- Source: Intergroup Harmony
- Source: Intergroup harmony
Intergroup harmony is a branch of social psychology which is often studied within the framework of Social Identity Theory It is important for many reasons including reduced prejudice, increased psychological well-being, increased economic status, and increased identity security for members of both groups. Two main theories have been put forward for the achievement of intergroup harmony. The contact hypothesis suggests that increased contact leads to higher levels of harmony, and the presence of subordinate goals can help groups in conflict to overcome their differences. Intergroup harmony can be applied in many real world applications including in education, the workplace and family dynamics; however there have also been criticisms for this theory, as not all situations of intergroup harmony will lead to a positive outcome.
Definition and importance
Intergroup harmony can be defined as the state of peaceful coexistence between the members of different societal, cultural, political, ethnic or identity groups, where there is an understanding from both groups to achieve common, shared goals, and a reduction in feelings of prejudice, discrimination or stereotyping. On the intergroup relations continuum (IRC), harmony falls on the extreme, with conflict as the other extreme, and is viewed as the goal for group situations, due to the minimal prejudice that occurs, and is therefore essential for enhancing and enriching collaboration in diverse societies and its importance has led to many decades of research about the most effective way to reach the optimum level of intergroup harmony.
Intergroup harmony varies cross-culturally. There are currently two well-recognised cultures in the world: collectivist and individualistic. To measure the cross-cultural differences between intergroup harmony, one study measured the levels of interpersonal forgiveness of a person depending on how close they feel to the offender. It was found that in both cultures there is a positive association between closeness to offender and forgiveness; however, in collectivist cultures, this association was weaker, due to the social norms of collectivist cultures in maintaining a level of intergroup harmony in the community, which could not be maintained by the offender. This demonstrates the differences in cultures, where intergroup harmony is more highly emphasised in collectivist cultures.
The main, and arguably, most important reason for promoting, achieving and maintaining intergroup harmony is the reduction of prejudice and discrimination between groups of people. Lower levels of stereotyping and biases lead to lower levels of violence and tension between groups, creating a peaceful coexistence. Another reason for the importance of intergroup harmony is the increase in psychological well-being for members of all groups. When group members experience negative interactions with other groups, this can lead to enhanced feelings of anxiety, stress, worry or even fear, therefore reaching a state of harmony will decrease these negative emotions, leading to higher levels of wellbeing. This can also lead to higher levels of economic success in certain communities, where as intergroup harmony has increased, the need to spend money on legal disputes or civil unrest is decreased, meaning the money can be used in other domains, to improve the economy or create more opportunity for the members of the community. It leads to higher levels of identity security, as people feel a sense of belonging to a wider group, therefore they can maintain their own unique identity, without the worry of being marginalised or isolated within their own group.
Achieving Intergroup Harmony
Intergroup harmony is important to obtain in any situation where members of diverse groups are present. The ways in which to maximally achieve harmony have been debated; however three main theories have emerged: the contact hypothesis, the presence of subordinate goals, and more recently the use of music and sports to promote harmony.
The Contact Hypothesis
The Contact Hypothesis is a theory of social psychology associated with intergroup conflict and harmony, first proposed by Allport in his book, The Nature of Prejudice, which suggests that intergroup harmony can be achieved through structured, meaningful contact between groups. Nineteenth century social psychology was dominated by the view that intergroup contact did not achieve harmony, but instead led to conflict between groups; however, following the end of the Second World War, views began to turn optimistic. Psychologists started to circulate views that intergroup experiences led to a mutual understanding and harmony.
Allport's theory itself drew on previous research about desegregation in the workplace and housing options for black people in the USA. He came to the conclusion that the way to maximally reduce prejudice and achieve a state of intergroup harmony was to increase intergroup contact when four factors were present:
Equal status between groups
Common goals
Intergroup cooperation
The support of higher authority
When all four of these conditions were met, intergroup harmony was achieved. However, he warned that without these conditions, the same contact can lead to increased prejudice, and it is important to account for inconsistencies. In 1998, Pettigrew set out a fifth condition that must be met in order for intergroup contact to have a significant effect: friendship potential. It states that the interaction must provide the opportunity for group members to become friendly with one another and this will lead to the highest levels of intergroup harmony.
