Realistic Conflict theory

• What is this theory?

  theory of prejudice
• What is this they based on?

  His robbers cave experiment and that data
• What are examples limited resource?

  Money, social dominance, jobs, food, water, political power
• What are subordinate goals

  Goals that are shared by all members of 1 group and not the other
• What is negative functional interdependence

  When the groups believes that only way to achieve their goal is it the other group fails to achieve their own goal
• how can intergroup hostility can be reduced by

  Introduce superordinate gaols
• What is a superordinate goals

  A goal is shared by all of the group
• What do superordinate goals result in

  Positive functional interdependence
• What does limited resources cause

  Competition
• what are the findings of this study ?

  1. competition for limited resources increased hostility (subordinate goals)
  2. superordinate goals reduce the hostility
• how does Robber cave support the theory~?

  competition gives rise to hostility between groups
• what is a positive about the evidence for this theory?

  1. field experiment meaning that it has good ecological validity
  2. was a real scenario in a summer camp
• what was negative about the evidence ?

  1. field experiments make it harder to control the variables
• what was the problem with demand characteristics?

  some of the boys noticed 'staff' writing observations, could have created demand charactics
• what was the generalisability of the theory?

  it was a male sample and the participants were children so cannot be generalised to the adult population
• what did the boys do which the researchers didn't total expect?

  they became hostile to the other group even just after knowing of their presence
• where can this theory be applied?

  1. superordinate goals can be used to resolve inter-group conflict

  an example of this is the European Union - joint projects and free trade
• what were the shortcomings of the theory?

  1. emphasises the environmental factors in prejudice
  2. suggests that prejudice is based on rational belief but it ignores tendencies to see 'outsiders' as a threat
• what was a short coming in Robbers cave data linking back to this theory?

  Sherif 1954 the boys group already had inter-group conflict even when they only knew of another groups presence
• what did Ember and Ember find?

  1. tribal groups became more hostile as natural conditions changed famine or drought
  2. this shows that limited resources are a factor in hostility
• what is the ecological validity with Ember and Ember?

  1. the scenario was very specific to the tribes - not generalisable
  2. but the evidence is correlational and some variables cannot be controlled
• what is the correlation for Ember and Ember and Realistic conflict theory?

  we cannot confidently say that the evidence establishes the competition and is responsible for prejudice