Intergroup Harmony

Intergroup harmony can be defined as the state of peaceful coexistence between the members of different societal, cultural, political, ethnic or identity groups, where there is an understanding from both groups to achieve common, shared goals, and a reduction in feelings of prejudice, discrimination or stereotyping^[2][5][6]. On the intergroup relations continuum (IRC), harmony falls on the extreme, with conflict as the other extreme, and is viewed as the goal for group situations, due to the minimal prejudice that occurs^[7], and is therefore essential for enhancing and enriching collaboration in diverse societies and its importance has led to many decades of research about the most effective way to reach the optimum level of intergroup harmony.

Intergroup harmony varies cross-culturally^[8]. There are currently two well-recognised cultures in the world: collectivist and individualistic. To measure the cross-cultural differences between intergroup harmony, one study measured the levels of interpersonal forgiveness of a person depending on how close they feel to the offender^[8]. It was found that in both cultures there is a positive association between closeness to offender and forgiveness; however, in collectivist cultures, this association was weaker, due to the social norms of collectivist cultures in maintaining a level of intergroup harmony in the community, which could not be maintained by the offender^[9]. This demonstrates the differences in cultures, where intergroup harmony is more highly emphasised in collectivist cultures.

The main, and arguably, most important reason for promoting, achieving and maintaining intergroup harmony is the reduction of prejudice and discrimination between groups of people. Lower levels of stereotyping and biases lead to lower levels of violence and tension between groups, creating a peaceful coexistence^[2][5]. Another reason for the importance of intergroup harmony is the increase in psychological well-being for members of all groups^[3]. When group members experience negative interactions with other groups, this can lead to enhanced feelings of anxiety, stress, worry or even fear, therefore reaching a state of harmony will decrease these negative emotions, leading to higher levels of wellbeing^[3]. This can also lead to higher levels of economic success in certain communities, where as intergroup harmony has increased, the need to spend money on legal disputes or civil unrest is decreased, meaning the money can be used in other domains, to improve the economy or create more opportunity for the members of the community^[4]. It leads to higher levels of identity security, as people feel a sense of belonging to a wider group, therefore they can maintain their own unique identity, without the worry of being marginalised or isolated within their own group^[1].

Intergroup harmony is important to obtain in any situation where members of diverse groups are present. The ways in which to maximally achieve harmony have been debated; however three main theories have emerged: the contact hypothesis^[2], the presence of subordinate goals^[10], and more recently the use of music and sports to promote harmony^[11][7].

 

The Contact Hypothesis is a theory of social psychology associated with intergroup conflict and harmony, first proposed by Allport in his book, The Nature of Prejudice^[2], which suggests that intergroup harmony can be achieved through structured, meaningful contact between groups. Nineteenth century social psychology was dominated by the view that intergroup contact did not achieve harmony, but instead led to conflict between groups; however, following the end of the Second World War, views began to turn optimistic. Psychologists started to circulate views that intergroup experiences led to a mutual understanding and harmony^[12][13].

Allport's theory itself drew on previous research about desegregation in the workplace and housing options for black people in the USA^[12]. He came to the conclusion that the way to maximally reduce prejudice and achieve a state of intergroup harmony was to increase intergroup contact when four factors were present:

1. Equal status between groups
2. Common goals
3. Intergroup cooperation
4. The support of higher authority

When all four of these conditions were met, intergroup harmony was achieved. However, he warned that without these conditions, the same contact can lead to increased prejudice, and it is important to account for inconsistencies^[2]. In 1998, Pettigrew set out a fifth condition that must be met in order for intergroup contact to have a significant effect: friendship potential^[6]. It states that the interaction must provide the opportunity for group members to become friendly with one another and this will lead to the highest levels of intergroup harmony.

Another way to achieve intergroup harmony, which was also proposed in the 1950s, was through subordinate (shared) goals between outgroups. This idea was introduced by Muzafer Sherif, during his 'Robber's Cave' experiment'^[10]. 22 boys, aged 11, were sent to a summer camp in Oklahoma and separated into 2 groups, each with their own stereotypes and shared group culture. It was hypothesized that the hostile attitudes that developed between the groups could be overcome when the need to cooperate in order to achieve subordinate goals was present. Situations were created throughout the summer camp where the two groups had to come together to reach a shared goal, for example pooling money to rent a movie, and it was found that the win-win situations for both groups had the positive effect of reducing the prejudice and discrimination the groups felt towards each other, and increasing harmony in the camp^[10].