Subordinate Goals
Another way to achieve intergroup harmony, which was also proposed in the 1950s, was through subordinate (shared) goals between outgroups. This idea was introduced by Muzafer Sherif, during his 'Robber's Cave' experiment'. 22 boys, aged 11, were sent to a summer camp in Oklahoma and separated into 2 groups, each with their own stereotypes and shared group culture. It was hypothesized that the hostile attitudes that developed between the groups could be overcome when the need to cooperate in order to achieve subordinate goals was present. Situations were created throughout the summer camp where the two groups had to come together to reach a shared goal, for example pooling money to rent a movie, and it was found that the win-win situations for both groups had the positive effect of reducing the prejudice and discrimination the groups felt towards each other, and increasing harmony in the camp.
Music and Sport
In the past, music has been a means of appearing threatening or inciting hatred within ingroups; however, it can also be an effective way of promoting intergroup harmony in many different cultures. Lyrics can be a way of publishing and explicitly projecting messages of encouragement, tolerance and harmony, through engaging, enjoyable means that many different people will listen to. Music can be seen as an emotive, effective communication method used across much of the intergroup landscape.
Sports can provide an opportunity for groups to meet with the distraction from their own social categorisations, and a subordinate goal to play or perform in a sport. It can allow those from closed identity groups to highlight their existing commonalities with other groups, leading to a higher level of intergroup harmony, as they feel a closer sense of belonging to the wider identity group, once their commonalities have been emphasised. However, much of the research done on sporting as a way of promoting intergroup harmony has been rather anecdotal, and further, empirical evidence is needed to strongly support this theory.
Applications
Exposure to intergroup harmony in education leads to higher levels of intergroup harmony as the students leave schools, and enter the world. One way in which intergroup conflict is found to manifest itself in schools is through the form of racism. Interventions in primary schools, such as the Building Harmony intervention, have provided evidence for the effectiveness of increasing intergroup harmony by reducing racism in younger children, and although evidence was tenuous in the first study, further studies have provided strong evidence for the measure as a way of reducing racism in schools, therefore leading to higher levels of intergroup harmony.
A second way intergroup harmony can be applied to the real world is in the workplace, where intergroup harmony creates motivated employers, who do efficient, high quality work. In workplaces all over the world, intergenerational conflict can cause ineffective work, due to the ageism faced by both older and younger co-workers. To stop these issues, it is important to create a harmonious working environment. Recently, it was found that when intergroup harmony was achieved via a higher level of quality contact time between the two age groups in the office, task and relationship conflict was highly decreased, leading to more efficient and happier colleagues, which in turn leads to the production of higher quality work. Intergroup harmony is also important in the workplace for diversity, as marginalised outgroups can work together with other groups to reduce negative stereotypes in a controlled environment. This even has wider connotations in the world of social change, as intergroup harmony can foster social change in many other aspects of life.
Intergroup harmony can also be important in the blending of stepfamilies to create a safe, loving environment where children can grow up. As stepfamilies have often been described as the 'less cohesive and more stressful' family type, increasing intergroup harmony can increase the cohesion of these families. When the whole family is viewed as one group, children have reported feeling an elevated sense of harmony in the family, leading to higher levels of psychological well-being and greater positive contact from all members.
Criticism
Intergroup harmony has many implications in the real world, and often involves cooperative, positive interactions; however, when power dynamics are not considered, these encounters can fall through. When power dynamics are ignored, the lower status group seeks to reach a more equal state, whereas the higher status group attempts to maintain the current equality level. This leads to differing views about the current state of equality and can cause negative attitudes towards the groups, as they are no longer attempting to reach a shared goal, but instead attempting to reach different goals, which benefit their ingroup more than the outgroup. This can lead to conflict, even when the initial aim was to reach a harmonious state.
Furthering from causing conflict due to power inequalities, intergroup harmony can also lead people to have false expectations about equality. When contact between two groups was commonality based, outgroup members expected more fairness from ingroup members, as tested by an experiment, when students were separated into two lab groups, and the ingroup were assigned to divide credits to the outgroup members. Before the assignment of credits, members of both groups met and discussed common features. This led to the belief from outgroup members that they would be given a higher number of credits than they were actually given. The intergroup harmony they felt from interacting with the outgroup led them to form false expectations about the equality between the two groups, which can create conflict in the future.
