Page 106 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

THOMAS AND CH ROBOT-MAS ON
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a series of sporting events. Over time, the researchers observed evidence
of prejudice and discrimination against the outgroup and positive bias to­
ward ingroup members. For example, when asked who their friends were,
the boys listed only ingroup members as friends. Although the researchers
attempted to reduce prejudice through increased contact among group
members (they were forced to sit together in the camp cafeteria), the re­
sults backfired and food fights erupted between the two groups. It was
only when the researchers introduced a problem requiring both groups to
work together toward a common goal that conflict between the two groups
subsided.
Other researchers have demonstrated the extent to which animosity
among group members can emerge even when the groups are tempo­
rary and unimportant. As previously discussed, Tajfel and his colleagues
(e.g., Tajfel, Flament, Billig, & Bundy, 1971) demonstrated that ingroup/
outgroup categorization and competition among groups occurs even when
research participants are arbitrarily assigned to groups. Brewer and Brown
(1998) conclude that after two decades of research on this topic, there is suf­
ficient evidence to suggest that "any salient and situationally meaningful
ingroup-outgroup, we-they distinction is sufficient to activate differen­
tial responses to others on the basis of ingroup or outgroup membership"
(p. 559). In other words, it is the mere presence of group differences that
can be enough to evoke ingroup/outgroup categorization and competition.

Identity-Based Conflicts

Although conflict between any groups may emerge as a result of actual or
perceived competition for scarce resources, conflict is more likely to erupt
and is more likely to be characterized as intransigent when there is conflict
among members of social identity groups that have historically been in
competition with each other. Northrup (1989) argued that when a conflict
between parties involves a core sense of identity, the conflict will likely be
intractable. When derogatory comments or discriminatory actions are di­
rected toward an individual or group because of one's social identity, group
identity becomes highly salient, and under some situations, will supercede
personal identity. This serves to heighten the importance of maintaining
and protecting one's social identity (particularly ethnicity, nationality, race,
gender, and religion) and results in protective responses. Research based
on terror management theory has shown that after people are reminded of
their mortality, they are especially likely to defend beliefs of groups with
which they identify and that such defenses serve to protect the individual
from the threat of death by providing a sense of security and safety as a
member of a larger culture (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997).