Intergroup hostility follows competition over scarce resources and subsides under shared superordinate goals.
Sherif's 1954 Robbers Cave study: two boys' camps became hostile through competition and were reconciled only by tasks requiring both — the shared water supply and the stuck truck.
In practice
- Two shifts competing for the same overtime budget stop speaking; given a safety problem neither can fix alone, they are civil within a fortnight.
- Two departments fighting over headcount cooperate immediately when a regulator threatens both, and the animosity returns when the threat lifts.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Theories of the mind, from the lab to the bookshop