Relative deprivation and intergroup competition

Abstract

Two experiments utilized a new experimental paradigm -the IPD-MD game -to study how relative deprivation at the group level affects intergroup competition. The IPD-MD game enables group members to make a costly contribution to either a within-group pool that benefits fellow in-group members, or a between-group pool, which, in addition harms out-group members. We found that when group members were put in a disadvantaged position, either by previous actions of the out-group (Experiment 1) or by random misfortune (Experiment 2), they contributed substantially more to the competitive between-group pool. This destructive behavior both minimized inequality between the groups and reduced collective efficiency. Our results underscore the conditions that lead group members to care about relative (rather than absolute) group outcomes and highlight the need to differentiate between the motivation to get ahead and the motivation not to fall behind: the latter, it appears, is what motivates individual participation in destructive intergroup competition.Keywords: Relative deprivation, collective action, intragroup cooperation, intergroup competition, experimental games.On August 28, 1963, 250,000 civil-rights supporters attended the March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech. Two conditions had to be met for this remarkable event to have happened, one involving intergroup processes and the other involving intragroup processes. At the intergroup level, enough group members individuals had to feel that their group was unjustly deprived relative to another group in society. At the intragroup level, a sufficient number of these people had to decide that they were willing to pay the personal costs associated with fighting for change (i.e., invest the time and effort required to participate in this rally).The aforementioned historic event was quite exceptional in its magnitude and impact; the two conditions that afforded it, however, appear to be necessary (though not always sufficient) for successful intergroup competition. Social competition emerges "to the extent that one party feels deprived of important outcomes" (De Dreu, 2010, p. 984). Social competition is successful to the extent that group members are willing to pay the personal costs associated with participation in the group's collective action (Bornstein, 2003). The present investigation focuses on both processes and utilizes a new experimental paradigm -the Intergroup Prisoner's Dilemma -Maximizing Difference (IPD-MD) game (Halevy, Bornstein, & Sagiv, 2008), to study how group members react to relative deprivation when intergroup competition entails costly participation in collective action. From Relative Deprivation to Intergroup CompetitionRelative deprivation theory (Bernstein & Crosby, 1980;Crosby, 1976;Davis, 1959) proposes that feelings of resentment, anger, and unrest arise when a person (group) (a) wants something; (b) perceives that another person (group) has the thing they want; (c) feels ent...

Status conferral in intergroup social dilemmas: Behavioral antecedents and consequences of prestige and dominance.

“…By using systematic variations of the intergroup context in which the social dilemma was embedded, this research provided insight into how contributions to public goods, which influence both in-group and out-group members, shape social perceptions. Second, we extend recent research on social motives in intergroup conflict (De Dreu, 2010;De Dreu et al, 2010;Halevy et al, 2008Halevy et al, , 2010Halevy, Weisel, & Bomstein, 2011) by showing that the structure of an intergroup conflict (e.g., IPD vs. IPD-MD vs. nested social dilemma) has important consequences not only on intergroup behavior and the conflict's outcomes but also on social perceptions, attributions, and actions, and through them, on intragroup processes such as the emergence of social hierarchy. Finally, we contribute to the literature on social hierarchy by illustrating the usefulness and importance of decomposing status into prestige and dominance (Cheng et al, 2010;Henrich & Gil-White, 2001).…”

“…Contributions to the within-group pool in this game are considered manifestations of "in-group love," whereas contributions to the between-group pool are considered manifestations of "outgroup hate" (De Dreu, 2010;De Dreu et al, 2010;Halevy et al, 2010). Thus, by using the IPD-MD game.…”

Relative Deprivation

“…And Smith and colleagues (1994) presented group members with distributions of participant payments that paid many more outgroup members in comparison to ingroup members as a manipulation of GRD. Experimental manipulations like these could enable researchers to test many of the basic casual relationships presumed by RD models (also see Folger, 1987;Grant & Brown, 1995;Guimond & Dambrun, 2002;Halevy et al, 2010;Martin, 1986aMartin, , 1986b.…”

Badly off or better off than them? The impact of relative deprivation and relative gratification on intergroup discrimination.

“…A large corpus of research, mostly of a corre lational nature, has demonstrated that the more individuals feel collectively deprived, the more they show prejudice against minority or stigmatized outgroups (Dambrun, Taylor, et al, 2006;Vanneman & Pettrigrew, 1972). Moreover, relative de privation leads members to engage in intergroup competition to a considerable extent (Halevy, Chou, Cohen, & Bornstein, 2010). Nevertheless, the few studies including relative gratifi cation and relative deprivation in the same design have revealed that the relationship between deprivation/gratification and in tergroup attitudes is not linear (a phenomenon named the "Vcurve" effect; Dambrun & Taylor, 2013;Dambrun, Taylor, et al, 2006;Grofman & Muller, 1973).…”