Social Psychology

1
Social Psychology

• David Myers
• 11e

2
Chapter Thirteen

• Conflict and Peacemaking
• What creates conflict?
• How can peace be achieved?
• Postscript The conflict between individual and
  communal rights
• What social situations feed conflict?
• How do misperceptions fuel conflict?
• Does contact with the other side reduce conflict?
• When do cooperation, communication, and mediation
  enable reconcillation

3
What Creates Conflict?

• Social Dilemmas
• Social trap
• Situation in which the conflicting parties, by
  each rationally pursuing its self-interest,
  become caught in mutually destructive behavior

4
What Creates Conflict?

• Social Dilemmas
• The Prisoners Dilemma
• What would you do?
• confess to be granted immunity? Deny guilt?
• What role does communication / not being able to
  play here?
• Tragedy of the Commons
• Fishers, crabbers in the Chesapeake Bay
• Global warming / water in California
• Fundamental attribution error
• Evolving motives- Vietnam Iraq wars
• Non-zero-sum games- e.g. Prisoners dilemma

5
What Creates Conflict?

• Social Dilemmas
• Resolving social dilemmas
• Regulation (Government)
• Safeguard the common good
• Make the group small visibility/ accountability
• Whats the optimal size?
• Communication Robyn Dawes experiment (1980)
• 30 vs. 80
• Change the payoffs
• Carpools how does this change the payoffs?
• Appeal to altruistic norms (social norms)
• Why did 1/3 cooperate in Wall Street Game vs.
  2/3 in Community Game?

6
What Creates Conflict?

• Competition (group identification is a
  prerequisite)
• Realistic group conflict (Sherif, 1966)
• Win-lose competition
• Negative images of the outgroup
• Strong ingroup cohesiveness
• Pride
• What are some real life examples?
• Of superordinate goals that bring groups
  together?

7
What Creates Conflict?

• Perceived Injustice
• People perceive justice as equity
• Ratio of outcomes to inputs for self and other
• Distribution of rewards in proportion to
  individuals contributions
• If one contributes more and benefits less, he
  will feel exploited
• As equality?
• E.g. family distributions of resources
• Does it depend upon equity or equality
• Other examples?
• Should it apply to poverty in America?

8
What Creates Conflict?

• Misperception
• Of others motives and goals
• Iran and U.S.
• Israel and Palestinians
• Seeds of misperception
• Self-serving bias
• Tendency to self-justify
• Fundamental attribution error

9
What Creates Conflict?

• Mirror-Image Perceptions
• Reciprocal views of each other often held by
  parties in conflict
• Example
• Each may view itself as moral and peace-loving
  and the other as evil and aggressive
• Iran, U.S.
• Russia, U.S.
• Baltimore Police, Black youth/community
• Others?
• Evil leadergood people illusion

10
What Creates Conflict?

• Simplistic Thinking
• When tension rises rational thinking becomes more
  difficult
• Views of the enemy become more simplistic and
  stereotyped
• Shifting Perceptions
• The same processes that create the enemys image
  can reverse it when the enemy becomes an ally

11
How Can Peace Be Achieved?

• Contactgenerally predicts tolerance
• Predicts decreased prejudice
• Friendship
• Those who form friendships with outgroup members
  develop more positive attitudes toward the
  outgroup
• Minimize outgroup identity
• How can this be done?
• Equal-status contact
• Contact on an equal basis
• To reduce prejudice, interracial contact should
  be between persons equal in status
• Who have perceived choice in associating with one
  another
• Multiculturalism or Assimilation? Which is it?
• Hutu Tutsi? Or just Rwandan?
• Or Omnicultural?

12
How Can Peace Be Achieved?

• Cooperation
• Common external threats build cohesiveness
• E.g. army in Vietnam
• Superordinate goals foster cooperation
• Shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort
• Cooperative learning improves racial attitudes
• Aronsons jigsaw technique
• Group and superordinate identities

13
How Can Peace Be Achieved?

• Communication
• Bargaining
• Seeking an agreement to a conflict through direct
  negotiation between parties
• Tough bargaining may lower the other partys
  expectations, but can sometimes backfire
• Bush and Hussein

14
How Can Peace Be Achieved?

• Communication
• Mediation
• Attempt by a neutral third party to resolve a
  conflict by facilitating communication and
  offering suggestions
• Integrative agreements
• Win-win agreements that reconcile both parties
  interests to their mutual benefit
• Unravel misperceptions with controlled
  communications

15
How Can Peace Be Achieved?

• Communication
• Arbitration
• Resolution of a conflict by a neutral third party
  who studies both sides and imposes a settlement
• Final-offer arbitration
• Motivates each party to make a reasonable
  proposal

16
How Can Peace Be Achieved?

• Conciliation
• GRIT (Osgood, 62)
• Acronym for graduated and reciprocated
  initiatives in tension reductiona strategy
  designed to de-escalate international tensions
• Real world applications
• Berlin crisis in 60s
• Kennedy and Khrushchev 63