A groups solidarity doesnt depend on its conflict with other groups

A psychology expert has suggested that a groups solidarity doesnt depend on its conflict with other groups.

Washington, August 19 : A psychology expert has suggested that a group's solidarity doesn't depend on its conflict with other groups.

Ohio State University professor Marilyn Brewer has claimed that while it may appear that conflict is an unavoidable part of interaction between different groups, research has actually suggested that fighting, hating and contempt between groups is not an essential part of human nature.

"There's still this belief that a group's cohesion depends on conflict with other groups, but the evidence doesn't support that. Despite evidence to the contrary, you still see this theory in the research literature and in many textbooks," Prof. Brewer said in her address to the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco.

Prof. Brewer, who has extensively studied the relationship between "ingroups," and "outgroups", two different sets of groups of conflicting elements, found that people's attachment to their 'ingroups' had nothing to do with conflict to the 'outgroups'.

People joined groups to find a place of trust and security, she said.

"Simply put, we prefer people of our kind, people we know we can rely on. That doesn't mean you have to hate anyone else. But you will be more likely to trust people from your own group," said Prof. Brewer.

During the course of her research, Prof. Brewer further found that people tended to put more trust in total strangers when they learned that this stranger attended the same university as theirs.

"All you need is to have that shared group identity. You don't have to hate people from other groups in order to disadvantage them and to deny them the opportunities you have in your group. That's a real downside to ingroup bias," she said.

Another common misconception about the formation of groups is that people join to heighten their self-esteem, she said. In other words, the argument is that the intention of joining groups is to say "my group is better than your group." Again, research disproves this theory, she added.

"The basic underlying mechanism for ingroup favouritism is trust and security and not self-esteem," she further said.

ANI