In addition, intergroup harmony does not work for every situation. Interactions that promote harmony can lead to the suppression of differences within groups, causing further negative attitudes towards the other group, and contact with the sole desire of coexistence will not actually improve relations between groups. In 2011, Maoz provided evidence for this theory using the attempts for coexistence between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Although there is much research on the promotion of intergroup harmony in general, little is said about promoting harmony in groups who are facing protracted asymmetrical disputes, and attempts to promote intergroup harmony can also lead to further problems between these groups, as contact can cause distress and lead to further negative attitudes about the other group.
See Also
Intergroup conflict
Social Identity Theory
The Contact Hypothesis
References
Intergroup harmony refers to having a positive and harmonious relationship within the group. The characteristic of this concept is that the members within the same group respect each other, and prejudice and conflict are reduced. The main component of this concept would be the members within the same group having equal status and cooperation among the group. This is essential for cultivating intergroup harmony because cooperation and equal status create a condition to reduce bias and enhance mutual understanding within the group. There are several approaches to foster harmony among the group. One of the methods is keeping positive intergroup contact, which helps reduce stereotypes and prejudices. Also, using dual-identity frameworks and electronic contact would be effective in improving relationships and alleviating intergroup anxiety. However, there is a possibility that intergroup harmony brings negative impacts to the group. Harmony may sustain inequalities if there are power imbalances that have not yet been addressed and the intervention did not consider social, political, and cultural contexts. This concept is provided by the Social Identity Theory and Contact Theory and is the theoretical basis for understanding and improving intergroup relations.
Background
This concept is based on the experiments done by Muzafer Sherif and Henri Tajfel respectively. The experiment done by Muzafer Sherif is the Robbers Cave Experiment. He demonstrated competition for resources and shared goals could shape the forming of group conflict and cooperation. He also suggested that intergroup hostility can be mitigated by introducing superordinate goals to promote cooperation. Henri Tajfel did another experiment in the "minimal group paradigm" experiments. This experiment shows that when there is no competition, intergroup bias arises by separating the members into different categories. Also, according to the Intergroup Threat Theory (2015), attitudes and behaviours towards outgroups would be influenced by the realistic or symbolic threats perceived.
Moreover, Vescio et al. (2004) suggested and verified the Crossed-Categorization Hypothesis. In this hypothesis, a conclusion is that intergroup bias would be reduced by weakening category distinctions when any categories overlap. This hypothesis provides thoughts on cultivating intergroup harmony, although there would still be bias because of the existence of in-group favouritism or prejudice.
There are multiple experts who contribute to this theory. Muzafer Sherif is one of the professionals who is famous for foundational experiments on conflict and cooperation in groups. The Robbers Cave Experiment is one of his well-known experiments that contributes to the concepts of intergroup harmony. Henri Tajfel is another expert. He is the developer of the Social Identity Theory, and he also suggested the minimal group paradigm" experiments. These two theories are essential for the study of intergroup harmony.
Theoretical frameworks
Theories about intergroup relations provide insight into how prejudice and conflict arise and how they can be reduced. The Social Identity Theory and Contact Theory are the basic theories to support this concept. According to the Social Identity Theory, an individual would define themselves by their social group partially. To enhance their status, they would have a higher probability of exhibiting in-group favouritism and discrimination against out-groups, which harms the harmony of the intergroup. However, when an identity shared beyond a single group is possible, this can reduce intergroup bias and even enhance cooperation. There might be defensive behaviours, as this theory highlights the role of subgroup identity threats, which supports greater harmony when these threats have been addressed.
The Contact Hypothesis mentions an approach to reduce prejudice and improve relationships in specific conditions is to have meaningful interactions between individuals from different intergroups. The conditions would be having an equal status among different groups and having cooperative goals, which requires the collaboration of the group. These conditions would be effective in diminishing prejudice. Also, having positive contact with institutional support and opportunities for personal interactions to challenge stereotypes would be a special condition for aiming the target. Based on this hypothesis, it reduces intergroup anxiety, increases empathy, and strengthens interpersonal connections. Moreover, the interactions would challenge stereotypes and promote mutual understanding, reducing intergroup tensions, which is essential for fostering intergroup harmony.
