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Intergroup Emotions Theory

Intergroup emotions theory, developed by Eliot Smith, Diane Mackie, and their collaborators, focuses on the role of emotions in prejudice and intergroup behavior. The fundamental idea underlying the theory, borrowed from social identity theory and self-categorization theory, is that when people identify with an important social group (an ingroup), which could be a committee, a fraternity, or a national, ethnic, or religious group, the group membership becomes part of the psychological self. Like any aspect of the self, the group therefore attains emotional significance. As a result, when people think of themselves as group members, they appraise social objects (such as competing groups) or events (such as group successes or failures) in terms of their implications for their group. Appraisals of the situation as positive or negative, certain or uncertain, deserved or undeserved (and so on) result in the experience of distinct emotions, such as anger at a rival group's threatening behavior or pride at a success experienced by one's ingroup. These emotions (like all emotions) are in turn linked to desires or tendencies to take specific types of action. For example, anger at a rival group may produce a desire to attack that group or its members. The unique aspect of this conceptualization is that emotions are produced by appraisals of situations in terms of their implications for the ingroup as a whole, not implications for the individual group member. Therefore, intergroup emotions can be generated even when the individual is not personally affected by the situation in any way.

Intergroup emotions are distinct from emotions experienced on the basis of empathy with other people. When our national team wins an Olympic medal, we do not feel happy because the individual members of the team are feeling happy and we empathize with them as individuals. Rather, we feel happy because the victory is a positive event for our national ingroup, a group that helps define our own self.

Historical Perspective

In its broadest context, intergroup emotions theory renews a focus on emotions as key components in prejudice and intergroup relations. Even casual observation suggests that intense emotions are frequently aroused in situations of intergroup conflict. Emotions based on underlying psychodynamic conflicts were postulated as contributing to prejudice by theories of authoritarianism, popular in the 1950s, but received less emphasis over time as psychologists in general turned away from psychodynamic approaches and came to favor more cognitive viewpoints. Thus, from the 1960s and 1970s onward, prejudice and negative intergroup relations were thought to depend largely on stereotypes (i.e., beliefs, often negative, about the characteristics of outgroups) and on cognitive processes favoring positive differentiation of the ingroup from competing outgroups. In these conceptualizations, emotions played at best a secondary role. By the 1990s, however, there was a resurgence of theoretical and empirical interest in emotion throughout psychology. Intergroup emotions theory fits with this renewed emphasis on the role of emotions.

Focused Versus General Emotions

Individual emotions can be experienced in response to a specific object or event, such as fear at the sight of a snake or joy upon opening a much-desired birthday gift. In addition, people can experience individual-level emotions that are more general and less focused. That is, people may report feeling relaxed, anxious, depressed, energized, excited, or annoyed as a general affective state, not linked to any specific object or event. Emotions based on group memberships include the same two types. Intergroup emotions may be focused on specific group-relevant events (disappointment at a group's failure, guilt regarding the group's historical wrongdoings) or objects (such as anger, fear, or disgust toward threatening outgroups). Group-based emotions may also be more general, corresponding to feeling excited, proud, worried, or irritable when considering oneself as a group member. Research regarding intergroup emotions theory has examined both of these types of group-based emotions.

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