• Common Ingroup Identity (Superordinate identity)
• Gaertner et al

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Brewer Miller (1984) Decategorization
After contact
before
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Gaertner, Dovidio et al. (1993) Common ingroup
identity model
before
after
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Hewstone Brown (1986) Salient categorization
after
before
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Integration of 3 Models
The three main intergroup approaches should be
seen as complementary and reciprocal, not
competing and exclusive Each model can be
effective under particular contact conditions.
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Pettigrews Reformulated Contact Theory
Unified Group Re-categorization (New social
ID)
Initial contact De-categorization (personal ID)
Established contact Salient Categorization (Old
social ID)
TIME
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Indirect Contact

• This indirect contact may also overcome the
  problem that contact with an out-group is
  associated with intergroup anxiety. Additional
  benefits may be gained from the vicarious
  experience of having ingroup friends who are
  friends with the outgroup. These indirect
  friendships have a positive impact on intergroup
  relations, and can be implemented on a larger
  scale, as each positive direct contact experience
  has a ripple effect on his or her wider group
  of friends.
• Paolini, S., Hewstone, M., Cairns, E., Voci, A.
  (2004). Effects of direct and indirect
  cross-group friendships on judgments of Catholics
  and Protestants in Northern Ireland The
  mediating role of an anxiety-reduction mechanism.
  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30,
  770-786.

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Conclusions

• Personalised contact can induce more
  differentiated outgroup perceptions and decrease
  the use of a category.
• Intergroup contact and contact with prototypical
  group members can change outgroup attitudes, but
  this risk of inducing intergroup anxiety and
  ingroup bias.
• Contact can also have additional indirect effects.