Influences on society
Intergroup harmony brings positive and negative influences. The first positive influence would be reducing prejudice and stereotypes. Various studies illustrate that prejudice declines when attitudes toward out-groups in a harmonious intergroup relationship are improved, even if the members are being threatened or discriminated against. There is a meta-analysis display of the positive impact of reducing prejudice and having intergroup contact. Reducing anxiety about interacting with members from the out-group, and having empathy and perspective-taking are the mechanisms for having this benefit. At the community level, positive intergroup interactions are common, and this would make it simpler to influence social norms and reduce stereotypes even if there is not existing any direct contact between individuals, especially in this diverse society.
Moreover, other positive impacts would be having benefits on the economic and educational levels. For the benefits in the economic category, having intergroup harmony would enhance the productivity of the team. Having intergroup harmony reduces challenges and conflict within the group and has a more equal distribution of resources. This allows the members of the team to focus more on their work rather than being concerned about striving for more resources. This also allows the members of the organisation to see greater networking, effort, and task coordination, which significantly enhances the productivity of the economy. And for the benefits in the educational category, this allows students to have better preparation for the globalised world. An inclusive environment reduces bias, and discrimination would be created by the academic environment. This enhanced the collaborations between students, which fostered the atmosphere within the school more harmonious. This would also be an improvement in academic outcomes and the development of cross-cultural competencies allows the student to be more competitive in the global environment. In conclusion, enhanced economic productivity and better educational outcomes would be seen in societies with higher intergroup harmony as discrimination decreases and more cooperation exists.
Empirical evidence
There are several pieces of evidence showing the existence of intergroup harmony. One of the examples would be happening in South Africa. In South Africa, after the apartheid era from 1948 to 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission promoted restorative justice and racial understanding to address apartheid-era abuses. The commission focuses on truth-telling and amnesty, supporting social integration and democratic transition. However, critics argue that these policies do not fully address the needs of victims or systemic inequalities.
Another example would be the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and this agreement emphasised power-sharing and cross-community initiatives. This allows the citizens in Northern Ireland to have a similar status to fulfil the requirement of not having extreme differences in status. This has reduced violence and encouraged collaboration between Catholics and Protestants. However, continued segregation in education and neighbourhoods is still a challenge that harms intergroup harmony.
Moreover, in Rwanda, after the 1994 genocide, Gacaca courts were utilised for community-based justice. The courts are used for fostering accountability and reconciliation. Intergroup harmony has also been cultivated through education reforms that integrate peacebuilding and conflict resolution into school curricula.
Toronto and New York are the cities that have intergroup harmony. There are inclusive policies and cultural festivals to celebrate the diversity of the city, fostering intergroup dialogue and reducing prejudice. However, economic inequality and disparities in access to affordable housing are still the challenges hindering comprehensive social integration.
Debates about intergroup harmony
There are numerous debates towards intergroup harmony. Sustaining inequality is one of the negative arguments about intergroup harmony. Historical narratives would affect the legitimacy of social inequalities. As historical narratives can be changed, there might be an agreement within the harmonious intergroup that ignores historical contexts or changes the historical narratives. This might transfer the problem of intergroup conflict to interpersonal relations. Also if the intergroup threat perceptions forcing group-based inequality are seen as legal and acceptable, this would maintain and persist social inequalities.
However, the problem of inequality can be improved by having positive intergroup contact. Positive intergroup contact significantly enhances collective action among advantaged group members. This can reduce social dominance orientation and improve the inequality problem by taking further actions. The advantaged group members would have a higher probability to engage in collective action supporting disadvantaged groups when the advantaged group members engage in discussions about power imbalances during intergroup contact. This will also be improved when the advantaged group helps the disadvantaged groups to maintain an equal status within the intergroup.
Another negative argument would be reduced collective action motivation. Some arguments state that the motivation of marginalised groups for collective action would reduced when promoting intergroup harmony through common identity frameworks. When disadvantaged group members are encouraged to adopt a shared identity with advantaged groups, they may experience reduced group-based anger and perceive inequalities as less severe, decreasing their willingness to push for social change. Another argument would be promoting intergroup harmony would distract the members from social change goals. The goals of the advantaged groups and the disadvantaged groups might be different. They might change their goals because of intergroup harmony forcing them not to oppose the ideas.
However, the problem of collective action motivation can be improved by having a dual identity framework that enhances action. While common ingroup identity alone may reduce collective action, adopting a dual identity framework—where individuals maintain both their unique group identity and a shared overarching identity—can boost collective action. This approach allows disadvantaged groups to recognize their distinct struggles while fostering positive intergroup relations, enhancing motivation for social change.