The Common Ingroup Identity Model for Reducing Intergroup Bias: Progress and Challenges

The Common Ingroup Identity Model for Reducing Intergroup Bias: Progress and Challenges

Henri Tajfel's (1969) and John Turner's (1975; Tajfel and Turner, 1979) ideas about social identity and the cognitive and motivational processes associated with categorizing people into groups defined as ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ provide important insights not only into the origins of intergroup bias but also into potential remedies. The Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner et al., 1993), which builds upon these ideas, proposes that intergroup bias and conflict can be reduced by factors that transform participants’ representations of memberships from two groups to one, more inclusive group. From this perspective, intergroup cooperation toward the achievement of superordinate goals among Sherif and Sherif's (1969) groups of summer campers reduced bias and conflict because intergroup cooperation transformed their perceptions of themselves from ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ to a more inclusive ‘We’. Indeed, upon the successful completion of one of these joint ventures, one member is recorded to have exclaimed, ‘We [emphasis added] won the tug-of-war against the truck’ (Sherif et al., 1961: 171). Sherif et al.'s rich and detailed description of the aftermath of this episode reveals the involvement of reinforcement, intergroup and interpersonal processes leading to the eventual development of intergroup harmony.

Theoretically, the process by which a common ingroup identity can reduce intergroup bias is derived, in part, from two conclusions of Brewer's (1979) analysis, as well as from principles of social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), and self-categorization theory (Turner, 1985). According to these perspectives (see also Allport, 1954), intergroup [Page 134]bias usually begins with and often takes the form of ingroup favouritism rather than outgroup rejection and devaluation. In addition, group formation brings former outgroup members closer to the self while the distance between the self and ingroup members remains unchanged. Thus, factors that induce people to conceive of themselves as members of a common superordinate group inclusive of former outgroup members can also enable some of the cognitive and motivational processes that contributed initially to intergroup bias to be redirected or transferred to these former outgroup members.

The Common Ingroup Identity Model (see Figure 9.1) identifies potential antecedents and outcomes of recategorization, as well as mediating processes. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the different types of intergroup interdependence and cognitive, perceptual, linguistic, affective and environmental factors (listed on the left) can alter individuals’ cognitive representations of the aggregate (listed in the centre). These resulting cognitive representations (i.e., one group, one group composed of two subgroups, two groups, or separate individuals) are then proposed to result in the specific cognitive, affective and overt behavioural consequences. Thus, the causal factors (listed on the left) are proposed to influence members’ cognitive representations of the memberships that, in turn, mediate the relationship, at least in part, between these causal factors and the cognitive, affective and behavioural consequences (e.g., increased cooperation, self-disclosure and helping). Although the direction of causality depicted in Figure 9.1 is from left to right, it is likely that causality among these variables is actually bi-directional. Although this bi-directionality creates ambiguity for interpreting the results of correlational studies, it also provides reason to be optimistic because, once begun, processes leading to reduced bias would continue to improve relations between groups as the causal paths change direction.

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