In the past, music has been a means of appearing threatening or inciting hatred within ingroups; however, it can also be an effective way of promoting intergroup harmony in many different cultures. Lyrics can be a way of publishing and explicitly projecting messages of encouragement, tolerance and harmony, through engaging, enjoyable means that many different people will listen to^[11]. Music can be seen as an emotive, effective communication method used across much of the intergroup landscape.

 

Sports can provide an opportunity for groups to meet with the distraction from their own social categorisations, and a subordinate goal to play or perform in a sport^[7]. It can allow those from closed identity groups to highlight their existing commonalities with other groups, leading to a higher level of intergroup harmony, as they feel a closer sense of belonging to the wider identity group, once their commonalities have been emphasised^[7]. However, much of the research done on sporting as a way of promoting intergroup harmony has been rather anecdotal, and further, empirical evidence is needed to strongly support this theory^[7].

Exposure to intergroup harmony in education leads to higher levels of intergroup harmony as the students leave schools, and enter the world. One way in which intergroup conflict is found to manifest itself in schools is through the form of racism. Interventions in primary schools, such as the Building Harmony intervention, have provided evidence for the effectiveness of increasing intergroup harmony by reducing racism in younger children, and although evidence was tenuous in the first study, further studies have provided strong evidence for the measure as a way of reducing racism in schools, therefore leading to higher levels of intergroup harmony^[14].

A second way intergroup harmony can be applied to the real world is in the workplace, where intergroup harmony creates motivated employers, who do efficient, high quality work. In workplaces all over the world, intergenerational conflict can cause ineffective work, due to the ageism faced by both older and younger co-workers. To stop these issues, it is important to create a harmonious working environment^[15]. Recently, it was found that when intergroup harmony was achieved via a higher level of quality contact time between the two age groups in the office, task and relationship conflict was highly decreased, leading to more efficient and happier colleagues, which in turn leads to the production of higher quality work^[15]. Intergroup harmony is also important in the workplace for diversity, as marginalised outgroups can work together with other groups to reduce negative stereotypes in a controlled environment^[16]. This even has wider connotations in the world of social change, as intergroup harmony can foster social change in many other aspects of life^[16].

Intergroup harmony can also be important in the blending of stepfamilies to create a safe, loving environment where children can grow up. As stepfamilies have often been described as the 'less cohesive and more stressful' family type^[17], increasing intergroup harmony can increase the cohesion of these families. When the whole family is viewed as one group, children have reported feeling an elevated sense of harmony in the family, leading to higher levels of psychological well-being and greater positive contact from all members^[18].

Intergroup harmony has many implications in the real world, and often involves cooperative, positive interactions; however, when power dynamics are not considered, these encounters can fall through. When power dynamics are ignored, the lower status group seeks to reach a more equal state, whereas the higher status group attempts to maintain the current equality level. This leads to differing views about the current state of equality and can cause negative attitudes towards the groups, as they are no longer attempting to reach a shared goal, but instead attempting to reach different goals, which benefit their ingroup more than the outgroup^[19]. This can lead to conflict, even when the initial aim was to reach a harmonious state.

Furthering from causing conflict due to power inequalities, intergroup harmony can also lead people to have false expectations about equality^[20]. When contact between two groups was commonality based, outgroup members expected more fairness from ingroup members, as tested by an experiment, when students were separated into two lab groups, and the ingroup were assigned to divide credits to the outgroup members^[20]. Before the assignment of credits, members of both groups met and discussed common features. This led to the belief from outgroup members that they would be given a higher number of credits than they were actually given. The intergroup harmony they felt from interacting with the outgroup led them to form false expectations about the equality between the two groups, which can create conflict in the future^[20].

In addition, intergroup harmony does not work for every situation. Interactions that promote harmony can lead to the suppression of differences within groups, causing further negative attitudes towards the other group, and contact with the sole desire of coexistence will not actually improve relations between groups^[21]. In 2011, Maoz provided evidence for this theory using the attempts for coexistence between Israeli Jews and Palestinians^[21]. Although there is much research on the promotion of intergroup harmony in general, little is said about promoting harmony in groups who are facing protracted asymmetrical disputes, and attempts to promote intergroup harmony can also lead to further problems between these groups, as contact can cause distress and lead to further negative attitudes about the other group^[21].  

• Intergroup conflict
• Social Identity Theory
• The Contact Hypothesis